In this week’s edition of “Your Weekly Address from the President-elect,” Obama announced a goal of “2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011″:
That is not nearly enough.
Historically, since 1940 the average percentage increase in jobs created by the U.S. private sector year over year has been a bit more than 2.1 percent. In August 2008, the most recent month available at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 115,867,000 private sector jobs. At the historic average rate of 2.1 percent the economy should produce 2,433,207 “more jobs” each year – just about equal to the president-elect’s uninspiring two-year goal. Obama’s goal ought to be at least five million jobs. He should strive to at least reach the historic average.
On the other hand, during the campaign Obama proposed $3,000 tax credit for businesses that hire new workers in 2009 or
2010. At $3,000 for every job created, five million jobs would cost taxpayers $75 billion. That would be in addition to the other $375 billion in job creation programs Obama proposed during the campaign:
Separately, Obama has promised to create 5 million “green-collar jobs” by “strategically investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.” That commitment suggests a higher quality of jobs, not just sheer numbers.
His economic plan during the campaign had specified: “Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school repair – all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.”
That total of $450 billion is enough money to simply give 8,958,254.5, nearly nine million families (8,958,254.5 to be more precise), $50,233. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, $50,233 is the real median annual household income in the United States.
Even if Obama only spends $300 billion on job creation, as reported by Katherine Skiba, that would still be enough to give an amount equal to the real median household income to nearly six million families.
Dan McLaughlin
Moe Lane
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Delay Downsizing Armed Forces
bc3 Sunday, November 23rd at 11:55AM EST (link)Given the current economic situation, one of the dumbest things Obama could do is follow through with downsizing the armed forces.
Downsizing the armed forces means increasing the number of unemployed. I have read that enlistments are up simply because it’s become so difficult for young people to find jobs.
5 million green collar jobs may be the biggest lie of all.
bc3
What do you mean?
itsonlywords (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 11:57AM EST (link)Think of all the lives that will be saved now that we know for sure?
I’m actually in complete agreement with you on this. We need to wrest control of our language back from the leftists and the idiots. Or am I being redundant?
One of the things about English that is (was?) so beautiful is its precision. Seriously. There is exactly the right word for everything. Unfortunately, when the meanings of the words become corrupted, it then becomes much more difficult to communicate complex ideas.
Couple that with the dumbed down public school curriculum that has completely abandoned any meaninful study of grammar and it won’t be long before meaningful communication will be difficult at best.
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audientor ito. ~Virgil
Do not give in to evil, but proceed evermore boldly against it.
But.
29Victor (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 12:00PM EST (link)Did he say that those 2.5 million jobs created would be in the private sector?
and…
The Obama team has been getting an early start on lowering expectations, that’ll be their key to winning a second term:
Set easy goals
Act all excited when those goals are reached and issue lots of press releases
Count on the MSM to go along with the plan and excitedly announce Obama Creates 2.5 MILLION Jobs!
Private sector job creation
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 12:55PM EST (link)I have been wondering if the 2.5 million is purposefully small in order to retain the flexibility of the federal government to “need” to directly hire workers for new New Deal projects and due to foreseeable accelerated growth of the bureaucracy.
As far as the so-called green-collar jobs, don’t make me laugh.
Where in the plan do they
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 1:25PM EST (link)talk about making the Bush tax cuts permanent and maintaining or lowering the tax rate on cap gains and business income?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
So the 2.5 million is pretty much baking high taxes into the cake. Otherwise, it would be 5 million like one would expect.
Agreed; Cap Gains cut is a stimulus that won't cost a dime
jonreagan (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 1:53PM EST (link)As usual, the Dems are concocting all kinds of stimulus plans and formulas, many of which are shopworn and discredited. In Obama’s intial press conference, he was hands off–”one President at a time”–when it came to ruling out TAX INCREASES.
