Today’s Globe has an editorial promoting the idea of tax incentives for private industry that would promote job creation. And yesterdays New York Times featured a piece by Paul Krugman calling for further federal spending to promote job creation. With unemployment at ten percent plus, and Wall Street begining to show robust profits and even more robust compensation packages the jobs situation cries out for attention. It will not be possible to call what we are going through a “recovery” until people are able to find work.
As we sift through the many different policy prescriptions that are forthcoming on the jobs situation my own quick observation is that we should start by avoiding tax policies that create a disincentive for employment. Piling further tax increases on employers is exactly the wrong idea at a time when they are not inclined to add employees. And I say that recognizing that many programs funded by payroll based taxes are in difficulty. We need to look at what impacts these payroll based taxes are having, and actually work to create, in the short term, additional tax incentives to aid in job creation. If the federal stimulus had concentrated more of its heft towards job creation I think it would have been a substantially better package. There are no easy answers, but promoting tax policies that penalize employers for adding workers will only make a bad situation worse.
Bill Manzi.com 
we need a 21st century WPA but too bad all those tiny brained loons will call it socialism.
LikeLike
Your Honor,
As a ‘tiny brained loon’ let me again congratulate you on returning from your moonbat position on taxes and thinking in the right.er….correct direction.
How’s this for logic for a tiny brained loon?
10.2 possibly as high as 20% are unemployed. The silver lining here is that 80% to 90% are still working. What if we cut personal taxes on everyone working and let them help spend our way out of the recession? We also stop hammering on the ‘wealthy’ and provide tax relief to encourage investment that would also create jobs. That’s probably too extreme for you. But, what do you think?
jgodsey: WPA curred nothing. We were in recession from 1929 through 1939. It was WWII that brought us out of recession.
Tiny Brained Loon.
Jules
LikeLike
Mr. Trickle Down:
What happens to the debt that you’re so concerned about when you cut still more taxes? And how to you ensure that the money will be spent, and not applied to other personal debt? Why do you think cutting taxes on the wealthy will create jobs here?
WPA / CCC and the rest of the New Deal alphabet soup kept peoples head above water. Unemployment was cut in half by 1938. Only when the more conservative elements convinced Roosevelt that he had to stop spending and balance the budget to cure the “debt” problem (sound familiar?) did the economy dip into recession again, exactly as Keynesian theory predicted.
Think of WWII as a massive Federal Stimulus program with 4 letters instead of the usual three.
We are in this situation because capital has moved jobs offshore and concentrated the countries wealth at the very top. The imbalance will become more extreme as time goes on unless that wealth is moved back down to the middle / lower class.
If you’re happy continuing to fund the caviar dreams of the wealthy, keep thinking and voting Republican (or Blue Dog).
-FM
LikeLike
Hi Fred,
Nice Red Book revisionist history.
Jules
LikeLike
The trickle down theory just plain doesn’t work anymore. When the taxes were cut for the rich during the Bush administration companies did in fact create jobs–in other countries not ours. They got huge tax incentives to create job but there was no stipulation that those jobs had to be created in the this country. What a waste! The rich got rich and poor got… well everyone knows what everyone else got and that was nothing.
LikeLike
Jules:
Where do you get your history? Geezus. Read a book, will you?
This one might help.
-FM
LikeLike
Cripes Fred, When the revisionism doesn’t come from Fox, it’s just not true! When will YOU learn?!
LikeLike
Summer:
Only a slight correction: trickle down didn’t work PERIOD. EVER. It did what I believe it was designed to do, however: concentrate wealth at the top, and make people fearful of an ever decreasing job market. Fearful people are easier to control.
Jim:
I have many learning disabilities, this is just one. 😉
-FM
LikeLike
Fred,
You want me to read a 432 page book?
I personally think we have entered into a he said she said round robins with your red book allies. Moto, “tax cut for the rich.”
We get no where.
Jules
LikeLike
To my left wing friends,
How would you resolve the jobs issue?
I bet I get no reasonable answer.
Jules
LikeLike
Jules:
You wouldn’t get one, because you can’t be bothered to read. Why waste our time?
😉
-FM
LikeLike
Jules,
I’m all for however Fred would resolve it…that’s a reasonable answer, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Jim,
I’m right, you guys never answered. Actually you can’t.
Jules
LikeLike
Jules:
Was Ronald Reagan wrong in thinking that deficits don’t matter?
Yes, or no?
-FM
LikeLike
Jules:
However, what I could give you won’t fit in this box. My view on the jobs situation is this: as long as we allow essentially unrestricted imports, face limits to our exports, allow our own multinational corporations tax breaks to outsource domestic jobs while avoiding import duties on products reimported, and allow currency manipulation that inhibits any of the supposed benefits of free trade, any attempt to restart the jobs engine with the small half measures I’ve heard up to now is akin to bailing the boat while someone is still drilling holes in the hull.
I think we (at least we in the working class) are in an economic war for our own survival. I think that protectionism is on the horizon. I’m a bit of an extremist on these topics, but I think the jobless situation will have to get much, much worse (than the 20% or so it’s really at right now), before the political will from the working class is enough to fight the entrenched interests arrayed against us. This Great Recession may only be the beginning: now that it’s happened, things may actually happen a lot faster than even I think.
Or maybe I’ve been reading too much Joe Bageant lately.
The real question to me is actually not what to do with the jobs situation, that’s too short term. The larger question is how do you design an economy that is stable and sustainable?
-FM
LikeLike
Fred,
You are right, it won’t fit in the blog. You would have to go far back in history to construct a mindless muddle.
However, you do address the issue in your last sentence, except you don’t design an economy, ask the Russians, you get out of the way and let the private sector work its way out of the mess. Now, Fred, the private sector is not perfect. It does get into trouble, but has the where-with-all to work it’s way out. Economies are dynamic. Things don’t come out the way you would like.
Now I know you will need to jump back to the Bush administration to counter any argument so go ahead. I’ll wait.
By the way, I notice you, Jim and the Mayor avoid talking about Obama, and I can’t blame you. You must be sorely disappointed other wise you would be all over it with your praise.
See things do not always work out as you hope (and change).
Jules
LikeLike
Jules:
Perhaps you should move to Russia, then. It’s a conservative paradise! No safety nets, just pure capitalism.
Oh, and it’s run by the Russian Mafia. Try not to tick anyone off.
Do Svidaniya!
-FM
LikeLike
Jules:
PS: The Chinese seem to be kicking our collective rears with a planned economy.
Care to suggest why?
-FM
LikeLike
I know why Fred,
Their commies are smarter than our commies.
Jules
LikeLike
Comrade Jules:
You made me laugh out loud on that one, so I’m going to let you slide!
-FM
LikeLike