While the neo-clowns position and parry like a swarm of sharks high on chum fumes, President Obama unveiled an ambitious jobs program in front of a joint session of congress last night:
He used a 33-minute address to describe a collection of tax cuts, subsidies, government benefits and incentives that he said would help to grow the economy, bolster the recovery and create jobs. At times he talked tough to Congress. At times he cajoled. And at times he ridiculed. “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy,” the president said. He is calling his proposal, simply, the American Jobs Act. With the unemployment rate lodged for a 2nd month at 9.1%, and with job gains zeroed out by job losses in August, Mr. Obama called this “an urgent time for our country.”
I haven’t read the proposal yet, but the $450 billion plan reportedly includes tax incentives for hiring new workers, a payroll tax holiday for the middle-class, and loads of infrastructure spending.
It’s too early to say for sure, but so far Republicans seem split over the idea, similar to their split between jostling front-runners for the GOP presidential nomination Mittens and Tricky Rick. They’ll probably have to wait until Boss Limbaugh and Granny Fox weigh in on which way they should go.
“… tax incentives for hiring new workers, a payroll tax holiday for the middle-class, and loads of infrastructure spending”
How sad is it that the first item is even on the table? Corporations have gotten so greedy that they managed to get Obama to agree to tax incentives for hiring. And it won’t even create jobs…it will just be a source of income for the corporations.
The reality is that I hire on behalf of my company (fairly large corporation) for only 3 reasons: 1) the new resource will allow me to make new, additional money (obviously beyond what I pay them) that I wasn’t making before; 2) the new resource will stem a loss that is occurring (or highly likely to occur) but involves work I need to accomplish or the cost would be even higher; and 3) the new resource will be replacing an existing resource that has either left or become too expensive and I think the new resource can do well enough at a lower salary.
What happens when the corporation happens to make more money than expected (e.g. lower taxes)? It goes to the share holders. A corporation has never, ever hired additional resources just because profits were better.
The salaries of the existing resources are not increased based on profits (although if profits decline, salaries will get frozen or even reduced)…salaries are increased just enough to minimize people leaving. My corporate HR actually talks to the HR of my competitors (what few remain) to discuss where salaries should be in the upcoming year. So if you don’t like your salary, odds are you will find the same salary everywhere else unless you have a fairly rare / currently in high demand skill.
Only infrastructure spending will create jobs. Not sure if the country can afford it anymore with the refusal to tax the rich (with Warren Buffet’s own approval even) appropriately. Hopefully, any infrastructure spending bills will include requirements that major corporations will not be allowed to run the operations, or at least heavily restricted. Otherwise, infrastructure spending will have substantially less impact than it did in the 30s.
Wow. I’m stunned. A democrat finally figured out how to name a bill.
What next, talking dogs?
I doubt it very much.
This jobs stimulus is again, too small. Nearly 250 of the 450 billion is in tax incentives and hiring discounts for long-term unemployed.
Where we have a 2 trillion backlog in infrastructure, an 80 billion shot is a pea in the ocean.
But that’s not why it will fail.
It’ll fail because Republicans will object to it, and the ensuing crisis (it is always a crisis when Obama negotiates) will fester for weeks if not months, and we’ll have a watered down version of the package when Obama, as is his wont, caves in.
That package would be even smaller, and time would have passed so it’d not produce the jobs fast enough for people to realize whether it is working. The tea baggers will then pounce on it and call it “another spending spree failure”.
Obama has never walked the walk.
That was the part that really got me. I hope it’s not just a fluke!