Government can't create wealth, it can only spread it. That's the way this foolhardy plan should be attacked.
Government make work jobs are only spreading the wealth. Republicans should push large tax cuts, so that wealth can be CREATED, not spread.
Taking your and my hard earned money and spreading it to someone else won't grow us out of this bad economy.
“Government can’t create wealth, it can only spread it. That’s the way this foolhardy plan should be attacked.”
Exactly. It literally is impossible for government to create jobs on balance. $1 billion in visible government-created “new” jobs can be achieved only by diverting $1 billion from the private sector, killing (invisibly) whatever jobs that $1 billion would have created. It’s worse, since every $1 billion in taxes results in an ADDITIONAL $300,000 or more of lost economic output (what economists call “deadweight losses”) since whatever we tax, we get less of.
So whenever Obama says he is creating new jobs, he either is being WILLFULLY deceptive (he knows the truth but has no incentive to let the public see the man behind the curtin) or he is stunningly IGNORANT. If people were to laugh derisively every time he made such statements, i.e., treat his remarks as being as nonsensical as the utterings of a Flat Earth Society member, perhaps he would more quickly realize that a) we are on to him and all his transparent efforts to manipulate opinion on the presumption we’re too ignorant to know better; or b) we’re smarter than him, and he’d better get his act together if he expects to serve as our president and not be tossed out on his ear.