Where are the Jobs?

Recently, Speaker Boehner took time out from holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to try and cripple medicare or demand draconian cuts in federal spending to ask once again "Where are the Jobs?" What is even funnier was his assertion that under his leadership the House has been focused upon job creation. That seems to be an interesting take on the facts.

Since he took up the gavel in January, the legislation that has come out of the House has been concerned with cutting spending. This move towards austerity does have a tendency to hurt job growth. When the government cuts spending it can have both a direct and indirect. The federal government can cut funding to various agencies that are forced to layoff its own staff, thus increasing unemployment. It can cut funding to the states, which can cause states, counties and cities to layoff their staff, increasing unemployment. All of these layoffs create a lessened demand in the market for goods and services, thus potentially causing layoffs across the broad spectrum of private sector industries. In short cutting government spending during a fragile recovery can stall or reverse job gains.

Conversely increasing government spending in such a manner so as to directly put people to work can increase the pace of recovery. There are currently many ways to put people to work. There are billions of dollars worth of infrastructure repair projects that need to be done to prevent disasters such as Katrina from wiping out wide swaths of a major city. We can push to bring broadband internet to all corners of the nation, and try and catch up with nations such as India who are further ahead of us in that regard. We can invest in research into clean energy and transportation research. We can bolster the staffs of the agencies charged with protection our borders, financial markets as well as workplace and food safety so that they have the personnel to perform their job effectively.

When you put these people to work you begin to thin the unemployment rolls and thus reducing expenditures in that program, and subsequently other poverty prevention programs that these newly employed may have relied upon before. These people will then contribute payroll taxes which will replenish the national coffers. These people will now have money to buy goods and services again, thus creating demand for those goods and services. This demand creates a need to hire more people to meet the demand, putting more people back to work.

Contrary to Speaker Boehner's assertion that taxes and regulation are hampering job creation, most businesses cite weak demand as their primary reason for lack of private sector job creation.

So I say to you Speaker Boehner, "Where is your jobs bill that addresses demand?"