I don’t know about America but over here I’d like to see a removal of fuel duty (it’s over 100%, maybe 200%) and a slashing of sales tax from the current 15% to 5% or less. The former would make it vastly easier for people to travel to new jobs and the latter would encourage spending. I’d also like to see large tax allowances for children - again this will encourage spending.
So the tax cuts aren’t going to create jobs in the short run?
And why would government ‘invest’ in companies if the payoff won’t come until after the recession? After the recession, companies shouldn’t need subsidies from the government; good companies will attract investment from the private sector.
Compared to manufacturing, those activities produce relatively few jobs. If job creation during a deep recession is the goal, business tax cuts are a poor way to do it.
Perhaps its time to offshore a few CxO jobs?
This is what happens when people sprinkle their arguments with hateful, troll-like, rhetoric; people don’t get the point on focus on the name calling…
Creating new products and new brands produces few jobs? That is exactly what creates jobs.
The 90s started out in a recession. It only became a time of wealth and affluence around 1995 when a combination of concern over Y2K and the commercialization of the Internet and business technologies created thousands of new jobs.
Here are some actions that tend to create jobs:
Lower taxes so people have more money to spend and invest
Government investment in infrastructure and research
Investing in training and education
Here are some actions that tend not to create jobs:
Tax increases
Protectionism
Clinging to obsolete or declining industries
What about a sales-tax holiday? The problem with giving out money is that people might save it for the proverbial storm clouds on the horizon. Instead, how about making the good cheaper? That way, you can’t benefit from it unless you spend the money.
There’s no “Welfare state!” objections because a dollar is a dollar, regardless of who it comes from. So if a poor guy spends 5 bucks and a rich guy spends 5 bucks, they both benefit the same.
If states don’t want to do it, the federal gov’t can reimburse them for their losses. Consider also that if there’s a sales tax relief for, say, a month, people with money would go and buy the most expensive things they’ve had their eye on. That means houses and cars. And which two industries are hurting the worst right now (besides finance)? Auto and Real Estate.
It just makes sense to me. The problem is that no one will buy goods right now and people thus get fired. So the best way to encourage buying is by making stuff cheaper. I say don’t give people money, just let them keep what they’ve got- but only if they start spending it.
Many states already do this. It usually makes for poor stimulus as consumers simply tend to buy a bunch of stuff at once during the holiday rather then buy the same amount of goods all at once. For example, from The Tax Foundation:
The complexity mentioned in the last paragraph would be greatly multiplied in the case of a federal sales tax holiday, since the entity funding the holiday would be different then the one collecting the sales tax. Also, politically some (probably also mind-numbingly complicated) mechanism would have to be adopted so that the stimulus money didn’t end up going only to those states with high sales tax while totally skipping those with no state sales tax.
Other rebate schemes might work better, but I think people are pretty uncomfortable with schemes that basically have the federal government bribing its citizens to go buy a bunch of big-screen TV’s and the like.
What kind of sales tax do you pay on a house? In the two states I have lived you pay 5% or less in tax when you buy a car. That’s certainly not enough to make one decide to buy or not buy.
There are many works that have already been planned and just need funding. We’re not talking about the Hoover Dam. We’re talking about rebuilding schools, highways, etc.
It’s also a good way to stimulate the use of petroleum products. Let’s take the people who have made the greatest strides in turning toward alternative energy sources, and give them incentives to use more petroleum instead. In the meantime, the US will stimulate R&D in green tech with government spending, eliminating the leg-up that Europe currently has in these fields. Yeah, that’s a great idea.
I’m not interested in discussing AGW in this thread.
Ah yes, the Dot Com bubble. That was a fairly good time wasn’t it ? When people could make millions on an email adress and a vaguely worded mission statement. That’ll build a strong economy 
Considering the choice is between the first two items on you list of things that create jobs, I don’t see you making a relevant argument here :dubious:.
It’s not solely an issue of AGW. If, in fact, there are many potential jobs available in alternative and renewable energy development, then removing fuel taxes, which would stimulate demand for petroleum products, would dampen the push for alternative/renewable energy sources, thus suppressing job development.
I assume by “we” you mean the U.S. federal government. Before asking what we should do about the job situation, you should first ask whether we should do anything about it. IMHO, the answer to that question is no–the U.S. federal government should limit its activities as much as possible to those that directly protect its citizens from enemies (like other countries and terrorists, not the “enemy of joblessness” or whatever).
Unfortunately there are relatively few jobs in research compared with the vast numbers of people getting from A to B. And the latter group have an immediate need whereas the former holds the possibility of a solution - and likely a more expensive solution at that if petrol needs to be taxed. To get us out of this hole we need to get people earning money. High taxes on petrol put a very large damper on the mobility of the workforce.
Actually, you should first ask whether we should have a federal government at all. Go Articles of Confederation! And now that I think about it, actually, even before that, you should ask whether governments are a good idea for any purpose. Viva Proudhon! Of course, even before that, we need to know about the fundamentals of human nature to know which kinds of social hierarchy will work. And before that you’re going to need to establish how we “know” any of this, given the possibility that we’re all dreaming or have hallucinated all of our seemingly empirical knowledge (I realize you don’t need to do this, RR, as A=A, but the rest of us might need more). Indeed, before that, you’ll need to show that you other bastards even exist! Damn! It’s assumptions all the way down!
Or, maybe, there’s a difference between an assumption and a carefully considered, widely shared conclusion. And maybe we could discuss problems without reestablishing, each time, more basic conclusions underlying the discussion. Just a thought. I’m happy to discuss some Descartes though.
I agree that the people of the workforce have an immediate need, and the research group holds only thepossibility of a solution. Having said that, however, I still think substantially lowering fuel taxes is just as bad an idea now as it was when it was proposed in the U.S. in July or August of 2008. Lowering prices (and therefore stimulating demand) on a non-renewable resource that already has an incredibly high demand is only going to exacerbate our problems.
Richard Parker, I humbly submit that there is a difference between the question “should the US federal government do X?” and the question “Are we all just brains in a vat?”, and that it is possible to conclude that it is appropriate to consider the first without having to consider the second. Any assertion to the contrary is pure orneriness for its own sake. The US federal government is a government of limited powers, which necessarily raises the first question.* There is nothing about the exercise that necessarily raises the second question anÿ more strongly than does the decision whether to get out of bed in the morning.
*The looseness of those limits is much younger than the limits themselves and is based on judicial interpretation, which can change over time.
Good point. And bridges, as you say—has everyone forgotten that 2007 bridge collapse in Minnesota already? Some 25% of all bridges are either “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Eep. Plenty of work to be done there.
And to those who complain that infrastructure improvements need planning to ramp up … so? Engineers, architects, surveyors, project managers, office secretaries, etc. etc. don’t need work, too?
No one is taking that away from the private sector. What Obama stressed during his campaign was offering a tax credit to those employers whose business is the United States and hires Americans. It makes perfect sense. If a company finds that its more profitable to have its operations overseas, then why should the federal government bend-over-backwards and help (i.e. offer additional breaks) them once tax-time rolls around?