Economic Growth Without Wealth Creation

President Obama has announced that he is going to hold a “job summit” next month. Translated, the White House will pump smoke into a room full of mirrors and a not-so-randomly selected group of economic movers and shakers will talk about creating jobs. Honestly, this White House holding a job summit, if it is about creating private sector jobs, is like having Tehran host a human rights summit or Big Bird chair a meeting of the society of those that hate the color yellow.

Where was unemployment when he took office? Where was it when the stimulus was passed? Where is it now? How many net jobs have been lost in the private sector since January, or since the stimulus kicked in even? What steps have really been taken other than shifting money from taxpayers to non-taxpayers?

Well let’s see, some cars have been destroyed. More bureaucracy has been created. More government jobs have been created. Failing companies have been given a bunch of taxpayer dollars. Foreign countries continue to receive taxpayer dollars. Illegal immigrants continue to take taxpayer dollars. Forget give them the wealth. How about less wealth confiscation and more wealth creation (I know, I know, that’s what the movement to a green economy is all about).

In a Politico write up about Obama’s job summit announcement, Mike Allen and Eamon Javers claim that “The problem for Obama is two-fold. There is very little any president can do to force immediate improvements in the economy, even though he’ll get blame if it doesn’t pick up. And now that the stimulus package has been approved, he has very few other tools in his arsenal to give the economy a jolt.”

The only way this statement, which echoes a belief held by many, can possibly make any sense is if one or a combination of the following two things is true:

1) If immediate means now this minute (as in yesterday).
2) If they are only looking for answers amongst an extremely politically constrained group of options.

The whole debate really, about how to improve the economy, whether it is in the short term or the long term, is just comical. There is no big secret to revitalizing the economy and creating jobs. Not at least if that is truly your desire.

But it is not the left’s desire. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the liberal Democrats in this country desire economic growth about as much as someone who refuses to get wet desires to learn how to swim.

In his statement announcing the job summit, the President said that “We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.” He also noted, “It’s important that we don’t make any ill-considered decisions, even with the best of intentions, particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it’s just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work.”

Ah, there’s nothing quite like populist rhetoric served up noncommittally. Throwing in a few qualifiers is always a good idea. The question is what are the qualifiers referring to? When he uses the words responsible and demonstrably and he talks of ill-considered decisions, is he simply saying we have to be careful not to spend more of your money? Or, is he alluding to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats are unwilling to take the effective steps that many, if not the majority of Americans, would like to see our leaders take as our country struggles mightily to keep its head above water?

Some would say the intentions of the Obama administration are to insure that a crisis happens, much less do anything to avert it, and so far there hasn’t been much to point to that would invalidate this argument.

Remember this is an administration that seems to be more interested in Brazilian oil exploration than drilling for oil here.

Given that we are $12 trillion dollars in debt, have all kinds of solvency issues at the state and local levels, have serious currency concerns, have over 15% real unemployment; you’d think maybe we’d want to tap some of that oil -- and natural gas. For that matter, you’d think we’d want to get on with the business of building some nuclear power plants. The French certainly don’t seem to have a problem with them. A few oil refineries wouldn’t hurt either.

There is federal land that could be privatized, a ridiculously overbearing regulatory structure that could be made less antagonistic to business, capital gains taxes that could be cut, a flat tax that could be implemented -- the President and Congress could stop this ridiculous attempt to take over our health care system and burden us further with cap and trade. There is indeed much that can be done. It is not at all a question of can do, it is a matter of will do. And it doesn’t all rest on the shoulders of liberal Democratic politicians. They are simply the head of the liberal snake.

The yoke that has been placed around the neck of the American free-market system by the federal government and the statists that support it is the principal reason we are in this mess to begin with; and Barack Obama’s “we are really trying talk”, even without the qualifiers, isn’t going to change the fact that an institution which cares more about minnows than American farmers, really can’t care very much.