Refuting The Left-Wing Dishrag

Robert Samuelson eviscerates a silly editorial put forth by the New York Times...

Who creates most jobs? Hint: It’s not the government. Almost everyone seems to grasp that the private sector is the true jobs machine. But here’s a notable exception to the consensus: the editorial page of The New York Times. The other day, its lead editorial was “The Myth of Job Creation: The government does in fact create jobs, important jobs, millions of them.” In 35 years, I can’t recall ever writing a column refuting an editorial. But this one warrants special treatment because the Times’ argument is so simplistic, the subject is so important and the Times is such an influential institution.

...Government does create jobs, including “teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats. ...” There are 22 million federal, state and local workers, notes the Times.
Case closed, it asserts. And it’s true that, legally, government does expand employment. But economically, it doesn’t — and that’s what people usually mean when they say “government doesn’t create jobs.”

What the Times omits is the money to support all these government jobs. It must come from somewhere — generally, taxes or loans (bonds, bills). But if the people whose money is taken via taxation or borrowing had kept the money, they would have spent most or all of it on something — and that spending would have boosted employment.

Job creation in the private sector is mostly a spontaneous and circular process. People buy things they need and want. Or businesses and private investors take risks by investing in new products, technologies and factories. All this spending, driven by self-interest and the profit motive, supports more jobs. In a smoothly functioning market economy, the process feeds on itself. By contrast, public-sector employment grows only when government claims some private-sector income to pay its workers. Government is not creating jobs. It’s substituting public-sector workers for private-sector workers.

As the Times points out, even President Obama seems to disagree with them (at least, he says he does). It would seem to be strange that the Times editorial board would take such a silly position, until you realize that they seem to take a number of silly positions.

I Guess This Qualifies As Job Creation

See, I think the easier solution is to get rid of your Facebook page.  Then again, I spend time blogging, so what do I know?

Shockingly, This Was Not The Only Falsehood He Uttered at the Debate

I love it when people on my side of the debate get creative with proving that the other side is full of BS...

In the wake of President Barack Obama’s assertion that women “rely on” Planned Parenthood for mammograms, about 2,000 pro-life activists called Planned Parenthood offices to schedule appointments for the breast health service, according to the Catholic EWTN News.

While Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, however, it does offer breast exams and referrals.

“When Governor Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country, who rely on Planned Parenthood for, not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings. That’s a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country,” Obama said during the second debate on Long Island’s Hofstra University Tuesday night.

For the record, many of these women call Planned Parenthood for these referrals on their smartphones.  I think Apple needs a subsidy, don't you?  Wait, what do you mean they don't need a subsidy?  How dare you -- are you involved in a war on women?

The best part about Obama's assertion is that the need for Planned Parenthood's services is "a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country."  Do you know why?  Probably because they can't find a job in the Obama economy.

The American Jobs Act, Part II

Rep. Louie Gohmert becomes my comic hero of the day by swiping the name of the American Jobs Act for his own bill...

Texas GOP Rep. Louis Gohmert officially introduced the American Jobs Act of 2011 on Wednesday afternoon.

"My bill is not the president's bill, it's a real job creator," Gohmert told The Hill, shortly after filing his two-page alternative to the president's plan, under the same title.

Gohmert said that he read the president's 155-page jobs plan, when it was emailed to lawmakers on Monday afternoon.

Calling the president's plan a "disaster," Gohmert said that he checked to see "who filed the 'American Jobs Act' for the president, here in the House, since we had to do it 'now, right away," but discovered that the plan had not been officially introduced in the House.

So, at 1:20pm Gohmert filed his own version of a jobs bill, under the title included on the president's legislation distributed to members of Congress two-days prior.

Unfortunately, it appears that you can use the name on multiple bills, so this isn't quite as awesome as it could have been.  But still, a few thoughts...

1.  Yes, it's a cheap political stunt.  Guess what?  So is Obama's bill.

2.  Gohmert's bill has at least as good a chance of passing as Obama's.  Both have been blasted by Democrats, but Gohmert's has not drawn any derision from the GOP.

3.  No Dem has introduced this in the House?  I thought we needed to pass this now!!!

4.  Seriously, is it a further sign of incompetence that they haven't even introduced the bill that Obama wants passed yesterday?  Or are Dems running away as fast as they can?

5.  Yes, Gohmert will be reported to Attack Watch.  I'm sure they'll get around to rebutting him... and if it's based on how well they do everything else, that should be in 2013.

6.  Jon Stewart is right -- the American Jobs Act is a ridiculously dumb name.  But perhaps someone else (like Ron Paul) can introduce a bill with that title that advocates the drowning of kittens or something equally ludicrous, so people can run ads saying, "Representative Pelosi voted FOR the infamous American Jobs Act.  The American Jobs Act mandated the drowning of kittens!"

If This Is In the Jobs Speech, Let's Just Cancel It

Of all the dumb ideas...

President Obama said during a Tuesday radio show that hiring discrimination against the jobless "makes absolutely no sense" and that he supports legislation to ban the practice.

Sybil Wilkes, a co-host of the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," asked the president about long-term unemployment and businesses that tell applicants, "If you're unemployed, we don't want to hear from you."

Obama noted that the long-term unemployed have a tougher time landing jobs and said a stronger overall economy would make employers less choosy. "But we have seen instances in which employers are explicitly saying we don't want to take a look at folks who've been unemployed," the president said.

"Well, that makes absolutely no sense, and I know there's legislation that I'm supportive of that says you cannot discriminate against folks because they've been unemployed, particularly when you've seen so many folks who, through no fault of their own, ended up being laid off because of the difficulty of this recession."

I give up.  I frigging give up.  Probably the worst part of this pandering statement is that Obama actually gets it right that the way to make employers less choosy would be to have them hiring in a stronger overall economy.  But instead of actually pursuing that goal, he'd rather try to impose a solution that forces them to hire one group of people over another.  Government picking winners and losers instead of the marketplace, again.

There is a decent chance that the President was merely saying something to soothe his progressive base.  If so, it's still stupid, but it's understandable.  But if he's honestly going to support creating a protected class consisting of long-term unemployed people, he's officially validating the view point that says he's clueless on business issues because he's never worked in the private sector.