If there’s one thing President Obama has sufficiently communicated in the past few days, it’s that we should “Pass this bill.” He has also gone on to suggest that this is a good bill because it contains elements that both Republicans and Democrats like. That’s not exactly a very good argument.
While the tax cuts seem to be pretty good, it’s the spending that annoys me. Why? Besides the fact that we’re broke, it’s because of where the spending is being done. President Obama has said that this bill will create construction projects and put teachers back in the classroom. These are horrible ways to jumpstart the economy. It probably will get some people back to work… for a while.
Here’s the thing about these jobs. A new road doesn’t generate work once it’s done. We hire a handful of people to work on these projects that Obama is talking about and then they’re back where they were once the jobs are done. We can pay the salary of a group of teachers to get them back in the classroom this year, but where does that put those teachers once the funds are gone? They’re back to where they were.
Now it’s true that the people hired for these jobs will spend the money they earn and this will help out other businesses. The problem with this is that it will only go so far. It also begins to slow down. Let’s say we pay a construction worker $100 for a job in an economy where there isn’t much going on in private construction. This means this worker doesn’t really know when his/her next job is and probably doesn’t have much hope that it’ll be very soon. So that $100 goes into the pocket of the worker but it’s going to be slow leaving the pocket. They need to make sure it lasts until the next job.
Then, in a poor economy, the money they spend is going to be slow leaving the pockets of the people who receive it because they need to make sure they have cash on hand when they have to pay employees and other bills. It’s hardly getting the wheels of the economy going. When the funds of these workers run out completely, we’re back at square one.
Then there’s the issue of having this thing paid for. President Obama has said time and time again that this bill will be paid for. It’s not. At least not yet. The bill requires the deficit super committee to find places to cut to free up funds for it. That’s a committee that already has enough on their plate. Then we have to ask what will get cut to pay for this. It’s so vague, it’s completely unacceptable.
It reminds me of the last Indiana Jones film. After saying time and time again that they were writing for the right script, they release Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which was completely horrible. The Obama plan is a lot like this. After waiting all this time saying that a plan is coming, this is what Obama puts out there? Come on! Time to go back to the drawing board.
My big concern (well, besides that this might get passed) is that if this is shot down, Obama will go to this bill in the upcoming election and point out how Republican candidates opposed this bill and, therefore, opposed tax cuts and putting people back to work. Sadly, some people will probably fall for that one.
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