After the dismal Jobs Growth Report for August 2011, every politician is talking about job creation. All presidential hopefuls are scrambling to put finishing touches to their job growth plans. However looking at the substandard performance on the part of President and congress, indicated by the recent poll results, it is obvious that they are just trying to save their own jobs. Politicians are playing the Blame Game again.
At this point the greatest country on earth is standing at the verge of economic collapse. With the burst of housing bubble, American Dream has become an American Nightmare. Both major political parties are blaming each other for this mess, without accepting any responsibility for their own failures. The country is divided, more than ever, on political ideologies. Politicians are loyal to their political parties and influential backers and the common American has totally been ignored. Spirit of logical compromise for the sake of country has vanished from Washington.
First we can take Democrats. They are backed by unions and liberal think tanks. Unions served great purpose at certain times. They were created against injustice by the employers. At some point however they lost their real purpose. In modern times the concept is almost redundant. Take the example of Toyota versus American car makers. Toyota has not accepted the concept of unions and as a result has been able to keep their expenses low on employee payrolls and benefits. Employees have been able to keep more of their benefits to themselves because they don’t have union dues to pay. The company has been able to spend its savings on R&D and come up with new concepts and products. On the other hand UAW and its negotiating power with American auto makers has brought the American auto makers to the brink of bankruptcy and they had to be bailed out by tax payers to stay afloat. Walmart is another example of a company that has resisted unionism and has shown growth even in dire economic times. Unions provide a sense of job security without being efficient and hard working. That is not only counter productive; it is also unfair to honest, hard working and efficient non-union members of the work force. Democrats have capitulated to consumer groups and attorneys. When our businesses have to put a warning label on a cup of coffee stating that ‘Coffee may be hot’ we have crossed into the realm of absurdity. The businesses are being choked with excessive regulations under the name of consumer safety and stupidity is being rewarded.
Our politicians have been influenced by number of votes rather than the views of most tax paying Americans. DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act is one example. In California, the bill was originally sponsored by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles. He has tried to find ways around the concerns of opponents by dividing it into two parts. As per him, the first part will allow the students to seek non-state grants and the second part will allow them to seek state funded Cal Grants. Tom Mays, a spokesperson for California Student Aid Commission has said in defense of the Act that there is usually a surplus of money available after all the grants have been distributed. Ironically, on one hand California has increased the fees of university students. On the other hand we do not want to use available surplus money to offset that increase. Instead we want to take that money from tax paying citizens and give it to the people who have not contributed anything in tax revenues. This is just to appease the legal voters whose illegal relatives are residing in this country. There are only three states that provide financial assistance for schools for the illegal minors. California, Texas and New Mexico. California has a Governor from Democratic Party. Both New Mexico and Texas have Republican Governors. Texas Governor is backed by Tea Party, advocates strong action against illegal immigration, but seems to compromise on a few situations when his own job is on the line. These three states have a large percentage of legal and illegal Hispanic population. It is obvious that the politicians in these three states are willing to provide assistance to illegal immigrants to win over the votes of their legal relatives and friends. Instead why can’t we enforce the existing laws against illegal immigration? Go after the employers who employ illegal immigrants.
Mitt Romney has put forward a jobs plan. One of his suggestions, as any other Republican, is lowering taxes on corporations from 35 percent to 25 percent. These days most big corporations are multi national. Can he guarantee that these corporations will create jobs in America with that extra money and not in another country? Why not give them a tax break for creating jobs. If they create more jobs in America, they can get bigger tax breaks. If they don’t create jobs, they pay more taxes. On the other hand he definitely has a good point in saying that we got to stand up against cheap Chinese imports. Why not raise the tariffs against cheap and unsafe Chinese goods and give incentives to manufacturers to produce here in America?
Michelle Bachmann has said that she will bring the gas price to under two dollars a gallon. No president can guarantee that. Oil companies are multinational and besides taxes government has no control on their prices, unless the President decides to nationalize the oil industry. That means more government control which is exactly against the principals of her main backers, the Tea Party. At this point she is banking on naiveté of some Tea Party members. Will she be willing to say that if she can not bring the gas prices down to under two dollars within first year of her presidency, she will resign or be subject to impeachment?
We should have one term limit for all politicians with a clause that they shall not be able to serve as lobbyists for four years after they leave office. It will be interesting to see how many politicians will still stay in “Public Service”.
At the end, I just remember a bumper sticker that said, “Democrats think the glass is half full. Republicans think the glass is theirs”.