Aren’t we all clueless about jobs (“Clueless About Jobs,” Editorial, July 9)?
After all, if mankind could manage the economy, the Soviet Union would still be in business.
There is no magic bullet for the economy, which operates in a sphere beyond our comprehension.
A wise man once said that man knows nothing, and that is the highest degree of human wisdom. This is particularly true regarding the economy.
Gary Schwartz
Fort Lee, NJ
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White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stated that “most people do not sit around the kitchen table and analyze the GDP and unemployment numbers.”
Where does he get this logic? Anyone who can make statements like this is probably employed and getting paid handsomely.
I’ve sat at many a table where folks are concerned about jobs and their futures. What they are not interested in is President Obama’s welfare, unemployment checks or food stamps.
Michael Sara
Matawan, NJ
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It seems the Republican Party is clueless about how to resolve our economic woes, problems it was largely instrumental in creating.
Your naive editorial implies Republicans have all the right solutions to our current economic plight.
Even though trickle-down economics has been a failure over the last 30 years except for the wealthy, the GOP still pushes permanent tax cuts for the rich.
Republican economic policies show that the party really doesn’t care about the increased suffering endured by the majority middle class and poor.
Does America’s salvation, economically and spiritually, reside in the necessity to make the rich minority richer so the rest of society can prosper?
P. Whiteley Sr.
Louisville, Ky.
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The nation is $14 trillion in debt, and this slippery slope will cost millions of jobs. Yet Obama’s strategy is as hopeless as waving a magic wand.
Either Obama has something up his sleeve, like a crafty Chicago plot, or he is totally stupid.
He wants another term and to go down in history as the greatest American president.
You said it best — he is clueless.
Richard Bucco
Bloomfield, NJ
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The way to increase employment and improve the economy is basic and universal — cut taxes, corporate and personal, and remove excessive regulations to allow businesses to expand and hire more people.
JFK called for it in the 1960s, and it worked. President Reagan did it in the 1980s, and it worked then, too, creating some 20 million jobs.
But the socialist-minded Democrats, continuing to murmur about “tax cuts for the rich,” never seem to understand that to help the poor you can’t just redistribute wealth; you have to create more wealth.
D. Edwards
Brooklyn
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Unemployment’s still high, and the Republican solution is to slash spending and taxes.
Sadly, the most recent figures show that it’s public-sector jobs that are being lost.
Slashing government spending will mean more, not less, unemployment.
And as the Bush tax cuts demonstrated, tax cuts at this level do not increase growth and jobs.
The “terrible” stimulus wasn’t so terrible. It probably helped stop the slide.
Steven Chinn
Manhattan
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Congress and the president seem to have difficulty in negotiating our debt.
I have a modest proposal: more unemployment.
Let’s fire the entire federal Education Department, the EPA, the NLRB and the FDA.
I’m sure other agencies would benefit from having no employees.
But do not fire the TSA. Make Janet Napolitano send the entire TSA to Libya to fight terrorists. Our airstrips here would be much safer.
Bob Joyce
College Point