The president says he’s creating jobs. I’m skeptical. I guess there are some things government can do to ensure that jobs get created, out there in the bill-paying, profit-making world. But these do not include spending trillions of borrowed money.
And neither do they include simply giving more money to state and local governments.
The truth about Obama’s much-ballyhooed job creation is that more than half of his alleged new jobs turn out to be government jobs.
Government jobs don’t count, Mr. President.
Remember, many things governments do actually drain us. Jobs in the marketplace, on the other hand, serve real consumer demand, make us all better off. They also help pay the taxes for those government jobs. Employing more people in government means needing more real jobs to pay for the government ones.
And how much work do politicians cause us to engage in just to unbury ourselves from their silly, wealth-extracting regulations? I know, I know: Every time they add on some new complication to the tax code, jobs emerge in the accounting and tax-consulting industry. But this doesn’t exactly make us better off, does it? Not on net.
This lesson applies generally. Here’s the bottom line. Government can borrow and tax to spend to create “gross jobs.” Sure. But on net, after balancing the collective books, we’re not better off.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Gross Jobs”
why so serious?
I myself saved or created 3500 jobs just yesterday and it wasn’t any effort at all. (with one lip tied behind my back)
When are these SOB’s going to listen to the people and start thinking like normal people who have to pay their salaries. Guess we just have to find enough votes to get every one of them out as soon as possible – especially Obamaand – and hopefully get some decent people in office. Nothing this man has done has been good and everything he has tried has been about as messed up as a soup sandwich. Kind of goes along with the rest of government whihc could screw up a one-car funeral. I’m tired of change – at least this change. And to top it all off, I live in ILLINOIS which not only has serious money problems, but is probably the most corrupt state in the union from our politicians in
DC all the way down. None of them care what we think.
The only “CHANGE” coming from the Obama administration is America is now less safe from Terrorism. On top of fearing for my life with the threat of another attack, I have to fear for it if Obama Care ever passes. Please, Obama, go back to being a community organizer…at least there you can only screw up one community not a nation!
The supposed stimulus plan is looking like nothing more than a reprise of those old “block grant” programs.
Those old programs were simply a direct transfer of federal taxpayer money to state and local gov’ts. The only difference today is they’ve tied a “jobs calculator” to it. A MEANINGLESS jobs calculator, I might add.
It’s just a way to get me to shore up states that can’t control their spending.
The Gov’t sector (federal, State, City, towns, etc.) REALLY REALLY REALLY needs (collectively) a 50+% reduction in the workforce .….….. and if the balance knew their jobs depended on it, we wouldn’t miss a beat.