Today’s Wall Street Journal outlines the significant problems with President Obama’s “jobs bill,” starting with its tax hike gimmicks on job-creators:
“As economic ‘stimulus,’ the proposal is a junior achievement version of the 2009 plan that cost $820 billion but did so little for growth....Meanwhile, as amended last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the bill is financed by a new 5.6% surtax on millionaires. So a bill that the White House has sold as a temporary $265 billion tax cut for employers is financed with a permanent almost half-trillion-dollar tax hike on businesses and investors. What a deal.
“And a bill advertised in the name of job creation is now primarily about the new Democratic campaign theme of redistributing income. If history is any guide, that ploy will send employers and investors into a further hiatus, destroying far more jobs in the private economy than the government-financed jobs it hopes to create. The overall result would be a net permanent tax increase on businesses starting in 2013. Few economists believe that unemployment will be less than 8% in 2013, and Mr. Obama's own budget doesn't predict it....
“The bigger problem is who will pay these higher taxes. It isn't mostly Warren Buffetts. Treasury Department data for 2007 show that of the 392,000 taxpayers with incomes exceeding $1 million, more than 300,000 have business income and most of those met Treasury's definition of ‘business owner.’ Good luck taking money out of business earnings and expecting those firms to hire more workers....
“The Obama-Reid plan is a parody of a jobs bill, full of political talking points but very little to create jobs or lift growth. If Republicans want to campaign as the pro-growth party, they ought to be unified in opposing it. As for Senate Democrats, it will be instructive to see how many running for re-election in 2012 are willing to put growth and prosperity over redistribution and union politics.”
As National Review Online’s Jim Geraghty noted in a blog post today, “According to the White House’s projections, the stimulus bill was supposed to bring down the unemployment rate to about 6.5 percent or so by now. Obama and his team have given skeptics absolutely no reason to believe that this grab-bag of Democratic spending proposals will impact the unemployment rate any differently than the last one – except that this one is smaller.”
The Democrat-run Senate will vote on the plan tonight. Instead of pushing tax hikes on job creators, Democrats should work with House Republicans to find common ground to create a better environment for private sector job creation.
READ MORE:
Where are the Jobs? Unemployment Rate Has Been Higher Than 8% for More Than 2 ½ Yrs
Instead of Working with GOP on Common Ground, Dems Pitch More Job-Crushing Tax Hikes
GOP Freshmen Blast Democrat-Run Senate For Failure to Pass a Budget 888 Days & Running
Read More »»
