Obama, Where’s My Check?
Video circulating the web about Obama, bailouts, and hard-earned handouts. Enjoy!
Obama, Where’s My Check? by Bodywash
www.myspace.com/bodywashmusic
Stimulate THIS!
Interestingly, in 2008 the US economy actually grew! Sure, it contracted in the last quarter, but overall it grew by like 1%. That’s not to say I think the economy is booming, but I think we could temper the rhetoric coming from the White House that warns if we don’t pass this stimulus, we may never recover. That is the politics of fear that i thought Obama campaigned against. So terrorism is overblown, but pork laden spending bills are a cause for congress to go running around like headless chickens? We have survived worse recessions as recent as 1981, we will survive this one- so long as the people in gov’t don’t enact policies that will prevent the market from recovering.
I think it’s a fallacy to think that it is necessary for the government to help the economy get out of this rut. In fact the government has played a key role in manipulating free markets and serving to exacerbate this downturn via the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government sponsored enterprises, that influenced the housing market greatly.
I also just read a report by the Congressional Budget Office saying that in the long term, we are better off with NO stimulus package, as it will discourage private investment over the long term, and lead to rising inflation- since we are printing money like crazy!
Here’s the thing about jobs… there is the rule of what is seen, and what is unseen. Gov’t stimulus programs give funds to gov’t agencies or companies to create jobs (or save them- a catch all caveat that helps to avoid accountability when jobs AREN’t created- politicians say- ‘well we would’ve lost more if we’d done nothing’-RIGHT!)- this gov’t spending makes it seem like jobs are created. What is unseen is all the private investment crowded out by gov’t spending. Small firms that aren’t propped up with public funds can go out of business, unable to compete with larger firms who are getting gov’t money. Gov’t manipulation of industry also creates uncertainty among investors, who choose to invest less when the gov’t is manipulating the game… this, as the CBO noted- hurts the economy. There is much more money in the private sector to fix the economy if we’d let it.
That’s why tax cuts make sense- they give the private sector an incentive to invest, to grow productivity. All these companies that are cutting jobs… Home Depot, Starbucks, Google, Yahoo, Macy’s… these are big companies— companies Obama threatened with HIGHER taxes during the campaign trail. More taxes means more costs for businesses, and more costs and lower profits as we see now- cause jobs to be lost. Obama would rather give a “tax credit” to 95% of Americans in the form of $1000 checks (even those who pay no income taxes- essentially a redistribution of money from the rich and middle class to the working class). Now which is better at stimulating the economy- allowing people and businesses to keep more of their hard earned money- and keep their job, or giving everyone a $1000 check? We saw the effectiveness of gov’t checks last year around this time- they didn’t do much to prop up the economy… I think something like only 13% of those checks were put back into the mix.
How does it motivate people to look for jobs when unemployment benefits last 44 weeks? How does it encourage working people to keep working hard and not apply for foodstamps, welfare, section 8 housing, disability, etc- if there are many people doing just that- and getting $1000 in the mail, $1000 rebate for taxes they never paid. If you understand payroll taxes are not real taxes but instead a mandatory retirement fund imposed by the gov’t in the form of social security. It’s not like the people who are collecting these checks are going to lose any benefits out of their Social security later- (if it is even solvent when they are eligible)
Last, I think we do democracy a disservice by NOT debating about the contents of this bill. By categorizing everyone who disagrees with Obama as a “hater”, or more accurately everyone who disagrees with Democrats in Congress who are writing this bill as haters, Obama supporters are tuning out a lot of valid ideas that make a lot of good sense.
I will be the first to admit, I was disappointed by the behavior of Republicans over the past 5 or so years. They spent like crazy. But on this stimulus they have been principled and reasonable. Obama can’t just host them for lunch and expect them to abandon their principles… if Bush invited Obama to lunch, would he expect him to miraculously support the pro-life movement? Don’t think so. As for the war in Iraq- as costly as it is- at $10 billion a month- it’s a bargain compared to this pork-filled stimulus bill at $800 billion… this one bill is enough to have funded the iraq war for 6.6 years… A bill that many economists think will do more harm than good. Is it worth the burden of debt placed on our children, grandchildren, and grand children’s children? The money has to come from somewhere- either we tax it from the private sector, borrow it from the Chinese, or print it… None of those options help America in the long term. I’m not waiting for Obama to slip up, I’m hoping he changes his policies BEFORE he slips up- I want the best for this country no matter who is President.