But the doctrine of “one president at a time” became inoperative five minutes later when it came to questions of SPENDING. Barack was enthusiastic in endorsing Nancy’s stimulus plan extending unemployment benefits and increasing food stamps….a traditional Democratic give-away stimulus.
Getting capital flowing to the markets again is the stimulus that is obviously critical right now. Wouldn’t it be great to save companies and the economy with private capital, instead of government infusions of capital? Cut the Capital Gains tax in half, to 7.5%. It won’t cost the Treasury anything, and if hisory is an accurate guage (Kennedy and Reagan cuts in Cap Gains), it will actually increase revenue and decrease the Federal defecit.
Charlie Gibson patiently tried to explain this dynamic to Obama during one of the primary debates….but he just had this befuddled look on his face as if he couldn’t grasp the concept. Maybe one of his new economic advisers will weigh in, and get behind proven pro-growth strategies–cutting tax rates–instead of the baby steps we traditionally get from Democrats.
Obama signalled tax
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 2:19PM EST (link)increases in the campaign. When told that tax cuts actually provide more revenue to government, he just replied that tax increases provide “fairness.”
Lucky for America that he is appointing and nominating Summers and Gaithner. Otherwise, God help all Joe the Plumbers everywhere.
Sheesh!
itsonlywords (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 3:32PM EST (link)How embarrassing. I totally posted this in the wrong place. Not sure how that happened.
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audientor ito. ~Virgil
Do not give in to evil, but proceed evermore boldly against it.
Yep...another example of ideology trumping common sense
jonreagan (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 4:06PM EST (link)I remember several interviews when Obama expressed exactly what you describe. In the most simplistic response I’ve ever heard from a candidate, he declared that an investor who makes profits on Wall Steet transactions should not pay a lower tax rate than a middle-income executive secretary.
This is borderline “spread-the-wealth” Obama, but worse yet, it’s a totally illogical, apples v. oranges comparison. He’s comparing the ordinary income tax with capital gains taxes, which are two different animals.
Further evidence of his ignorance surfaced two weeks ago, when he declared that cutting the Cap Gains Tax wouldn’t help the economy, because he didn’t know of many people who had Capital Gains this year. Uh, Barack, that’s not the point….this is not a cut to get people to SPEND more money; it’s to entice people/institutions to INVEST more money. This kind of ignorance of basic economics and the financial sector is pretty depressing, especially in times like these.
To your point, the Geithner and Summers appointments are heartening, as both are pro-free trade, as well as strong dollar proponents. Hopefully, they can give this moron a crash course in basic Econ 101-102. Although as I listened to Gov.Romney this morning on CNN–discussing the auto industry– it drove home how great it would be to have a knowledgeable President AND strong advisors/cabinet members. Maybe in four years we’ll once again have both.
Capital Flight
Skanderbeg (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 5:14PM EST (link)What these veal-calves fail to grasp is that capital these days has wings.
The veal-calf-in-chief may be the first US President ever to cause a monster capital flight to other more competitive jurisdictions.
I’ve got a list if anyone wants to get started early….
No Mainstream Media are reporting that Obama's Jobs Program are Government Jobs
izoneguy (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 5:41PM EST (link)No Mainstream Media are reporting that Obama’s Jobs Program are Government Jobs
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
Details
DavidG Sunday, November 23rd at 5:54PM EST (link)Today Obama promises a new “new deal” to “create or save” 2.5 millions jobs.
This means that as long as the US economy will have 2.5 millions workers it will be mission accomplish.
Obama is playing a shell game to his base to..
DavidS1787 (Diary) Sunday, November 23rd at 6:42PM EST (link)his base making them think he is going to Create jobs that don’t even exist!
Obama's Jobs:
Daniel Glenn (Diary) Monday, November 24th at 1:45PM EST (link)Moving rocks from Pile A to Pile B and back again, all for $7.75 an hour plus benefits.
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“In an insane society, reality is outside of the mainstream.”
“If people are not free to trade with each other, all other freedom is meaningless.”
Don’t blame me. I voted for McCain.