Obama Needs a Full-Employment Policy

By Matthew Rothschild, November 6, 2009

The new unemployment figures are a stinging indictment of the Obama economic policy.

Standing now at 10.2 percent, the highest in 26 years, the rate is much worse than Obama’s advisers predicted.

And their song is getting tiresome.

They keep singing that the economy would be much worse off without the $700 billion stimulus.

But that’s no solace to the more than 15 million people who are out of work today.

You can’t tell a guy who got laid off that it could have been much worse for him? What are you going to say: You could have been doubly laid off?

You can’t tell someone who just lost her home that it could have been much worse for her.

It already is much worse for her.

And to keep saying that we’re saving or creating 3.5 million jobs, as the Administration contends, is no solace either when so many more people are out of work.

Until Obama makes a commitment to a full-employment recovery package, he’s failing to meet the crisis at hand.

Several of the best progressive economists in the country—including Dean Baker, James Galbraith, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz—warned Obama that he was coming in way too low with his original stimulus package. They predicted that unemployment would surpass 10 percent. Obama ignored them, and now he and his advisers claim that no one could have predicted it would be this bad.

Wrong.

It’s poor economics and poor morals to design a recovery package that leaves so many people unemployed.

And it’s suicidal politics.

With unemployment this high, the voters are likely to take more revenge on the Democrats a year from now.

Comments

Excellent post, Bix12!

You point out two very salient points:

1) The government CAN be a force for good. THIS is what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they spoke of providing for the common good. The overwhelming majority of fiscal conservatives don't have a problem with increased taxes to support such projects. (Disclaimer: I am an engineer and would benefit from more work in these lean times.)

2) Hussein Hopenchange has no intention of improving infrastructure PRECISELY because he wants higher unemployment. He wants more people totally dependent on a welfare check. He wants more people dependent on government-run healthcare. (Think of all the additional people dependent on government healthcare when more bridges collapse, when drinking water becomes contaminated, when apartments crumble in disrepair.

"Fundamental change" doesn't happen without DESTROYING infrastructure, not fixing it!

Submitted by greg morris on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 10:41pm.

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