Chamber's Donohue: Obama's Jobs Focus Is Wrong

September 19, 2011

Moneynews

By Julie Crawshaw

Thomas Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says that while President Barack Obama's jobs proposal contains some ideas that American business supports, it falls short.

"It focuses too much on government spending and temporary tax breaks and too little on the trade, energy, tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms that will jolt our economy and job market back to life," Donohue writes in The Wall Street Journal.

"Instead of temporary tax breaks and more spending, we need permanent tax incentives, development of our energy resources, and entitlement reform."

Donohue notes that the proposed payroll tax cut would likely offer a measure of relief for some small and medium-size businesses, but one-year, one-time tax changes will not create new jobs in significant numbers — and unfortunately, neither will the plan as a whole.

"It fails to adequately address the fundamental challenge facing our economy — too little growth — or the business reality that keeps companies from expanding payrolls — too few customers," says Donohue.

The administration won't cut one dime of spending to offset the $447 billion cost of the jobs bill, Donohue points out.

"Instead, successful small businesses, productive industries and those Americans most capable of investing in growth will foot the bill through major tax increases," he says. "Any jobs that might have been supported by other measures in the plan would be more than wiped out by these tax hikes."

"This doesn't make economic sense."

Senator Marco Rubio says what the president wants to do to help create jobs in America is not going to work.

“Really, the only job I think it is designed to protect is his,” Rubio told Fox News.

“It's basically a lot of the stuff we tried before, all it does is cost us money.”

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