I’m amazed that an economist thinks government can create jobs. (“How Washington Can Create Jobs” by Alan Blinder, op-ed, Nov. 16.) If that were so then Russia, Cuba and North Korea would be economic powerhouses.
Only entrepreneurs create jobs by risking career and capital to start and build businesses that employ people to make useful things and provide needed services. By contrast, the government and the unions destroy jobs. Currently, the mean government salary is fully twice the mean private-sector salary. That means every government job destroys or displaces two private-sector jobs. Greedy unions destroyed GM, Detroit and Michigan. Unions destroyed California and at least eight other states. And yet Mr. Blinder suggests expanding the public-sector employment that so [sic] loved by unions and the Democrats they own.
Would he give up his cushy sinecure and risk his savings and career to start a business? I doubt it.
Fred Charette
Las Vegas
This commentary is a little over my pay grade. I do know why I didn’t create 10 new jobs. It would have required six months of pure agony and high risk getting the government approvals—planning and zoning, building department, health department, etc. It also would have required about a million dollars in risk capital, no problem there.
Assuming I am smarter than any government, I will make $500,000 on the business. That requires Social Security and state and federal income taxes of $250,000, leaving $250,000 profit, which requires $125,000 in inheritance taxes, which leaves $125,000 for the grandkids.
I am to put up with six months of government aggravation and risk $1 million to give the grandkids $125,000. Why bother?
Bill T. Davis
St. Charles, Mo.
The vast majority of businessmen will not respond to a short-term tax credit to hire people because they view their employees as an extension of their families and thus loathe layoffs and firings. They hire new employees thinking they will be there, contributing, over a long period of time, and will not sacrifice a short-term tax break for a long-term commitment. Mr. Blinder’s other suggestion, public-sector employment, is outrageous. First, the federal government is already hiring people at breakneck speed and therefore contributing to an even larger deficit and second, most state and local governments are in financial difficulties as it is, and are not looking to hire anyone.
There are two things that could be done to generate jobs: reduce tax rates across the board, both corporate and individual, and stop all the uncertainties the government has created for businessmen. Hiring will not pick up until the full effects of cap and trade, health-care reform, pro-labor laws and new taxes are known. Unfortunately, once known, hiring still won’t pick up.
Curtis F. Von Der Ahe
Fort Worth, Texas
I am surprised by Alan Blinder’s naiveté in claiming that the government could create one million jobs paying $30,000 for $30 billion.
What? No payroll taxes, no unemployment insurance, no workers compensation, no benefits, no overhead, no equipment nor material costs? His million jobs would cost at least $50 billion per year, and since we talk these days in 10-year programs, that totals $600 billion.
Mr. Blinder also proposes a false choice of only two ways to create jobs: a public-works program on the dole or a tax credit for creating jobs, which has been gamed in the past.
Why not permanent cuts to corporate tax rates, reduction of burdensome regulations and reduction of union influence in the workplace? Jobs would sprout like weeds!
George Hamilton
Claiborne, Md.
Mr. Blinder’s comment that “The $787 billion stimulus has doubtless saved many jobs already” is based on unfounded speculation and not data.
If he wants to speculate he can do so in the commodities markets, but not on economics. He also makes the incomprehensible statement that “In deep recessions, sensible governments do things they would never do at full employment.”
In other words, if things get bad enough, throw sense out the window. It is precisely this type of thinking that has gotten us into the mess we are in.
Steve Haynes
Atlanta
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 