And one more thing about all this economic populism, aka bleed the rich:
Raising taxes won’t hurt the rich. The rich don’t pay more taxes… they have the money for lawyers and loopholes- they use write offs, offshore accounts, they reduce productivity, they cut jobs at their businesses, they raise prices for goods and services, they never lose- high taxes or not. The people who really lose are those families in metro areas making over $150k/year- double earner families who- if you know the costs and taxes living in NY -Long Island, or around any metro area- these are NOT rich people. These are the people who rich people fire when the gov’t raises taxes. Again- what is UNSEEN… the law of unintended consequences. you know politicians use emotion to influence voters- don’t be fooled! Class warfare is the oldest game in politics, have you ever gotten a job from a poor person?
Unintended Consequences of Affirmative Action & A Minimum Wage
At first reading, each policy seems helpful to blacks or minorities: minimum wage laws make it so that the lowest paid workers are paid more- so that would help people struggling to get by right? Similarly, affirmative action should help compensate for the inequities in our education system, a system that inherently favors white people, and discriminates against minorities, teaches white culture, with tests are biased to white culture, etc. But as we examine the way these policies are put into practice, and the scenarios that existed before their implementation, we see a different story.
Minimum wage laws actually hurt young, unskilled often minority workers, who end up not being hired as it is too expensive for employers to hire such unskilled workers at such a high rate. Employers higher fewer skilled workers to compensate. Similarly, affirmative action often pushes minority students into colleges or programs that their grades did not qualify them for- leading to academic failure. Inversely, those minority students who get into colleges and universities on their own academic merit, often have the stigma of race hanging over their heads as “the only reason they were accepted”. I find a pattern here: most of these programs are considered part of the Democratic Party platform- detractors are charged as racist, greedy or insensitive to the needs of the working class or minorities. However, before these government programs, minorities had higher levels of employment, and now after the repeal of AFfirmative action in states like California and Texas, there are MORE minorities in college there. A classic case of unintended consequences. What is sad is that liberal politicians often use racially divisive rhetoric to gain support for such programs- saying that it is our duty to help these people who have been discriminated against. How can you argue with that? But in a way, these benefactors have been everything but- they have in some ways made minorities believe they NEED help in order to move up, making both blacks and whites wonder- “why can’t they/we do it on their/our own- the American way?” They were doing it on their own prior to these programs…but again the government manages to get in front of the parade, take credit for triumphs, and blame the failures on the “racists who continue to plague us, and here are some more programs to implement that will make it even more fair!”
The victimization and exploitation of minority voters to further government control over the economy, education, you name it.
Similarly, the same politicians will blame deregulation as the reason we face the current economic downturn. In previous posts I’ve challenged this, as it is government policy that is most to blame. Sadly, deregulation is not credited for how it leveled the playing field for minorities, who found it easier to get bank loans after banks were deregulated. That’s one thing you will not read about deregulation.
To support, I have included three great articles by Thomas Sowell. Taken at once, it’s a lot, but well worth it!
November 15, 2005
Ignoring Economics
By Thomas Sowell
Many people are blaming the riots in France on the high unemployment rate among young Muslim men living in the ghettoes around Paris and elsewhere. Some are blaming both the unemployment and the ghettoization or discrimination by the French.
Plausible as these explanations may sound, they ignore economics, among other things.
Let us go back a few generations in the United States. We need not speculate about racial discrimination because it was openly spelled out in laws in the Southern states, where most blacks lived, and was not unknown in the North.
Yet in the late 1940s, the unemployment rate among young black men was not only far lower than it is today but was not very different from unemployment rates among young whites the same ages. Every census from 1890 through 1930 showed labor force participation rates for blacks to be as high as, or higher than, labor force participation rates among whites.
Why are things so different today in the United States — and so different among Muslim young men in France? That is where economics comes in.
