Get Out Of The Way Of The Jobs

August 22, 2011

Investors.com

Government: What should President Obama do to get America working again when he returns from his Martha's Vineyard vacation? The real question is: What should he stop doing?

The president goes through the motions of taking a bus tour (on a foreign-built coach) to commiserate with America's legions of unemployed. Then he vows yet another "jobs plan," but only after he gets back from Fat Cat Isle.

What of that jobs program? The White House next month will simply repackage what they've already done, like telling businesses that if you hire X number of employees, you'll pay less in taxes.

Instead of just cutting tax rates, government planner types insist on this kind of micromanaged, jump-through-the-hoops-and-we'll-reward-you approach. They just don't believe big, bad business wants to give people jobs.

The Obama stimulus provided $13 billion in tax benefits, extending the carry-back on 2008 net operating losses to five years, providing depreciation relief and assisting businesses in restructurings.

Such measures don't make up for the impending regulatory behemoth called ObamaCare. Repeal of that government health insurance industry takeover would help unlock the trillion or more dollars being held back by a skittish private sector.

And what about the rest of the Obama regulatory monster? Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., earlier this month echoed the concerns of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups in detailing how much in new regulation in July alone the administration imposed. The toll came to $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs with 229 proposed rules, plus the finalizing of 379 other regs, some from the Environmental Protection Agency, others from financial changes.

The president could also let Americans get to work drilling for our own oil. His announcement earlier this year to "speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid- and south Atlantic" is far from "drill, baby, drill." Those promised "evaluations" are unlikely to pump out a single drop of new fuel.

In June, the oil industry issued a real job-creating plan that Obama refuses to consider, and documented the cost in jobs of Obama's Gulf of Mexico drilling moratorium.

"We estimate that tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in response to the decline in capital expenditures and operational spending" from 2008 to 2010, concluded the analysis by the Texas-based Quest Offshore Resources for the American Petroleum Institute and the National Ocean Industries Association.

The report also detailed "the near term potential of the offshore (Gulf) oil and natural gas industry to create jobs, boost GDP and generate tax revenues at all levels of government — if the government pursues a balanced regulatory approach," with a conclusion that "total employment supported by the Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas industry in 2013 could exceed 430,000 jobs or a 77% increase from 2010."

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