A Hapless Administration
As Ronald Reagan understood so well, government is not the solution, it is the problem.
By Jeffrey Folks at American Thinker
Last week was extraordinary. The President’s economic advisor, Christina Romer, declared that Americans should be feeling pretty good about the June jobs report. After all, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.7 to 9.5% because 650,000 people were so discouraged that they gave up looking for work. “We’ve known for some time,” she said, that things would get bad before they got better. Romer’s advice to those losing their homes, their cars, their medical insurance, and all else was “Be patient.”
Nancy Pelosi, known for her innovative solutions such as passing major pieces of legislation without voting on them, announced that the best way to create jobs was to extend unemployment insurance beyond 99 weeks. The President himself simply reminded the American people that it’s all George Bush’s fault, and it will take “some time” before things get better. That should boost the public’s confidence in the economy.
The fact is that government is failing to produce jobs for the simple reason that government cannot create jobs. Jobs are created by the private sector as it produces goods and services that the public wants and needs. Other than necessary spending for national defense, government should have no role in the economy.
Although it cannot create jobs, government can retard job creation. An EPA ban on mountaintop mining will wipe out thousands of jobs in Appalachia, according to the National Mining Association. The ban on deepwater drilling — which promises to extend beyond six months since the advisory committee to evaluation drilling safety has not even met — will cost 20,000 jobs. Financial regulation promises to drive tens of thousands of Wall Street jobs overseas to free-market havens like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. Pending cap and trade legislation will further sap growth and reduce competitiveness, leading to further job losses.
Government, in reality, produces nothing of value beyond its role in national security. It only destroys.
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