People who are less in demand — whether because of inexperience, lower skills, or race — are just as employable at lower pay rates as people who are in high demand are at higher pay rates. That is why blacks were just as able to find jobs as whites were, prior to the decade of the 1930s and why a serious gap in unemployment between black teenagers and white teenagers opened up only after 1950.
Prior to the decade of the 1930s, the wages of inexperienced and unskilled labor were determined by supply and demand. There was no federal minimum wage law and labor unions did not usually organize inexperienced and unskilled workers. That is why such workers were able to find jobs, just like everyone else, even when these were black workers in an era of open discrimination.
The first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, was passed in part explicitly to prevent black construction workers from “taking jobs” from white construction workers by working for lower wages. It was not meant to protect black workers from “exploitation” but to protect white workers from competition.
Even aside from a racial context, minimum wage laws in countries around the world protect higher-paid workers from the competition of lower paid workers.
Often the higher-paid workers are older, more experienced, more skilled or more unionized. But many goods and services can be produced with either many lower skilled workers or fewer higher skilled workers, as well as with more capital and less labor or vice-versa. Employers’ choices depend on the relative costs.
The net economic effect of minimum wage laws is to make less skilled, less experienced, or otherwise less desired workers more expensive — thereby pricing many of them out of jobs. Large disparities in unemployment rates between the young and the mature, the skilled and the unskilled, and between different racial groups have been common consequences of minimum wage laws.
That is their effect whether the particular minimum wage law applies to one sector of the economy like the Davis-Bacon Act, to the whole economy like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 or to particular local communities like so-called “living wage” laws and policies today.
The full effect of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was postponed by the wartime inflation of the 1940s, which raised wages above the level specified in the Act. Amendments to raise the minimum wage began in 1950 — and so did the widening racial differential in unemployment, especially for young black men.
Where minimum wage rates are higher and accompanied by other worker benefits mandated by government to be paid by employers, as in France, unemployment rates are higher and differences in unemployment rates between the young and the mature, or between different racial or ethnic groups, are greater.
France’s unemployment rate is roughly double that of the United States and people who are unemployed stay unemployed much longer in France. Unemployment rates among young Frenchmen are about 20 percent and among young Muslim men about 40 percent.
There is no free lunch, least of all for the disadvantaged.
______________________
The Grand Fraud: Affirmative Action for Blacks
by Thomas Sowell (April 1, 2003)
No issue has been more saturated with dishonesty than the issue of racial quotas and preferences, which is now being examined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Many defenders of affirmative action are not even honest enough to admit that they are talking about quotas and preferences, even though everyone knows that that is what affirmative action amounts to in practice.
Despite all the gushing about the mystical benefits of “diversity” in higher education, a recent study by respected academic scholars found that “college diversity programs fail to raise standards” and that “a majority of faculty members and administrators recognize this when speaking anonymously.”
This study by Stanley Rothman, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Neil Nevitte found that “of those who think that preferences have some impact on academic standards those believing it negative exceed those believing it positive by 15 to 1.”
Poll after poll over the years has shown that most faculty members and most students are opposed to double standards in college admissions. Yet professors who will come out publicly and say what they say privately in these polls are as rare as hen’s teeth.
Such two-faced talk is pervasive in academia and elsewhere. A few years ago, in Berkeley, there was a big fight over whether a faculty vote on affirmative action would be by secret ballot or open vote. Both sides knew that the result of a secret ballot would be the direct opposite of the result in a public vote at a faculty meeting.
When any policy can only be defended by lies and duplicity, there is something fundamentally wrong with that policy. Virtually every argument in favor of affirmative action is demonstrably false. It is the grand fraud of our time.
The need for “role models” of the same race or sex is a key dogma behind affirmative action in hiring black or female professors. But a recent study titled “Increasing Faculty Diversity” found “no empirical evidence to support the belief that same-sex, same-ethnicity role models are any more effective than white male role models.”
The related notion that a certain “critical mass” of black students is needed on a given campus, in order that these students can feel comfortable enough to do their best, has become dogma without a speck of evidence being offered or asked for. Such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
Without affirmative action, its advocates claim, few black students would be able to get into college. In reality, there are today more black students in the University of California system and in the University of Texas system than there were before these systems ended affirmative action.
