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Heritage
Network...
Morning
Bell: Has Any Administration Policy NOT Killed Jobs Lately?
Amy Payne
August 3,
2012
Congress
has headed off for its long vacation-and-campaign season, fleeing
Washington as
the unemployment rate rises. According to the Labor Department’s July
jobs
report, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent, 12.8 million
Americans
are out of work, and 5.2 million have been out of work for at least a
half a
year.
According
to one survey, the country added a surprising 163,000 jobs in July,
while
according to a second Labor Department survey, employment fell by
195,000—raising questions about whether the more positive figure is all
that
reliable, given that the economy slowed significantly to a 1.5 percent
annualized growth rate in the second quarter and appears to be slowing
further.
The
question isn’t what has slowed the economy—it’s really what Obama
Administration policy hasn’t slowed the economy? The policies of the
last few
years have been unequivocal job killers.
The
Administration’s foot-dragging on free trade agreements has killed job
creation. The extended moratorium on oil drilling, followed by new
regulations,
killed job creation. President Obama’s refusal to build the Keystone XL
pipeline killed jobs. Ever-expanding Environmental Protection Agency
regulations kill jobs. Extending unemployment insurance—part of the
failed
“stimulus”—was a humanitarian gesture, but it killed jobs. Even
increasing
deficit spending has a job-killing effect, the opposite of what Obama
espouses.
And then
there’s Obamacare, which if it goes into full effect will be one of the
biggest
job killers of modern times.
To all of
this, President Obama said, “We tried our plan—and it worked.”
And they’re
not done yet. The Democrat-led Senate just tried again last week to
raise taxes
on small businesses. The Republican-led House stopped that plan and
passed a
bill to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax policies for next year and thus
defer part
of Taxmageddon, the biggest job killer we now face. But will Senate
Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) even allow a vote on it?
Reid is a
major driver of these tax increases and job-killing policies. He has
abused his
authority as majority leader to block the minority party from the
opportunity
to offer amendments more than 60 times, more than all of his
predecessors
combined.
And Reid
denies the connection between the Administration’s policies and a lack
of jobs.
He has claimed that “only a tiny fraction of layoffs have anything at
all to do
with tighter regulation.” But he again misses the point by assuming
that job
losses are the problem, rather than a lack of job creation.
Having
fiddled since January, Congressional liberals have now left town
without doing
anything to help Americans looking for work. Meanwhile, the largest tax
increase in American history is looming for January 1, set to further
devastate
the economy by hitting families with an average tax hike of more than
$4,100
each.
Heritage’s
J.D. Foster warns:
While these
tax hikes will not take effect until January of next year, they are
already
sapping the economy because businesses are forward-looking. Not knowing
what
their own tax burdens will be, businesses are highly reluctant to hire
workers
or invest for the future. And with waning faith Congress will prevent
Taxmageddon, warnings and fears of a sharp recession are rising
rapidly—fears
that further discourage any thoughts of hiring or investing...
Read the
rest of the article at Heritage Network
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