the Green Dragon Conservatives blog

In an effort to divert attention away from the healthcare fiasco currently being debated in the Senate, Claire McCaskill decided to follow the White House’s lead in hosting job forums – why this wasn’t done 11 months ago is beyond us. Regardless, to tout her efforts and her inability to come back to Missouri to personally talk with small business owners about how jobs are actually created, she decided to send out an email highlighting the ideas she solicited from her video teleconference. (emphasis mine)

Since I am unable to get home because of work on healthcare reform, yesterday I hosted town hall-style forums via video teleconference to hear from you, my bosses in Missouri, about the best way to create jobs in your communities.
Here are examples of the ideas I heard for small-business job creation in Missouri:

Making sure stable, solid small businesses can get loans to grow

Ensuring that any healthcare reform does not increase costs for small business

Assistance with job training and retraining

These common-sense ideas can create jobs and get us out of the ditch, and I look forward to drawing on them for legislation aimed at addressing small business needs. Look for updates from me as we work to make progress on this front.

Unfortunately for Senator McCaskill, selecting these three ‘ideas’ as examples of how to create jobs shows a lack of understanding as to how and why jobs are created.

“Making sure stable, solid small businesses can get loans to grow.” This is putting the cart in front of the horse. Forget the fact that more new businesses are started during recessions and would not qualify for loans based on this statement, typically the stable, solid small business already has a credit relationship with a lender. Furthermore, this ‘idea’ does nothing to provide the confidence necessary for a small business to want to expand. Businesses of all sizes need confidence that the business environment (economy, government regulations) are going to be conducive to growing the business as well as a vision that demand for their product or service is going to exceed what they can currently serve with the employees they have.

“Ensuring that any healthcare reform does not increase costs for small business.” Claire. Claire. Claire. This is not an idea for creating new jobs but a plea from small businesses to not hurt, or destroy the jobs we do have. Unfortunately, PelosiCare/ReidCare/ObamaCare does nothing to address the ever increasing costs of healthcare and insurance, but is setting the table to drastically increase the costs for small employers.

“Assistance with job training and retraining.” This is great, however it is aimed more at the unemployed. So what if people are being trained for new positions if new positions do not exist.

SOLUTIONS – Before we get criticized for not providing any suggestions, here is what Senator McCaskill and her ilk should be implementing to get the economy moving again.

1. Permanently lower marginal tax brackets on ALL tax payers. Rebates and temporary tax breaks do nothing to instill long term confidence in businesses and consumers. Rebates have no lasting impact on the economy as we learned from the Cash-for-Clunkers failure and the rebates distributed during the Bush administration. Businesses and consumers need to see concrete evidence that tax are going to remain stable for a long time to come before they will begin to take risks (make investments) necessary to a healthy, vibrant economy.
2. Reduce the size and scope of government. Trillion dollar budget deficits and a threatening regulatory (anti-business) policies are not conducive to job creation and growth. Reducing the size of government, reducing the federal budget will go a long way to building confidence in the economy and help stabilize the value of the dollar. Again, this is necessary to a healthy, vibrant economy and important when small businesses consider investing in their own companies and hiring new employees.
3. Establish policies that are conducive to international trade. Our businesses need access to foreign markets to sell goods and obtain supplies. Furthermore, numerous foreign-owned businesses employ millions of Americans. Increasing the barriers for foreign companies to conduct business in America only leads to a tougher international environment, especially when American companies try to export their goods to those countries.

For an experts opinion, enjoy this video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity by senior fellow at the Cato Institute, economist Dan Mitchell.