President Barack Obama and Gov. Sam Brownback have one big thing in common: both agree that task number one is job creation. They share this priority with politicians of every stripe — and most of America’s voters.
They also share a problem: neither man knows how to jazz up the economy so that it makes more jobs than there are unemployed workers.
The recipes they have tried failed. Unemployment shot up like a rocket in the last year of the Bush administration when the credit crisis sent the world economy into a tailspin. President Bush responded by pumping billions into the bank bailout program. President Obama followed with a huge stimulus program that Congress passed.
Today, Bush Republicans and Obama Democrats say things would be much worse if they had not taken these pump-priming steps. On the positive side, the economy is rising. The recession didn’t turn into a depression. Jobs are being created. The other side of the coin is that unemployment still is over 9 percent and prospects remain dim.
There is, however, no consensus on what should be done to speed things up. Quite the contrary. Republicans insist that the way to renewed economic growth is to continue to cut government back, killing more government jobs. Democrats say a job is a job whether in the public sector or the private sector and advocate spending more on education, research and public infrastructure. Not only will jobs be created but the economy will be strengthened and resume its growth, they argue.
No, respond the Republicans. The path to prosperity lies in cutting taxes to provide more capital to invest in job-creating businesses and reducing government regulations.
Both make valid points. They should paste their gold stars on their debate charts — and then get together and agree on a way forward that puts a premium on cooperation and puts an end to the I’ll-never-bend absolutism that keeps the national economy dead in its tracks.
— Emerson Lynn,jr.
