The Growing Job Crisis Needs Solutions Now

Yeah go ahead and blame! Most of you borrowed yourselves into oblivion and now want somebody else to blame. The right blames the left, the left blames the right, the poor blame the rich, and everybody eats a big greasy meal while you complain.

The problem isn't your political machine, it's your human machine. You became avaricious and indulged as a society and now you are paying the price. It isn't divine justice, it's simply the swing of a pendulum.

For a country that (historically) prides itself on hard work and a bootstrapping pioneering approach, all I see here are finger-pointers. America is in real trouble, and you'd rather blame and kvetch than clean up your acts.

You have overspent, overconsumed, and underprepared for at least 30 years, and now you have been called to account.

Thing is, you don't have any assets.

Trevor 6:17PM November 05, 2009

Here's a solution: a federal tax revolt. Everybody pay your federal taxes to your state. Corporate taxes, personal income taxes, the whole nine yards, just pay it to your state. Face it, folks, no one in Washington cares about us. Obama is just four more years of Bush.

Last April, my husband and I paid our federal taxes to Wisconsin. We're in the process of packing and moving up to Canada, where my husband is originally from. We'd love to be part of a movement to reverse the ugly trend toward total economic collapse of the US. Unfortunately, most of my fellow Americans would rather just sit around and complain. It's gonna take more than just protests and endless letters to your congressmen. It's gonna take direct and decisive action. Don't wait for change, BE the change! But since no one in this country cares to get off their duffs and take action, I've decided to give up. My husband and I have another country to live happily ever after in, so we're going. Good luck to the rest of you.

Heather Czerniak of WI 8:14PM October 23, 2009

it all obama falt. he spen mony dat not hes. he ba beeb a dupid perssin cus he dupid.I likes odama abit evin thou he be stoop ed. obama just like me hed be smartt.

i is buckwheat otay.

buckwheat say 11:48AM October 20, 2009

Sura, if you're going to argue that paying our soldiers is "socialistic", which isn't even a word, and that the government should subsidize or guarantee private alternative energy investments, and any of that somehow has some connection to our current politics of envy and greed in which economically successful and productive individuals are labeled as selfish then I'm sorry, I can't follow your logic if it in fact exists.

Mort's editorial is a good one but assumes good intentions in the administration and just a shortage of ideas. That view just doesn't square with Obama's past comments and current actions that make it pretty clear that some kind of political agenda is more important to his administration than a healthy private sector.

The job market represents a transaction between an individual and an employer, most likely one that's economically successful and able to expand. If you place successful companies and entrepreneurs in a 45% income tax bracket, handcuff them with governmental restrictions that have more to do with advancing social agendas or supporting campaign contributors, and then tell them its going to get worse with a slate of new taxes, restrictions, mandates, etc headed their way, how many jobs do you expect will be created?

It's not rocket science - economic policy is just incentives. When progressives say that higher taxes on smoking will reduce the number of smokers, they are right. Not sure why they don't follow the same logic when it comes to higher taxes on business, investment, sales, energy, employment, etc.

Also, nobody is advocating 0% taxation and no public expenditures, that's a straw man, just as nobody as advocating 100%. If Obama and Pelosi simply agreed to not consider any tax increase or new employer mandates until we're out of the recession and unemployment is below 6%, that one statement alone, if credible, would help the recovery significantly.

Still, we should be clear that the budget is in crisis because our elected officials see it as their job to bring home as many tax dollars as they can and also buy in to the view that society's ills can be cured by just spending more money. Couple that with a system with no transparency and the need to raise millions of dollars to run every election cycle, and its easy to understand the mess we are in and why more government promises and spending are not the answer.

Real hope and change would be reforming public policy decisions and federal expenditures and pushing more authority and dollars to states and cities to spend however they choose. If I were to write that editorial, then I, like Mort, would be assuming that Obama really wants to help reform Washington and empower individual communities rather than just reward political allies - and again, Obama's previous statements, voting record, ACORN/SEIU ties, Chicago/Daley/Rezko history, etc, point to the latter.

Tristan Yates of MD 4:28AM October 19, 2009