These black students are simply distributed differently within both systems — no longer being mismatched with institutions whose standards they don’t meet. They now have a better chance of graduating.
What of the idea that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty and is needed to continue that rise? A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 — that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation — than in the more than 40 years since then. This trend continued in the 1960s, at a slower pace. The decade of the 1970s — the first affirmative action decade — saw virtually no change in the poverty rate among blacks.
In other words, most blacks lifted themselves out of poverty but liberal politicians and black “leaders” have claimed credit. One side effect is that many whites wonder why blacks cannot lift themselves out of poverty like other groups, when that is in fact what most blacks have done.
Affirmative action is great for black millionaires but it has done little or nothing for most people in the ghetto. Most minority business owners who get preferences in government contracts have net worths of more than one million dollars.
One of the big barriers to any rational discussion of affirmative action is that many of those who are for or against it are for or against the theory or the rationales behind group preferences and quotas. As for facts, the defenders simply lie.
_____________________
“Affirmative Action” and College Graduation Rates
by Thomas Sowell (June 4, 2002)
Some thought that racial preferences and quotas — “affirmative action” — in university admissions decisions were on their way out after they were banned by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas and by Proposition 209 in California. However, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is all right for the University of Michigan to use racial factors in determining whom to admit to their law school.
The next stop is obviously the Supreme Court of the United States. How that case will turn out is anybody’s guess. The Supreme Court has gone back and forth on racial quota cases over the years. Often there have been changing 5 to 4 decisions from one case to the next and shifting majorities for different portions of a given decision. The trumpet has been making a very uncertain sound for a very long time.
There may be more of the same this time, with the High Court trying to square the circle or split the difference, and ending up with five votes for a ruling based on nothing more than a need to get five votes. In other words, the whole issue is unlikely to be resolved on Constitutional principles and more likely to be left a festering sore, for the sake of expediency.
When racial preferences were ended in California, there was much hysteria in the media, with dire predictions that blacks would be kept out of higher education. Just recently, with much less publicity, the fact has come out that there are now more black students in the University of California system than there were when racial preferences and quotas were in effect. The same is true in the University of Texas system.
What has happened is that black students have redistributed themselves within both these state university systems. There are no longer as many blacks attending the respective flagship universities in these systems, but they are attending other institutions whose normal standards they meet, instead of being overmatched and flunking out of more prestigious institutions.
A book by former university presidents William Bowen (Princeton) and Derek Bok (Harvard) had made a misleading case for affirmative action that the media have hailed as definitive. Bowen and Bok claim that the mismatching of black students under affirmative action has not produced the dire results predicted by critics. Their evidence? Black students graduate at higher rates at a particular set of elite institutions that Bowen and Bok have chosen to study than at lower ranked institutions in their study.
The real issue, however, is not how highly ranked the institutions are, but how big the racial difference in admissions standards has been. This they never tell us, despite mountains of statistics on everything else. From other studies, however, it is clear that racial differences in SAT scores, for example, are much smaller at Harvard (95 points) than at Duke (184 points) or Rice (271 points).
In other words, where the racial preferences in admissions are not as great, the differences in graduation rates are not as great. The critics of affirmative action were right: Racial preferences reduce the prospects of black students graduating. Other data tell the same story.
Compare racial preferences in Colorado, for example. At the flagship University of Colorado at Boulder, test score differences between black and white students have been more than 200 points — and only 39 percent of the black students graduated, compared to 72 percent of white students. Meanwhile, at the University of Colorado at Denver, where the SAT score difference was a negligible 30 points, there was also a negligible difference in graduation rates — 50 percent for blacks and 48 percent for whites.
In short, it is not the relative rankings of the institutions but the racial differential in admissions standards that has been crucial. You are not doing anybody a favor by sending them where they are more likely to fail, rather than where they are more likely to succeed. Critics of racial preferences and quotas have been saying that for more than 30 years, and now the data back them up — which may be why you don’t hear much about those data.
