Monday, December 21, 2009

OBAMA'S MYOPIA












Obama's vision for America promises unemployment

For reasons of ideology, interest groups and personnel, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid vision is one of bigger and more controlling government, but smaller and more anemic private enterprise

By Newt Gingrich

·                                   The Obama Administration is holding its much-hyped "jobs summit" in Washington, D.C. Plenty of politicians will be there, as well as labor bosses and academics. No doubt, some business representatives have been recruited to attend as well.


As the Obama Administration convenes with the so-called "experts" in Washington, how many in the White House have actually created a job?


A Jobs Valley, Not a Summit


What the Obama Administration is promoting as a jobs "summit" tomorrow is in fact a jobs valley.


After 10 months and the authorization of $787 billion in government spending, the economic policies of the White House and the Democratic Congress have failed. 15.7 million Americans are out of work, 3.2 million of them since the stimulus was first passed in February. Unemployment, at 10.2 percent, is higher than the President promised it would be if he did nothing. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies are hurting, not helping.


The stakes are high, and no doubt the White House and the Democratic Congress (as does every American) would love to see the jobs numbers improve. But three fundamental facts of their approach are crippling their effort:

  • Ideology
  • Interest Groups
  • Personnel
Number 1: Ideology. Secular Socialism Has Never Worked to Create Jobs and It Won't Work Here

The mainstream media roll their eyes and laugh at the term, but the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies are genuinely secular-socialist policies.

Their central purpose is not to create wealth but to redistribute wealth.

The problem is this big government, high taxing, big bureaucracy and politician driven model simply does not work to create jobs. It was the model of the United States in the 1970s and the model of Europe today. It has never worked anywhere to create jobs and wealth, and it won't work here.

A Very Different Ideology: Free Market Capitalism

As the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine attempts to force its secular-socialist model on Americans in the form of job-killing health, energy, and big labor legislation, American small business people are crying out for a very different set of solutions.

These are the solutions that will take center stage at the American Solutions Real Jobs Summit in Cincinnati today.

They are the solutions of Ronald Reagan and the Contract with America.

Reduced taxes to spur jobs and investment. Controlled government spending to favor entrepreneurs over bureaucrats. Reduced regulation and litigation to produce jobs and create wealth.

If the goal is more jobs, both history and the opinions of American business people couldn't be more clear: More economic freedom works, more government doesn't.

Number Two: Democratic Interest Groups: Redistributing Rather Than Creating Wealth

The second fact that cripples the Obama-Pelosi-Reid jobs effort is the liberal special interest groups these politicians are beholden to.

Trial lawyers, labor unions and government employees are redistributors of wealth, not creators of wealth.

When Democratic special interest groups meet, there is practically no one in the room who has created a job.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs are the engines of our economy whose voices aren't being heard in Washington today.

Number Three: The Obama Cabinet: The Least Private Sector Experience in Over 100 Years

The third reason to doubt that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies will produce more jobs is succinctly illustrated in
this graph.

It shows that the Obama Administration cabinet has far less private sector experience than any administration in over 100 years. A stunning 90 percent of the prior experience of the Obama cabinet is in government, not the private sector.

These are the people America is supposed to listen to in order to create new jobs?

The real solution, in contrast, is building a Small Business Advisory Council, a network of entrepreneurs with long experience in job creation.

These experienced entrepreneurs have helped us formulate a real plan for real job creation that we can enact right now to create new jobs.

Reduce Spending and Reform Government to Achieve a Balanced Budget.

While I was Speaker, federal spending rose by an average of 2.9 percent per year, the lowest increase since the 1920s. We can apply the same principles that worked from 1995 to 1998 to create jobs and four straight balanced budgets through smaller government, less spending, lower interest rates, and less debt.

Five Tax Reforms to Reward Job Creation, Entrepreneurship, Savings, and Investment.

a. Immediate Payroll Tax Relief. Allow workers and employers to keep more of their hard earned money through an immediate, two-year, 50 percent reduction of the payroll tax. This step would immediately boost the take home pay of every worker, and dramatically free up cash for every employer to hire and invest. This tax relief could be paid for with unspent TARP and stimulus money.

b. Incentives for Small Business Investment. Allow small businesses to expense 100 percent of new equipment purchases each year to help them invest in new, more productive technologies.

c. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match the Chinese capital gains rate of zero. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified in the 1990s that this was the best rate for economic growth.

d. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. America has the second highest business tax rate in the world. We should match the Irish business tax rate of 12.5 percent. Combined with a zero rate of taxation on capital gains, America would become the most desirable country in the world in which to invest and start a business.

e. Abolish the Death Tax. Inheritance is the most powerful accumulator of capital. Studies show that eliminating the death tax would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

American Energy Plan to Create American Jobs and Keep American Money at Home.

Developing more American energy while protecting the environment would mean the creation of millions of new American jobs and the generation of billions of dollars in new federal tax revenues, largely without the need for any new federal spending. The first steps we need to take are to develop more of America's oil, natural gas, and oil shale resources, expand nuclear power, provide prizes for key energy breakthroughs, and an emphasis on incentives, not taxes, to achieve our energy and environmental goals.

Two Visions of Jobs Growth, Two Visions of America

For reasons of ideology, interest groups and personnel, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid vision is one of bigger and more controlling government, but smaller and more anemic private enterprise.

To try to pretend that this model will produce the jobs America desperately needs is to do a grave injustice to the American people.

Americans whose goals are to provide for their families, not perpetuate their political power, know what really works to create jobs.










No comments: