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Economy: The Democrats' response to the grim jobs data from May is typical. They believe they should spend more taxpayer money. But that's no solution. Government activity can't pull an economy out of a ditch.
The May jobs report was brutal. The jobless rate hit 9.1%, up from 9% in April. Nearly half — 45.1% — of unemployed workers have been without a job for more than six months. Almost one-third have gone jobless for more than a year.
Economists had predicted the jobless rate would fall to 8.9%. They also projected 165,000 new jobs — still not enough — following the 232,000 jobs the month before. Yet a mere 54,000 jobs were created in May.
To turn this around, and the scant 1.8% GDP growth of the first quarter, Democrats want more of the same.
"A fast injection of job stimulus on the public side would help tremendously," Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, told the Hill newspaper last week.
The jobs report "helps our argument about investment," said the co-chairman of the egregiously misnamed Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Meanwhile, Larry Summers, while acting as head of the National Economic Council, said the White House had been told that "there was no danger of doing too much fiscal stimulus, and that we should do as much as we could from an economic point of view."
The Hill reports that "other Democrats" delivered a similar message about stimulus policy last week, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who said: "Once you get outside the Beltway, almost everyone agrees that we should be rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure."
Maybe Blumenauer needs to get outside the Beltway more often. Certainly he and other Democrats need to read more about economics. If they did, they would learn that their big-government fixes won't work.
Simply put, government spending, on infrastructure or anything else, does not generate the growth needed to nurture a job-creating economic environment. This isn't hard to understand. A stimulus package now totaling $830 billion passed by a Democratic Congress in January 2009 and signed by a Democratic president the next month hasn't stimulated the economy (see chart).
This isn't the only stimulus that's failed. Japan has virtually been in perpetual stimulus since the early 1990s but can't escape its economic rut.
What's the alternative? As Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke pointed out last week in the Financial Post, in 1981, two years after taking office, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher "instituted a fierce attack on the British fiscal deficit" and was "immediately condemned by 364 distinguished economists."
Reform: An appeals court heard arguments Wednesday that focused on the constitutionality of ObamaCare's individual mandate. But if the judges have any sense of mercy, they'll put this entire misbegotten law out of its misery. At the hearing before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a group ...
Graft: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for an ethics investigation of Rep. Anthony Weiner for possibly misusing official resources. But what about the probe of Rep. Maxine Waters for abusing her power? The ethics trial of Waters, accused of swinging millions in federal bailout ...
There's an awful lot that's stale in the debate on government energy policy. Some stale arguments are nevertheless valid: It's dangerous to depend heavily on Middle Eastern oil. Others have increasingly been seen as dubious: that global warming caused by human activity will result in catastrophe. ...
Terror: Iran is speeding up its nuclear materials production and moving it underground amid reports that the regime is eight weeks from atomic bomb capability. Doomsday, anyone? Tehran announced Wednesday that it will triple its production of high-grade uranium and relocate enrichment ...
Last July, ABC and NBC highlighted a temper tantrum from Rep. Anthony Weiner, alleging on the House floor that the Republicans were denying health care to the heroes of 9/11. To Diane Sawyer, Weiner spoke for all of America: "Every now and then, someone seems to express the nation's frustration ...
Posted By: Jammer(5) on 6/9/2011 | 1:28 AM ET
This article proves leaders are a rare breed. Americans have become more "socially conscious" than ever before and it's unfortunate that in a free market some people will suffer because they simply want someone to take care of their problems. For 2012, Obama Presidential campaign should be: "Let's see if hope works this time"
Posted By: shockingblue(490) on 6/9/2011 | 12:25 AM ET
The "Stimulus" aka "Porkulus" didn't have anything to do with economic recovery. 90% of the money was a slush fund to democratic supporters like ACORN (who got $65 million) who got Obama elected. Not that these schemes ever worked anyway. Jimmy Carter tried it on a lesser scale and it failed too. If it would have been instead an $880 Billion dollar tax cut, the economy would be booming by now.
Posted By: David Kelly(250) on 6/9/2011 | 12:14 AM ET
The problem is that The Left doesn't understand that Government is not as wise as Apple, no matter how many leftists are in Apple's management.
Posted By: The Barnicle(2045) on 6/8/2011 | 9:04 PM ET
Everyone that has a dumb non-thinking lib friend should do what I did. Kill the friendship unless they are in business with you or related to you. These people lie to themselves about o and all lib policies and this has been going on for many years. They are herd animals. These people have finally come close to destroying our country. No amount of common sense or honest argument matters to them. Libs should be ashamed of themselves. In there minds they will blamed us when the country dies.
Posted By: Wayne Gorsek(30) on 6/8/2011 | 7:35 PM ET
Great article with a great solution, balance the budget, pay off debt, reduce taxes, regulations, fees, fines, etc and the size of government by 90% and you will have a soaring economy with innovation led by companies like Apple and you will also have manufacturing returning to the USA along with jobs! Wayne Gorsek
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