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Editorial
Obvious problems with Obama plan
Friday, September 9, 2011
President Obama's American Jobs Act proposal will be hashed and rehashed to shreds, but we can see a few obvious problems from our perspective.
Workers would certainly appreciate seeing less money withheld from their payroll tax -- he proposes to cut it by half for most businesses -- but many workers, still stinging from the recession, are likely to put any extra money toward paying down debt or building up savings. Not much stimulus there.
He also promised to keep jobs in America, while maintaining wages, working conditions and environmental protection.
The problem is, America isn't competing on a level playing field, when other countries can provide build products using near-slave labor in horrible working conditions while polluting the environment -- and often without even a requirement to produce a profit.
And, while he repeatedly promised his plan would be paid for, without adding to the deficit, in reality it would be added to the already shaky proposal tied to the recent budget agreement. That already requires a trillion dollars in spending cuts, plus another $1.5 trillion in cuts to avoid triggering automatic across-the-board cuts. Finding an additional $450 billion to fund Obama's plan will make an almost impossible job that much more difficult.
The truth is, government can't create real, long-term jobs that produce real products. It can only get out of the way long enough to allow private industry to go to work.