None of this should be relevant to the question before the Supreme Court, which is whether the 14th Amendment’s requirement of “equal protection” for all Americans is trumped by the magic word “diversity.”
Smegmulation
Here’s more criticism of Sarbanes-Oxley, it includes some testimony from one of my favorite congressmen, Ron Paul:
Criticism
Congressman Ron Paul and others contend that SOX was an unnecessary and costly government intrusion into corporate management that places U.S. corporations at a competitive disadvantage with foreign firms, driving businesses out of the United States. In an April 14, 2005 speech before the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul stated, “These regulations are damaging American capital markets by providing an incentive for small US firms and foreign firms to deregister from US stock exchanges. According to a study by the prestigious Wharton Business School, the number of American companies deregistering from public stock exchanges nearly tripled during the year after Sarbanes-Oxley became law, while the New York Stock Exchange had only 10 new foreign listings in all of 2004. The reluctance of small businesses and foreign firms to register on American stock exchanges is easily understood when one considers the costs Sarbanes-Oxley imposes on businesses. According to a survey by Korn/Ferry International, Sarbanes-Oxley cost Fortune 500 companies an average of $5.1 million in compliance expenses in 2004, while a study by the law firm of Foley and Lardner found the Act increased costs associated with being a publicly held company by 130 percent.” [33]
In a February 29, 2008 opinion column for WorldNetDaily, Ilana Mercer wrote, “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, courtesy of the Republican Party, cost American companies upwards of $1.2 trillion. The capital flight it initiated caused the London Stock Exchange to become the new hub for capital markets.” [34]
A research study published by Joseph Piotroski of Stanford University and Suraj Srinivasan of Harvard Business School titled “Regulation and Bonding: Sarbanes Oxley Act and the Flow of International Listings” in the Journal of Accounting Research in 2008 found that following the act’s passage, smaller international companies were more likely to list in stock exchanges in the U.K. rather than U.S. stock exchanges.[35]
In November 2008, Newt Gingrich and co-author David W. Kralik called on Congress to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley.[36]
A December 21, 2008 Wall St. Journal editorial stated, “The new laws and regulations have neither prevented frauds nor instituted fairness. But they have managed to kill the creation of new public companies in the U.S., cripple the venture capital business, and damage entrepreneurship. According to the National Venture Capital Association, in all of 2008 there have been just six companies that have gone public. Compare that with 269 IPOs in 1999, 272 in 1996, and 365 in 1986. Faced with crushing reporting costs if they go public, new companies are instead selling themselves to big, existing corporations. For the last four years it has seemed that every new business plan in Silicon Valley has ended with the statement ‘And then we sell to Google.’ The venture capital industry is now underwater, paying out less than it is taking in. Small potential shareholders are denied access to future gains. Power is being ever more centralized in big, established companies. For all of this, we can first thank Sarbanes-Oxley. Cooked up in the wake of accounting scandals earlier this decade, it has essentially killed the creation of new public companies in America, hamstrung the NYSE and Nasdaq (while making the London Stock Exchange rich), and cost U.S. industry more than $200 billion by some estimates.” [37]
Economic Viagra
Instead, I propose the following 21-point plan, on a wide range of issues that will make America more competitive in the global economy, and drive growth in the private sector- where real economic growth occurs. In addition, my plan will prevent foolish expenditures that will hurt productivity, and increase unemployment. I would like all of your input on this. Tell me where I’ve got it right, what is wrong, and anything I left out. Here goes:
*————————-———–*
THE DANNY B ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN
*————————-———–*
1. Give Working Families Tax Relief:
Make the tax code fairer and friendlier for the middle-class by boosting the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000 per child to put more money back in the pockets of working families.
2. Provide Tax Relief So American Businesses Create More Jobs:
Increase the Section 179 limits that allow small businesses to expense new equipment, and extend bonus depreciation for an additional year and increase its value so that 75% of equipment costs can be deducted in the first year. Provide net operating loss relief for all employers by allowing all employers to “carry-back” losses for three years (five years for small businesses). In addition, make depreciation tables optional. Businesses should be free to write off capital purchases as quickly as they — not the feds — deem economical.
