COLUMN: Creating jobs without a stimulus

That is what the Obama administration, and everyone else for that matter, hopes. In his economic report to Congress, the President predicted that an average of 95,000 jobs will be added each month this year and 190,000 a month in 2011. However, even with the addition of those jobs, economists forecast that unemployment will remain near ten percent for the rest of this year. In fact, unemployment is not expected to fall below six percent until 2015.

Undeterred by these dire predictions, the President has promised that his administration will not rest until the 8.4 million jobs lost since the recession began have been replaced.

While this new focus on job creation is welcome in some quarters, there is real concern whether any politician in Washington, Republican or Democrat, has any idea how to create jobs.

Andrew Puzder, CEO of Carl’s Jr., said it best when he recently told a financial reporter, “We don’t need to be stimulated, we need to be left alone.”

He’s right. If the government would focus on doing its job well, then business owners could spend less time worrying about financing government operations and more time expanding their own companies.

Unfortunately, the current proposals being floated in Washington will do more to create debt than to create jobs. Using taxpayer dollars to fund measures which have proven ineffective in the past is simply wrong when the money could be better spent reducing debt.

Neither the House bill, which passed in December, nor the proposed Senate bill appears to offer any long term solutions for the current jobs crisis.

Former President Jimmy Carter tried one of the proposals, a business tax credit for new hires, in the seventies when the country was in the midst of a prolonged recession. Admittedly, the plan worked temporarily. The jobless rate fell while the tax credit was in effect, but, when it ended, companies once again began laying off employees and the unemployment rate soared.

Another proposed measure would increase public works spending. More than a quarter of a million government jobs would be created. As one Republican representative quipped, “Why don’t we just put everyone in the United States on the federal government payroll and call it a day?” No kidding. Taking money from people who have jobs to fabricate coffer-draining government jobs for others is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Literally.

And as much as the Republicans tout the benefit of reducing taxes, tax cuts alone will not work either. Business owners know full well that what the government giveth, the government can taketh away.

In order to create an environment where businesses can grow and prosper and create additional jobs, the government must stop creating more problems than it is solving.

Without a corresponding decrease in government spending, any tax cuts, just like tax credits and public works spending, would eventually necessitate additional government borrowing or higher taxes. The prospect of either is enough to create a climate of economic insecurity that scares business owners and prevents job creation.

Hopefully Puzder will get his wish. Let the free markets work and let government focus on cutting spending and reducing debt instead of continuing to do the opposite.

Kristi Reed is a reporter for the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at kreed@barrowjournal.com.