Obama promises 2.5 million new jobs.
The Huffington post writes about Obama's promise to create 2.5 million jobs.
"WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars."
What should be extremely frightening in all of this is the notion that we are going to climb out of recession via expanding employment within the public sector. This approach is taken directly out of the New Deal handbook and to a lesser extent Japan's lost decade.
We are rapidly heading towards a situation where the government becomes one of the most lucrative employers in the country. While this immediately gives the illusion of dropping unemployment, the effect is temporary at best. Not only are these projects the most expensive and inefficient in comparison to their private sector counterparts, but they eventually lead to government expansion and ultimately corruption and overhead. In the case of the New Deal unemployment was virtually as high in 1932 as it was in 1939 and in Japan's case a lot of the public works project still remain unfinished!
Furthermore the notion that our government should be developing alternative energy sources should rub anyone the wrong way. The government's only responsibility is to provide incentives to technology innovators and energy companies via tax breaks for both corporations and consumers. The government's abilities to create or manage anything has been proven time and time again to be ineffective at best! Short of military projects, everything else must be in the hands of the private sector.
Instead of promoting and stimulating the private sector and the free market to grow new jobs by lowering corporate taxes, Obama is instead assuming the role of Employer in Chief. This will have devastating results in my opinion.
I am interested in hearing other opinions.
"WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars."
What should be extremely frightening in all of this is the notion that we are going to climb out of recession via expanding employment within the public sector. This approach is taken directly out of the New Deal handbook and to a lesser extent Japan's lost decade.
We are rapidly heading towards a situation where the government becomes one of the most lucrative employers in the country. While this immediately gives the illusion of dropping unemployment, the effect is temporary at best. Not only are these projects the most expensive and inefficient in comparison to their private sector counterparts, but they eventually lead to government expansion and ultimately corruption and overhead. In the case of the New Deal unemployment was virtually as high in 1932 as it was in 1939 and in Japan's case a lot of the public works project still remain unfinished!
Furthermore the notion that our government should be developing alternative energy sources should rub anyone the wrong way. The government's only responsibility is to provide incentives to technology innovators and energy companies via tax breaks for both corporations and consumers. The government's abilities to create or manage anything has been proven time and time again to be ineffective at best! Short of military projects, everything else must be in the hands of the private sector.
Instead of promoting and stimulating the private sector and the free market to grow new jobs by lowering corporate taxes, Obama is instead assuming the role of Employer in Chief. This will have devastating results in my opinion.
I am interested in hearing other opinions.
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