By Tina Grazier
Only in an era of Democrat dominance would a headline read, “Job Market shows Signs of Healing” after a month showing 85,000 jobs lost and following a year in which 3.5 million Americans found themselves out on the streets and filing for unemployment.
Progressive ideas have been at the core of the Democrat party as well as the media for decades. It is perhaps foolish, although I do it anyway, to continue to point out media bias but it is not so foolish to point out the marked differences in approach to economic recovery and job growth that the two major parties prefer. It’s certainly not foolish to look at history for evidence of policies that worked to bring about economic recovery and job growth, and those that only exacerbated the problems associated with economic stagnation and decline.
A report out of Reuters clearly shows that most Democrats are hard core and stubborn when it comes to their favored approach. More “targeted” spending will be the Obama administration’s next move:
Obama on Friday announced details of a government funding program for clean technology jobs previously announced in the $787 billion emergency spending package that he signed in February.
As most of you know much of the stimulus money has been held back to be spent in 2010, an election year…that’s called buying the vote…and these “targeted” expenditures clearly reveal just who or what is being targeted for cash infusions and who or what is not. Believe me, it isn’t the overall economy, nor is it the average out of work man or woman on the street.
The Democrat Congressional leadership will be paddling fast to keep their overloaded boat from going over the falls before next November. They’ll offer targeted “help” for the unemployed, states in financial trouble (neither of which stimulates economic or job growth), and a token promise to small business:
Congress is considering proposals to help labor markets that include a $155 billion jobs package that has already cleared the House of Representatives.
Romer said more spending will be necessary to sustain a fragile recovery. “The sense that we need to do more is overwhelming,” she said on ABC-TV’s “This Week.” ** Extending expiring unemployment benefits and state aid would be important steps, as will narrower initiatives such as tax breaks to boost small business hiring, she added.
You can bet those “small business tax breaks” will be extremely “narrow”, window dressing at best, if they materialize at all.
An editorial at the Heritage Foundation website cites a documented report by Brian M. Riedl that reveals the folly of stimulus spending for economic recovery:
“Stimulus spending doesn’t stimulate economic growth, new Heritage study finds,” by Mark Tapscott
By way of introduction, Riedl points to these six instances of massive government spending designed to stimulate economic growth and the similar results seen in each case:
* During the 1930s, New Deal lawmakers doubled federal spending–yet unemployment remained above 20 percent until World War II.
* Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 stimulus spending bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world)–yet its economy remained stagnant.
* In 2001, President Bush responded to a recession by “injecting” tax rebates into the economy. The economy did not respond until two years later, when tax rate reductions were implemented.
* In 2008, President Bush tried to head off the current recession with another round of tax rebates. The recession continued to worsen.
* Now, the most recent $787 billion stimulus bill was intended to keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. In November, it topped 10 percent.The contrast in the two approaches couldn’t be more apparent. Giving tax cuts, keeping money in the hands of Americans, to stimulate the economy has worked and has been embraced by conservative Republicans such as Ronald Reagan, as well as conservative Democrat John F. Kennedy and moderate Democrat Bill Clinton. Tax cuts put power into the hands of those who actually can create growth, the American people. The wealth (new money for expansion, hiring, and new materials) that follows their investment is what stimulates the economy to get it growing. As Heritagte points out:
Moving forward, the important question is why government spending fails to end recessions. Spending-stimulus advocates claim that Congress can “inject” new money into the economy, increasing demand and therefore production. This raises the obvious question: From where does the government acquire the money it pumps into the economy? Congress does not have a vault of money waiting to be distributed. Every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another
Bill Clinton was forced to govern more conservatively with a Republican congress. The only real hope for Americans this year is a congress that will put a check on spending and insists on tax cuts for all Americans. That would put an end to the job spinning and economic twirling we’ve been subjected to for this long worrisome year.