3. Reduce Corporate Taxes:
America frightens foreign capital by taxing it at the industrial world’s second highest corporate tax rate. At 40 percent (35 federal, plus 5 percent average state and local tax), only Japan’s 40.7 percent combined rate is higher. To become competitive and attract investment, this tax should be no higher than the European Union’s 23.2 percent average.
4. Across the Board Reduction in Income Taxes:
Harvard professor and economist Greg Mankiw points out that recent research confirms that tax cuts have a greater multiplier effect than new spending — more economic bang for the federal buck. We should lower income tax rates by 5% across the board to spur investment, and increase consumption.
We need look no further for evidence that tax cuts spur economic growth than to the effects of the Bush tax cuts of 2003:
In the 2 1/4 years before the 2003 Bush tax cuts, economic growth averaged 1.1% annually; in the three years after it averaged 4% per year, and in 2006 it was 5.6%
According to the government’s establishment survey, in the 36 months since the tax cuts became law, 5.3 million new jobs have been added to the economy. The unemployment rate dropped from 6.1% when the bills were signed to 5.4% at the end of 2004 and 4.6% in 2006, and the rate has gone down for men, women, blacks and Hispanics.
Incomes went up too. As Stephen Moore noted in The Wall Street Journal, “the percentage of Americans earning more than $50,000 a year rose from 40.8% to 44.2%” between 2002 and 2004. As for very wealthy families, the portion of total income “captured by the richest 1%, 5% and 10% of Americans is lower today than in the last year of the Clinton administration.”
President Bush’s personal income, capital gains and dividend tax rate reductions have created economic growth, significantly increased government tax receipts, and reduced the federal deficit by nearly $130 billion. As the New York Times was forced to admit in its front-page headline on July 9, 2006 a “Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Curbs U.S. Deficit.”
5. Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax:
The Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, was created by the Democratic Congress in 1969, in the wake of public uproar over news that 155 people who, despite earning $200,000 or more (or $1.2 million in 2007 dollars), were eligible for tax benefits that resulted in their paying little or no federal income tax.
Since the AMT is not indexed to inflation, the tax has become so bloated and perverse that unless Congress acts quickly, next year the AMT will crash down upon 25 million American taxpayers. If Congress continues to stall, nearly half of all taxpayers earning between $75,000 and $100,000 per year, and more than 7 in 10 taxpayers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 per year will be subjected to the AMT. Worse, if AMT is not repealed, over a quarter of income taxpayers will be subject to the AMT by 2013.
6. Zero Capital Gains Tax:
Immediately suspend the capital gains tax for the next two years on future investments, on the purchase of newly-issued stocks and bonds, and on the sale of real estate properties. Such a tax cut would be a huge incentive to invest in new companies, and to fund the expansion and modernization of old ones, but at a tiny fraction of the cost of an across-the-board cut. It would be a boon for Wall Street, making it that much easier to find buyers for newly issued stocks and bonds. And it would be a snap to administer. If you’ve ever bought stock in a public offering, you’ve seen that the broker’s confirmation slip already denotes this.
It would be cheap, it would be simple, and it would do exactly what the administration claims it wants to do: stimulate new investment to improve productivity and create jobs.
7. Spur Middle Class Saving:
For middle-income families taxes on savings should be eliminated altogether — no tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. This will help to re-capitalize banks and investment firms, and allow a personal safety net for overextended consumers.
8. Adjust IRA Rules to Match an Aging Population:
Repeal mandatory withdrawals from IRA’s at 70 years of age. This will allow senior citizens to continue to accumulate wealth past age 70, as many are living far beyond this age, and their savings should be permitted to age with them.
9. Rescue the Housing Market:
Make all IRA withdrawals tax free if used toward the purchase of a house. In addition, let Americans save up to $10,000 tax-free each year for eventual home purchases. In the name of housing equity, renters also should be allowed to save for security deposits and initial years’ rent. Zeroing Capital Gains tax will also serve to rescue the housing market, as investors with excess stock could trim profits thanks to the decreased tax burden, helping new homeowners and reducing the over-saturation of the housing market.
