I am not referring to the amount of government jobs. I am referring to the stimulus "jobs" that were supposed to be made or saved by the 787 billion Stimulus Package, including green jobs.
President Obama has actually decreased the number of government significantly. Prior to Obama, I believe it was Reagan who reduced government jobs, but in one term only. Government jobs grew in his second term. Both Bushes are the lowest ranked in job creation generally. Clinton and Jimmy Carter saw the largest increast in job numbers.
When your house is on fire, you don't throw gasoline on it, either.
The Congressional Budget Office has tagged each job attributed to the Stimulus as costing the taxpayers between $200 - $300 K.
How is that helping to put out the fire?
Washington should not be trying to create jobs. They should be helping businesses to spur job growth by making it easy to start and maintain businesses.
Simplify the tax code. Reduce any loopholes in overseas job creation or tax advantages so that jobs aren't flowing across the ocean.
The White House shouldn't be involved in job creation. Period.
During the campaign, I had an uneasy feeling about Obama handling anti-terrorism issues. He seemed to be a little too focused on the diplomacy and winning hearts and minds than on draconian measures. I am glad to be proven wrong on that point.
He has done a badass job on that front. I wish he would have had some of the same success on the economic front.
Unfortunately, his advisors have told him that we need to spend our way out of a recession.
When we suffered a prolonged job loss, spending too much led to lasting debt that will take us a long time to pay off.
The reality is that the economy won't improve until people have confidence in the government and it's ability to rein in spending. You can say till the cows come home that "nobody cared about big spending with previous administrations" - out of sight, out of mind is the response I would give you. Nobody had that big scary number flashed in their faces about the trillions in debt on a daily or weekly basis. We can see in the press on a weekly basis what state employees, county employees and city employees make for salaries, and how this fraud or that pension scheme is bankrupting that particular entity. We can
It's class warfare, with a twist. There were massive layoffs being fueled by big and small businesses crumbling, so the discontent is high. People are angry and 2011 isn't like 2008.
It's always been about the economy. It will be in this election, too.
