opinion
Retooling Obama’s Jobs Bill
“challenging People to Shape
a Better future now”
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Page 4 The Portland Skanner
E
arlier this month, the
President’s jobs bill failed in
the Senate. Now the White
House intends to break up the bill
and gin up sufficient Republican
support to pass key pieces. “We
will now work with Senator Reid
to make sure that the individual
proposals in this jobs bill get a
vote as soon as possible,” said
President Obama in a statement
released shortly after the Senate
vote.
This piecemeal approach might
be politically expedient, but the
provisions the White House is
pushing are still a whiff policy-
wise. They’re just too superficial.
Extending unemployment benefits
and cutting the payroll tax aren’t
going to fuel the sustained, robust
job growth Americans are so des-
perate for.
What the President can and
should do is immediately rework
his bill to pursue a structural
realignment of the tax and regula-
tory burden facing American busi-
ness.
Mr. Obama should focus his
attention on reducing the tax bur-
den faced by consumers and busi-
nesses. The proposed legislation
takes some steps in this direction.
It cuts the payroll tax in half to 3.1
percent in 2012 and institutes a
temporary tax credit for business-
es that hire new workers or buy
new equipment.
But these cuts have already been
tried and they don’t go far enough.
Temporary cuts are no substitute
for comprehensive tax reform, and
they mean even less without com-
mensurate spending reductions.
Washington should be taking steps
to simplify the tax code, broaden
the base, and lower rates on corpo-
rations and individuals.
A MericA ' S f uTure
Kmele Foster
It’s time to stop tinkering around
the edges of our Byzantine tax sys-
tem and fundamentally reform it
— it’s no longer controversial to
admit that America’s tax code is
impeding our ability to compete in
the philosophy of previously
failed efforts to stimulate the econ-
omy. At best, short-term spending
by government will produce short-
term employment opportunities.
And these temporary jobs often
come at the expense of sustainable
new employment in other parts of
the economy.
Rather than focusing on short-
term solutions, the administration
Extending unemployment benefits
and cutting the payroll tax aren’t
going to fuel the sustained, robust job
growth Americans are so desperate
for
the global economy and create
jobs.
The half trillion-dollar jobs bill
also contains billions in new
spending. The president’s bill
calls for public investments direct-
should be empowering executives
and entrepreneurs to create viable
patterns of employment. If more
government spending could turn
around our desperate economic
situation, then surely the first $1.5
At best, short-term spending by
government will produce short-term
employment opportunities
ed at sectors that are politically
popular among Democrats. For
example, it earmarks $25 billion
for investment in school infra-
structure and $35 billion to state
and city governments to prevent
public teacher layoffs.
But these “investments” reflect
trillion stimulus would have
solved the problem already.
Finally, a recalibrated jobs bill
must eliminate regulatory impedi-
ments to industries that are proven
job generators.
One sector that could generate
hundreds of thousands of new,
high-paying jobs is domestic ener-
gy production. Research suggests
that opening up known offshore
resources would generate 144,700
new positions and expanding
access to federal lands for energy
exploration would create 500,000
more.
The President could immediate-
ly encourage investment and job
creation in the energy industry by
simplifying permitting and reduc-
ing the number of new regulations.
Private companies should be
allowed to explore and develop
domestic energy resources without
undo interference or assistance.
The Solyndra scandal and the
lackluster jobs numbers posted by
other federally backed “green
jobs” initiatives illustrate the gov-
ernments inability to engineer a
solution to the country’s employ-
ment crisis. Opening new domes-
tic frontiers for traditional energy
production would generate the
jobs that other politically popular
programs have manifestly failed to
produce.
Obama’s jobs strategy is more of
the same. Even if this new piece-
meal strategy works, the results
will be just as underwhelming as
the White House’s previous efforts
to stoke employment. A truly
effective jobs initiative would per-
manently cut, taxes, and reduce
spending, while curtailing unnec-
essary regulations, and empower
industries that are proven to create
jobs.
Kmele Foster is the co-founder
and vice president of telcoiQ, a
telecommunications consultancy.
he is also the chairman of
america’s Future Foundation.
Electrified Fences and Herman Cain
I
don’t know about you but I
have about had it with Herman
Cain. I never agreed with his
politics but the more that I see him
perform in front of white audi-
ences the more it feels like a polit-
ical minstrel show. His sense of
so-called humor, including his
bizarre ad that ends with cigarette
smoke being blown into the cam-
era, has reached the level of insult-
ing.
The particular “joke” that sticks
in my craw, however, is his com-
ment concerning the putting up of
an electrified fence across our
southern border in order to stop
immigrants from crossing illegally
into the USA. When pushed about
this comment—that not a few peo-
ple took quite seriously—he
claimed that it was a joke. A joke?
It starts to remind me of action on
the streets where someone talks
about someone else’s mother but
keeps a smile on their face. A joke,
Mr. Cain?
What is so funny about people
attempting to escape desperate and
oppressive situations? Nearly a
century ago, many of the ancestors
of today’s African American popu-
lation took dramatic and danger-
ous steps to escape the vicious
oppression and lawlessness we
faced in the Jim Crow
South. Hundreds of thousands
T rAnS
A fricA
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
began the trek north, facing death
and torture along the way. The rul-
in the North desperately needed
labor, much the way that various
industries in today’s USA have
looked for cheap labor. They
encouraged African Americans to
migrate to fill these roles in cities
like East St. Louis, Illinois;
Chicago; Detroit; Youngstown;
and Pittsburgh. As these masses of
migrants moved into these cities
they were met with the most
intense push back coming from
white workers who saw the
What is so funny about people
attempting to escape desperate and
oppressive situations?
ing elite in the South wanted
African Americans to remain in
the South serving a subordinate
African American migrants as
people who had arrived to steal
Sometimes, as my father would say, it
is better to remain silent and to be
thought a fool than open your mouth
and prove it
role. As World War I hit, industry
their jobs and undermine their liv-
ing standards. Rather than focus-
ing on the way that big business
was playing off white workers
against blacks, these whites did
everything they could to chase our
ancestors out. The bloody Red
Summer of 1919 with the race
riots that mirrored a mini-civil war
was one example.
I keep wondering whether Mr.
Cain thinks that, perhaps, an elec-
trified fence should have been put
around the South to keep migrants
penned in like animals? I keep
wondering whether Mr. Cain is
ignorant enough to not understand
that the migration from Latin
America and the Caribbean is
directly related to the domineering
policies of the USA towards these
countries and the resulting under-
development?
A joke, Mr. Cain? Perhaps he
would do better reading a little his-
tory. Sometimes, as my father
would say, it is better to remain
silent and to be thought a fool than
open your mouth and prove it.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior
Scholar with the institute for
Policy Studies and the immediate
past president of transafrica
Forum. he is the co-author of
Solidarity Divided and can be
reached at papaq54@hotmail.
com.