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by Jerry Kremer
The economy has been in a tailspin for the past year and a half. The federal government got it half right when it found the funds to fix the shaky financial services industry. But Wall Street was one of the two 800 lb gorillas in the room. The second one was the escalating unemployment statistics.
It took eleven months but finally President Barack Obama has figured out that America needs and wants more jobs. Former President Bill Clinton got it right when he and his team figured out that “it’s the economy- stupid.” Put the country back to work and the protest tea parties won’t have anyone showing up at an event.
Bill Clinton didn’t invent job-creating programs. The idea goes back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who tackled high unemployment by creating dozens of federal programs to give people work to put food on the table. Fixing highways and bridges, cleaning up our parks and rebuilding our facilities was the right thing in the 1930’s and it’s the right thing now.
Where should the money come from to start the job programs? It’s an easy answer. That TARP program started by President Bush helped banks and investors get back on their feet. Thanks to an improvement in the economy many of the institutions that took our money have paid it back, so why not use it to fund job- qcreating efforts?
The not-so-loyal opposition has suggested that the TARP moneys be used to reduce the deficit. Considering that the opposition created the deficit they shouldn’t have much say on where the repaid moneys should go.
So for now the President has gotten on track to take care of the nation’s number one problem-unemployment. Hopefully the bureaucrats in Washington won’t mess it up this time.
Note: Jerry Kremer is the Former Chairman of the NYS Assembly Ways & Means Committee and President of Empire Government Strategies
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"The federal government got it half right when it found the funds to fix the shaky financial services industry."
ReplyDeleteJerry, I disgree...the federal government did wrong by establishing TARP and the massive bailout of Wall Street.
Free market capitalism has been wrongly accused as the villain in a Government (Federal Reserve)induced misappropriation of captial flows into assorted bubbles from high tech in the late 1990s to housing in the most recent finacial crisis.
The federal government must reverse its (socialist) expansion, lest it implode on its own debt and its constraint of economic growth.
Furthermore, I disagree with your assessment of FDR administration's handling of the economic crisis in the 1930's. FDR's actions made the economy worse by its socialist policies. I refer you to Amity Schlaes' critical book "The Forgotten Man" which brilliantly argues against FDR's policies and those similar policies now pursued by the Obama Administration.
The free market is the solution to America's plight...free market capitalism is now and always has been the productive energy that had made America the most productive and wealthy nation in history.
America destroys free market capitalism at its peril.