The Hill reports that:
House Democrats this week have amplified their calls for new spending on infrastructure and other federal projects in the face of May's discouraging job-creation figures.
Obama's been doing that since 2008, inflating the national debt massively and running unprecedented deficits, and the economy still sucks. As Tad DeHaven observed last year:
That the stimulus did create jobs isn't in question. The real question is whether it created any net jobs after all the negative effects of the spending and debt are taken into account. How many private-sector jobs were lost or not created in the first place because of the resources diverted to the government for its job creation?
Don't expect the administration's economists to attempt an answer to that question any time soon.
Here's another question that the administration would prefer to ignore: How many jobs are being lost or not created because of increased uncertainty in the business community over future tax increases and other detrimental government policies?
The economist Robert Higgs coined the phrase "regime uncertainty" to describe Franklin Roosevelt's anti-business climate, which prolonged the Great Depression. Unfortunately, this president is repeating the same mistake.
Health care mandates, cap-and-trade legislation, new financial regulations, union protections, and the probability of higher taxes to pay for the administration's debt spree have caused innumerable businesses to remain on the sidelines.
As one small business owner recently told me, "I want to hire but I'm afraid the administration's policies are going to force me to turn around and let them go."
So maybe government really is the problem:
"If you talk to job creators around the country like we have, they’ll tell you all the over-taxing, over-regulating, and over-spending that’s going on in Washington is creating uncertainty and holding them back," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a press conference Friday.
