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From TheAtlasphere.com Opinion Editorial President Bush made one good point, at least, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in New York City. His point was this: In order to help stimulate new jobs, his best alternative was to remove the obstacles to their creation. As Bush put the point: "To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation and making the tax relief permanent. To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy. To create jobs, we will expand trade and level the playing field to sell American goods and services across the globe. And we must protect small-business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across our country." Of course, there is language here that can be misleading, but politicians very rarely speak directly without some obfuscation — without some way to promise more than they can deliver. There is, in fact, no way for Bush or his administration to “create jobs,” not at least without also destroying them. By his own account, all a government can do is reduce obstacles to economic growth, to investment, and to entrepreneurship. Government is the main obstacle to job creation by way of its taxation and regulation policies, as well as its protectionism. Of course, when taxes are levied, people have less to spend and this means fewer jobs are needed to provide for what they want in the marketplace. And when regulations are imposed, enormous amounts of money are spent by government carrying out this regulatory function — with huge staffs, massive overhead, and the unrelenting intrusiveness that treats economic agents as if they were guilty without any proof of having done anyone harm. That is dead weight on the economy. Protectionism appears to some to preserve jobs, but this is a myth. What it really does is stifle competition from businesses abroad, thus allowing domestic firms to charge more than what products would fetch in a free market and thereby taking money from customers. Those customers could better spend their money on, among other things, creating new jobs. It is only in removing these obstacles that a good prospect for more jobs is created — not jobs themselves, but the prospect for them. There is no guarantee that people will actually invest, even if they have additional funds and no obstacles before them. It is a myth of certain economic theories that people are hard-wired to seek out good deals. They clearly are not so inclined. Still, the likelihood of people stimulating economic growth is far greater without governmental obstructionism than with it. And on that score Bush is dead right. Now whether Bush actually has any intention to deliver on the promise of removing obstacles to free trade is to be judged by reference to his record, which, sadly, is lackluster. Sure, he cut taxes, but he also imposed them indirectly with his incessant spending over the last four years. It does bear re-emphasis that politicians cannot create jobs, though, and when Kerry & Co. make the more brazen promises that they will do just that, they have to be identified as out-and-out liars. Jobs are created from people choosing to purchase goods and services, period. Anything else would amount to coercing them to be customers, to buy in the market place, and even the most intrusive government cannot achieve this. Think of it — such a process would involve the forcing of people to buy things they do not want, or robbing them of their resources and using it to engage in artificial purchases, public works and such. And that has never worked, since such purchases literally create unwanted jobs and displace wanted ones. Job creation, in short, is not a political task. It is the task we are involved in when we go shopping.  Tibor Machan is R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, Orange, CA; a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; and advisor on public policy matters for Freedom Communications, Inc. © Copyright 2004-7 by The Atlasphere LLC |