Ezra Klein surveys the wreckage:
Academic books pack about 600 words to a page. Normal books clock in around 400. Large-print books — you know, the ones for kids or the visually impaired — fit about 250. The House GOP’s jobs plan, however, gets about 200 words to a page. The typeface is fit for giants, and the document’s 10 pages are mostly taken up by pictures. It looks like the staffer in charge forgot the assignment was due on Thursday rather than Friday, and so cranked the font up to 24 and began dumping clip art to pad out the plan.Which is odd, because there’s nothing in this plan that hasn’t been in a thousand other plans. When I asked David Autor, an economist at MIT and a specialist on labor markets, to take a look at the substance, he pronounced it a classic case of “what Larry Summers would call ‘now-more-than-everism.’”
“Here’s how it works,” Autor wrote in am e-mail. “1. You have a set of policies that you favor at all times and under all circumstances, e.g., cut taxes, remove regulations, drill-baby-drill, etc. 2. You see a problem that needs fixing (e.g., the economy stinks). 3. You say, ‘We need to enact my favored policies now more than ever.’ I believe that every item in the GOP list that you sent derives from this three step procedure.
I would ask where’s the growth? We did all this stuff during the Bush years and we had the worst job growth on record. A proper takedown of this non-plan is here.
Until you renounce Davis Bacon you have no standing on job creation. By supporting that abhorrent legislation you are categorically stating you want unemployment much higher than it would otherwise be.
And please don't with the lame old answer that the only two wages we have are "union wage" and "poverty wage." There is lots of room in the middle for good wage paying jobs.
How 'bout it Jon? Do you want job creation or not?
Comrade 8:52,
Depends upon what kind of jobs we are talking about.
Workers not paying union dues (read, contributing to the Progressive Liberal Democrat party) are, in fact, worthless.
No brainer, that.
J. STALIN
I think that's a false choice. There's no need to liquidate labor to create jobs. You can make US labor less expensive with a lower dollar policy.
What? What's that?
Unemployment won't go where if we don't do the Porkulus?
Frankly, I thought the focused Laser Beam (i.e., 0-bama) would have had this job creation thing taken care of a long time ago…
It's not a false choice – Davis Bacon exists and is protected because unions give hundreds of millions to Democratic candidates, and it's there to protect the 15% of the nation's workforce that is union.
And it's bullshit.
Here's one – have the unions compete on a level playing field, not one that's stacked in their favor.
But then the unions might not give Obama and his minions their $$$$$.
And that's the real rub.
Be Independent Jon. This one is pretty damn obvious.
Comrade 2:50,
You are completely out of order.
Simply put, spout the Party line or leave the country.
Thank you in advance as your cooperation is greatly appreciated and should you have any questions or require additional assistance, please call Obama Administration.
N. CEAUSESCU