It’s hard to see how the news could be any grimmer for Labor Day 2011: no net new jobs created in August, the first time since 1945 that’s happened. The unemployment rate of 9.1 percent — 16.7 percent among blacks — is unlikely to dip as low as 8 percent for at least the next year. Millions have stopped looking for work, consumer confidence is at rock bottom, and the stock market is having another nervous breakdown.
Plus, the fairy tale of government-fostered “green jobs” just blew up. The politically connected California solar-panel maker Solyndra, which got more than half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Obama stimulus, declared bankruptcy last week — taking with it more than 1,000 jobs and a boatload of taxpayer money.
But have no fear: President Obama on Thursday will give yet another “major speech” on the economy as he once again “pivots” to jobs.
But he’s expected to give us nothing but his usual litany of failed nostrums, including more green technology, more stimulus, more infrastructure “investment,” more nickel-and-dime tax credits and extending the 2 percent “payroll tax” cut. Save your breath, Mr. President.
The fact is, this administration is as bankrupt as Solyndra. Its Keynesian bromides have failed, and it’s pretty much run through the available supply of academic eggheads that will give it the economic advice it wants to hear.
True, in the face of the disastrous jobs report, Obama on Friday suddenly reined in the Environmental Protection Agency, forcing commissar Lisa Jackson to rescind (for now) a blizzard of vindictive new rules that would have crippled the nation’s coal-fired power plants and sent electricity prices soaring.
Naturally, such common sense has enraged environmentalists. But will Obama be consistent, and also approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from the Canadian oil-sand fields in Alberta to refineries in the Midwest and the Gulf Coast?
Eco-nuts including actress Daryl Hannah protested outside the White House over the pipeline; they’d rather we remain dependent on Saudi Arabia and Venezuela than import oil from a friendly neighbor — and are threatening to withdraw their support from Obama if he OKs it.
Obama is still waffling, promising a decision by year’s end. Why not say yes today — or, better yet, announce the decision during Thursday’s speech?
If the president really wants to jump-start the economy, he should also lift his de facto ban on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which would put thousands back to work from Florida to Texas. Indeed, if he’s serious about jobs, he’ll promise to halt all new regulation.
Oh, and stop holding up those free-trade treaties because the labor unions don’t like ’em.
And if he really wants to kick-start the economy, he should call for a radical revision of the tax system: Flatten the rates for everybody (including corporations), eliminate all or most deductions and tax credits and make everyone pay at least something, and Americans will move billions of dollars from less-productive tax shelters to job-creating investments.
In short, this is Barack Obama’s moment. For once, one of his big speeches actually needs to have specific proposals leading to practical, beneficial results.
Don’t hold your breath. On jobs, the president has pivoted more than the prima ballerina in Swan Lake, and literally has nothing to show for it even after more than two years of optimistic promises.
His signature push was for the albatross of ObamaCare, whose baleful economic effects haven’t even fully kicked in yet. Until its fate is decided, either at the ballot box or by the Supreme Court, businesses will stay frozen, unable to gauge the true cost of new hiring.
It’s hard to paint a pretty face on zero jobs growth and new monthly unemployment claims of more than 4000,000. Economists may argue about whether we’re heading for a double-dip recession, but ordinary Americans know the first recession never really ended.
And yet Obama has doggedly pursued a faculty-lounge fantasy of borrowed pump-priming and imaginary technology in the face of overwhelming evidence that no amount of governmental borrowing, green jobs and stimulus is going to pull us out of this tailspin.
But there’s at least one business that’s booming: state lotteries. Seventeen states report all-time records as desperate citizens queue up to hand the government even more of their money in the hope that a dollar and a dream will free them from the consequences of the 2008 election.
Alas, the only thing that’s going to do that is the next election.