Eric Cantor: Hey, Maybe Obama Should Stop Killing Jobs Before Wasting More Money Trying To Create Them

I like this piece mostly because it includes something I've suggested...go after the out of control regulatory state.

In fact, the Obama administration’s anti-business, hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that “we want to make it harder to create jobs.” There is no other conclusion for policies such as the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, including the “Transport Rule,” which could eliminate thousands of jobs, or the ozone regulation that would cost upward of $1 trillion and millions of jobs in the construction industry over the next decade. The administration’s new maximum achievable control technology standards for cement are expected to affect nearly 100 cement plants, setting over-the-top requirements resulting in increased costs and possibly thousands of jobs being offshored. There is the president’s silence as the National Labor Relations Board seeks to prevent Boeing from opening a plant in South Carolina that would create thousands of jobs. Such behavior, coupled with the president’s insistence on raising the top tax rate paid by individuals and small businesses, has resulted in a lag in growth that has added to the debt crisis, contributing to our nation’s credit downgrade.

Obviously we have to go after spending but it's not as easy as it sounds. Have you ever seen a politician get asked a very basic question, "you say you want to cut spending so which three specific programs would you cut?". They almost never have a good answer for that because "cutting spending" is popular in theory but cutting a specific program? Not as much. There's usually some sob story Democrats (and lots of Republicans) will drag out to show how mean a particular cut is.

If they do name a program, it's often a small but obnoxious one. Remember McCain going on about federally funded studies about bears or something during the 08 campaign? Funny line and a worthy goal but we're not going to balance the budget cutting goofy studies. It also gives too many voters the impression we are just a few "waste, fraud, abuse and foreign aid" cuts away from balancing the budget.

Reducing regulations is also easier to connect to job creation. It's hard for people to get the idea that out of control government spending is costing jobs (especially given the Keynsian bias of the media) but you can usually show how the cost of
some stupid regulation costs actual jobs.

Plus there's the quaint notion of freedom and limited government too. There are still people who would prefer not to have government regulators involved in nearly every aspect of their lives and business. At least I hope so.

It seems this is how the GOP plans to combat Obama's designed to be rejected "jobs speech" he plans on giving once he gets back from vacation.

In lieu of more wasteful stimulus spending, we should go all-in on ways to invigorate growth. The Congressional Budget Office has found that for every one-tenth of 1 percent of additional economic growth, the budget deficit is narrowed by nearly $300 billion. Economic growth will help reduce the deficit and get people back to work.

That is why this fall the Republican Party will pursue a legislative agenda that boosts economic growth through reducing the regulatory and tax burden. We will make sure that Washington policies are less restrictive to businesses small and large. Our goals include repealing the “3 percent withholding rule,” which serves as an effective tax increase on those who do business with the government, and overturning the EPA’s proposed regulations that inhibit jobs in areas as varied as cement and farm dust. We plan to prevent the NLRB from inhibiting where a business chooses to create jobs. We well know that the Republican majority was not elected to raise taxes or take more money out of the pockets of hardworking families and business people. We were elected to change the way Washington does business and spends money.

Nothing is going to come of this with the Democrats in charge of the Senate and Obama in the White House but clearly the battle lines are being drawn for November 2012. Changing the terms of debate to cutting spending is a good thing but to get out of this economic crisis, we're going to need economic growth and a lot of it. It's good to see the GOP preparing that battlefield.

posted by DrewM. at 09:33 AM

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