10. Increase Military Spending to Refurbish and Modernize our Overextended Military:
On the spending front, infrastructure projects should be a high priority. But because infrastructure projects involve engineering, environmental studies, permitting and contracting, they can take a long time to actually boost the economy. Spending to refurbish and modernize our military equipment is urgently needed, and it has a more immediate impact on the economy. A great deal of our armament was damaged or lost in the Middle East, and the rest is long overdue for maintenance.
11. Create Jobs through an “All of the Above” Energy Plan:
Accelerate exploration of new sources of American-made energy and begin implementing an “all of the above” energy strategy by funding basic research in renewables: solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells, stuff we can’t even think of yet, material science, combustion, nuclear reprocessing, and the like.
12. Turbocharge Innovation:
Anyone granted a new patent should be able to enjoy the revenues it generates for five years tax-free. Watch inventors from Google to garages across America trip over themselves to create new products while Uncle Sam leaves them unmolested for half a decade.
13. Offer Special Green Cards to the Planet’s 6.7 Million Non–North American Millionaires:
These high-end Green Cards would go instantly to any successful, law-abiding immigrant who could deposit $1 million in a U.S. bank, open a business, and hire at least five employees. One million such millionaires would pump $1 trillion into America’s economy and create 5 million jobs- increasing consumption and decreasing unemployment.
14. Keep High Skilled Workers in the US:
Immigrants who earn college and advanced degrees must depart soon after graduation, export their hard-earned talents, and begin competing against us. Nonsense! Those who display good behavior should be free to stay here and devote their energies to America’s advancement.
15. Avoid Burdensome Over-Regulation:
Though some reform and oversight of the financial sector is justified, we should avoid imposing over-reactionary regulation that will burden the economy with excessive regulation. Going too far could cripple the entire industry, further tightening the credit markets.
We see now the negative effects of Sarbanes-Oxley, the legislation crafted after the Enron scandal supposed to improve regulatory oversight: The new laws and regulations have neither prevented frauds nor instituted fairness, but instead have managed to kill the creation of new public companies in the U.S., cripple the venture capital business, and damage entrepreneurship. According to the National Venture Capital Association, in all of 2008 there have been just six companies that have gone public. Compare that with 269 IPOs in 1999, 272 in 1996, and 365 in 1986. Faced with crushing reporting costs if they go public, new companies are instead selling themselves to big, existing corporations. Small potential shareholders are denied access to future gains. Power is being ever more centralized in big, established companies. For all of this, we can first thank Sarbanes-Oxley. It has essentially killed the creation of new public companies in America, hamstrung the NYSE and Nasdaq (while making the London Stock Exchange rich), and cost U.S. industry more than $200 billion by some estimates.
16. Preserve the Right to a Secret Ballot:
Washington should not act to virtually impose unions on small business by eliminating the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in the workplace.
Obama has promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act, which would strip workers of the right to vote in secret ballot elections before joining a union, and give the National Labor Relations Board the power to negotiate wages and employment contracts in the event of any dispute.
This takes power from workers and employers, and gives it to unions and government. Unionization is known to be a drag on productivity, and to concentrate industry and kill entrepreneurship. Unions often offer resistance to new work processes that might increase efficiency. Unions also spend a lot of time trying to work in featherbedding provisions to their contracts—forcing companies to use more people than are needed for a given job, putting a drag on average productivity. Think of all those GM workers being paid to sit in warehouses, waiting for a job to open up, and a government to bail them out. We should encourage efficiency, and prevent unions from extracting the profits from businesses and discouraging economic growth.
17. No Income Tax-Credits- AKA Welfare Checks:
Additional credits to tax filers paying nothing in taxes would amount to about $33 billion per year and constitute almost 15% of the total cost of Obama’s tax plan (including extension of current rates). He would add about 24 million new net-recipients of IRS money. In fact, he would greatly shift the burden to the rich, even though the tax code is already highly progressive. Of course, higher taxes on the successful reduce their incentive to work and invest. This kind of redistribution can only be a drag on growth.
