The Jobless Recovery Conspiracy
Posted on July 15, 2009
The Jobless Recovery Conspiracy
When President Obama and the Democrats face the music next November, and the unemployment numbers look even more grim than they do now, they will talk about the failures of the private sector, the need for more stimulus, and importance of extending unemployment benefits, and generally the need for a bigger government.
What they won’t talk about is the conspiracy perpetrated by those same Democrats to create a jobless recovery that is surely on the way.
That conspiracy started last year, when the Democrats passed a minimum wage increase. The mandated increase is due to kick in next month, just as employers are trying to decide whether to lay off more workers in order to balance their books. You think that any small employers are going to hire minimum wages workers, given the fact that they have to pay more when they have to make do with less?
It has continued this year, when the Democrats passed a stimulus bill that stimulated more government spending but no private sector investment. And even the government stimulus has been slow in coming.
Then, the Democrats passed a budget that targeted small business and potential investors with higher taxes. The ostensible reason was to pay for health care and other government spending.
They then passed a cap and trade bill that will put American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign competitors. Good for overseas jobs; not so good for American jobs.
And now, they are thinking about a health care bill that will mandate that small business offer their employees health care. Well, that sounds good from the Halls of Congress. In reality, it will give a disincentive to those small businesses that are on the margins, trying to decide whether they should bring someone in house or keep them as a private contractor. I guarantee that the more painful the mandates that Congress passes, the less likely that workers will become employees.
These are just Congressional actions. The Obama Administration is making hundreds of decisions every week, from labor regulations to environmental mandates, from taxation to gender and racial equity mandates, that give a disincentive to employers to hire more workers.
The result will be a jobless recovery. The economy will recover. Many jobs will not. And while that means bad news for the Democrats, they have nobody to blame but themselves.