WORK? OR JOBS?

On a recent campaign stop President Obama said that if Congress would just pass his “Jobs Bill,” which he says he sent to them a year ago, he could create a million new jobs almost immediately. Wow, that sounds really good, doesn’t it? A million new jobs.

Well, as usual, a closer examination of the facts brings us back to reality. The absolute last thing this economy needs is a million new government (taxpayer) funded pencil pushers and paper stackers. You see there is a big difference between jobs and work. As we have discussed ad nauseum, the government doesn’t produce anything. The jobs Obama is talking about is not real work. Now if you are one of the twenty-three million unemployed I suppose any sort of income producer would do. But, these government “jobs” are not real work. What they are is  government welfare.

Jobs which are actual work are produced by private business creating products or services that are sold for profit. Governments do not produce any product. Governments do not create any profit. The only things governments produce are regulations and taxes. The reason Obama’s “Jobs Bill” hasn’t passed Congress is simple, there is no provision in the bill to pay for it. Funding such a government welfare bill would have to be with more borrowed money thereby further increasing our overwhelming deficit. All that would do is kick the can down the road. Eventually the preacher has to be paid. Eventually, if you are to dance, the band has to be paid. There is no free lunch and all other trite metaphors one can think of.

Why is this so hard for the people in power who should know better, to understand? It seems that when people are sent to Washington to conduct the business of government, they park their brains at the door before they enter. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. If you put two people in a room and give them a dollar, all the trading in the world, all the regulation, all the taxes, all or any activity performed by these two people produces nothing more than the original dollar. That, my friends, is an economic reality. The government doesn’t sell anything. They only spend money. In other words, they aren’t the answer.

For our economy to recover we need productive work. We need private business, big and small, to unleash the great economic engine which had driven us for the past several decades, and all that business is asking is for the government to get out of the way.

I watched on TV today as a fifty-eight year old man who had been unemployed for six years told his story. It was sad. His observation was that there are so many unemployed people that employers can have very strict requirements for employment. They have so many to choose from and rarely does that choice include fifty-eight year old men. If our economy was anywhere close to normal this man would be employed immediately. Today his jobless benefits have expired and he has few options.

Frankly the people we have employed in Washington from the President on down to include the Congress have failed miserably. They are not helping start this economic engine.

My request is simple. To all of you who serve the people in our Capitol, get off your collective butts and get busy. Rein in the EPA. Approve the Keystone pipeline. Repeal Obamacare. Lower taxes on everybody. The sooner this happens the sooner this problem will be solved. It is going to happen. It can happen with you or without you. Your choice. Perhaps a period of unemployment might help you understand. If you don’t get this matter solved, unemployment is definitely in your future.

Ron Scarbro September 12, 2012