18. No Raising the Minimum Wage:
Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and index it for inflation, despite overwhelming evidence that a higher minimum wage causes unemployment among the low-skilled workers it aims to help. Minimum wages also favor established business over start-ups, hurting entrepreneurship and growth.
19. Limited Public Works Spending:
Obama also advocates “Transitional jobs” which are government funded jobs for people who can’t find employment. “Transitional jobs” is just a new name for a public works scheme. Public works programs compete with private industry but are much less efficient, so they are well known to kill economic growth. They are based on the old “broken window fallacy” in which any kind of make-work is better than no work. In fact, as Frederic Bastiat pointed out, there is “what is seen” and there is “what is not seen.” When government tells you they created so many thousand of jobs with their program – that is what is seen. All those private sector jobs which were killed – they are what is not seen.
20. No Earmarks, or Vested Interests:
Most importantly no extra spending and no earmarks. All new spending projects should be selected by the responsible federal agency according to published criteria, not by congresspersons and senators based upon favors and politics.
21. An Overall Reduction in Spending
A one percent reduction in government spending is not too much to ask, especially considering the scope of the proposed tax cuts. State budgets are being cut left and right. Family budgets have definitely received a belt tightening. It is time for the federal government to start acting like we are in a recession and cut out the fat from its bureaucracy.
Some Other Ideas:
Offer tax credits for going to college, or training program. Many jobs have been and will be lost and may not be coming back. Colleges and retraining programs should be made more affordable to help to reeducate America’s workers for the jobs of tomorrow.
Encourage personal health savings accounts.
Simplify the tax code.
More tort reform to discourage frivolous lawsuits.
Legalize drugs and prostitution and free up money on the war on drugs and the nonviolent drug offenders clogging 30% of our prisons.
Sign free trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea to increase exports.
Legalize gay marriage and watch the the flower, catering and dj businesses soar 
Phew! The End. 
The law of unintended consequences.
Here’s the article describing Bush’s support for the measure, which to his credit, targets states where unemployment is high, not just a blanket measure to include states where unemployment remains low or moderate. The article is followed by a more thoughtful explanation of why Unemployment does not stimulate the economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Because of the tight job market, the White House says President George W. Bush would sign legislation pending in Congress to further extend unemployment benefits.
The Senate this week is expected to take up a bill already passed by the House that would extend unemployment insurance for those whose benefits have run out. The Senate vote could occur as early as Thursday evening and would require support from 60 senators to pass…
The House bill would provide seven additional weeks of payments to those who have exhausted their benefits. Those in states where the unemployment rate is above 6 percent would be entitled to an additional 13 weeks above the 26 weeks of regular benefits. The benefit checks average about $300 a week nationwide.
Without the legislation, the authors say, 1.1 million people will have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits by the end of the year.
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Extended unemployment insurance benefits pro vide little economic stimulus. The models that claim that unemployment benefits strongly stimu late the economy ignore the effect of UI in increas ing unemployment and overestimate the amount that finances new consumption. Consequently, they overstate the economic stimulus that extended UI benefits provide.
A comprehensive model incorporating the com plete effects of extended UI benefits shows the cur rent 13-week extended benefits program provides little “bang for the buck.” It increases GDP by only $0.25 per dollar spent. Increasing the duration of UI benefits by seven more weeks to 46 weeks would hurt the economy, reducing the already modest effect on GDP to $0.17 per dollar spent.
People respond to incentives. Paying workers not to work does not stimulate the economy. Because the increased benefits will most likely be financed by debt, they simply transfer resources from future taxpayers to UI recipients. The lost production resulting from increased unemployment diminishes the effect of this spending, resulting in a negative return. Receiving less GDP than is spent cannot sus tain economic growth.
Sound public policy reasons exist to extend unemployment insurance benefits. Congress has many humanitarian justifications for doing so. Many employees have been out of work for over six months because they cannot find new jobs, not for lack of effort. Many families receiving extended benefits face dire financial circumstances. If Con gress chooses to extend unemployment benefits, it should do so because extended benefits are a humanitarian policy. Congress should not, how ever, expect extended UI benefits to improve the economy.
–James Sherk is Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy and Karen A. Campbell, Ph.D., is Policy Analyst in Macro economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
