Tag Archives: Jobs

News

Do right-to-work or forced union states create more high-paying jobs?

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Neil Simpson writes about a CNBC report entitled “America’s Top States for Business 2011“. At the top of the list: right-to-work states where workers are not forced to join unions that collect union dues to support Democrat policies like amnesty for illegal immigrants, taxpayer-funded abortion and legalizing same-sex marriage.

Here are the criteria used to rank states in the CNBC survey:

  • Cost of Doing Business
  • Workforce
  • Quality of Life
  • Economy
  • Transportation & Infrastructure
  • Technology & Innovation
  • Education
  • Business Friendliness
  • Access to Capital
  • Cost of Living

Red State writes:

When it comes to America’s Top States for Business 2011, when it comes to a quality workforce, 18 out of the top 20 states are Right-to-Work states. Moreover, all 22 Right-to-Work states are in the top 25 states for having the best workforces.

CNBC defines its criteria as this:

Many states point with great pride to the quality and availability of their workers, as well as government-sponsored programs to train them. We rated states based on the education level of their workforce, as well as the numbers of available workers. We also considered union membership. While organized labor contends that a union workforce is a quality workforce, that argument, more often than not, doesn’t resonate with business. We also looked at the relative success of each state’s worker training programs in placing their participants in jobs.

Since nine out of 10 of the states cited for having the best education are not right to work states, it appears that those who receive their educations in forced-union states get smart, pack up and leave, leaving the not-so-smart union extremists to invent myths about their own superiority while they pay their forced union dues.

And here’s a map of right to work states:

Right to Work State Map
Right to Work State Map

Notice that they are mostly Republican states, because are the states that are run by economists and people with business experience – people who know how to create jobs, as opposed to giving speeches that demonize and threaten the people who create jobs.

Doug Ross posted these charts a while back that show that employees also do better in right to work states. There are more jobs being created, and the income growth is higher than the forced union states.

Employment growth:

Right To Work States: Employment Growth
Right To Work States: Employment Growth

Income growth:

Right To Work States: Income Growth
Right To Work States: Income Growth

The only losers are the unions. In right to work states, businesses and workers WIN.

News

Democrat economists: “stimulus” cost $278,000 per job

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Obama Unemployment Stimulus Graph
Obama Unemployment Stimulus Graph

From the Weekly Standard.

Excerpt:

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now.  In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

Again, this is the verdict of Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisors, which is about as much of a home-field ruling as anyone could ever ask for. In truth, it’s quite possible that by borrowing an amount greater than the regular defense budget or the annual cost of Medicare, and then spending it mostly on Democratic constituencies rather than in a manner genuinely designed to stimulate the economy, Obama’s “stimulus” has actually undermined the economy’s recovery — while leaving us (thus far) $666 billion deeper in debt.

Imagine what a report would say that wasn’t written by Obama’s own economists.

Commentary

Are the Bush tax cuts to blame for Obama’s 1.6 trillion dollar deficits?

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Obama Budget Deficit 2011
Obama Budget Deficit 2011

From the Wall Street Journal, the raw numbers on the Bush tax cuts and the deficit. (H/T Paul Ryan)

Excerpt:

But what about the liberal claim, repeated constantly, that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 caused today’s deficits? CBO has shown this to be demonstrably false. On May 12, the budget arm of Congress examined the changes in its baseline projections from 2001 through 2011. In 2001, it had predicted a surplus in 2011 of $889 billion. Instead, it expects a deficit of $1.4 trillion.

What explains that $2.29 trillion budget reversal? Well, the direct revenue loss from the combination of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts contributed roughly $216 billion, or only about 9.5% of the $2.29 trillion. And keep in mind that even this low figure is based on a static revenue model that assumes almost no gains from faster economic growth.

After the Bush investment tax cuts of 2003, tax revenues were $786 billion higher in 2007 ($2.568 trillion) than they were in 2003 ($1.782 trillion), the biggest four-year increase in U.S. history. So as flawed as it is, the current tax code with a top personal income tax rate of 35% is clearly capable of generating big revenue gains.

CBO’s data show that by far the biggest change in its deficit forecast is the spending bonanza, with outlays in 2011 that are $1.135 trillion higher than the budget office estimated a decade ago. One-third of that is higher interest payments on the national debt, notwithstanding record low interest rates. But $523 billion is due to domestic spending increases, including defense, education, Medicaid and the Obama stimulus. Mr. Bush’s Medicare drug plan accounts for $53 billion of this unanticipated spending in 2011.

The last GOP budget was in 2007, and the deficit was $160 billion, ONE TENTH of Obama’s budget deficit. And that was WITH the tax cuts. The cause of the current trillion dollar deficits is Barack Obama’s spending.

Remember what the unemployment rate was under Bush:

Comparison of unemployment rates - Bush vs Obama
Comparison of unemployment rates - Bush vs Obama

I think that looking at the budget deficit numbers and the unemployment numbers is a good way to judge how capable a President is. It gets away from the media spin, the gaffes, the jokes on those liberal Comedy Channel shows. Just look at the numbers, because we all have to care about jobs and spending. Politics is about our freedom, prosperity and security. Not about making us laugh or feel superior to others.