Where Are The Jobs?

Two months after the tax cuts were extended for everbody, President Obama is under scrutiny and criticism for reaching out to businesses, asking where he can help. Obama is urging business leaders to hire, invest, and to "get in the game." We were told by Republicans that only private citizens create jobs, and those private citizens are those upper two percent. If tax cuts create jobs, as the Republicans and Tea Partiers claim, then where are these jobs? Where is the job growth?

It is disingenuous to adhere to Supply-Side Ecomonic Theory as evidence demonstrates this theory no longer works. Reducing labor costs will not stimulate our economy, nor will it improve productivity. This will only result to further reduce wages and boast business profits. Businessmen gaining wealth at the expence of several employees has not created any new jobs, but it lined their pockets so they can weather the next economical storm of their own creation.

Where are businesses looking for growth? Who is their target market? Or simply put, where are they going to find customers to increase demand for their products and services? It will not be in the US. The middle class which can sustain America's economy is dwindling and is still under attack. Victims of the economic crisis have been pegged as the culprits and the financial industry who actually caused the crisis is no longer under scrutiny.

If we can assume that it is accurate to state that labor costs are hindering business growth, then perhaps we should explore ways to eleviate that pressure. Health care costs are stiffling businesses and job growth, or at least that is what we are being told. We can look to other successful countries to see how they solved this issue. The US is the last remaining country who still utilizes health insurance companies to help individuals pay for their health care. If we rid ourselves from the health insurance industry, that would reduce one profiteering enterprise from capitalizing off of people's health care needs. If the US extends Medicare to cover everyone's basic care, then that takes this burden off of businesses, reducing their labor costs.

Vermont is taking the lead in a "Single Payer Option". It will promote companies locating into Vermont with reduced labor cost burdens on businesses. This is not a government takeover, nor is it Socialism. Vermont is simply establishing group disounts to many customers. The only difference is it's not one business representing x amount of employees, but rather a state representing an even larger amount of recipients. The more people in the pool, the lower the rates for everyone participating. Vermont is working the capitalist system within the established rules.

We will have to wait to see how this reduction of costly health insurance for Vermonters translates into an increase of discretionary spending. Will this translate into an increase of demand, or will this remain as reduction of labor costs which boast company profits? What will the businesses do with this reduction of labor costs? Will they find new markets to sell their goods and services, or will business only increase their profits and bulk the pockets of executives? And more importantly, will the single payer option create jobs?

-Silence Dogood