Job Creation: Not a senator’s job, but…

…it is part of a senator’s responsibility. Let me explain.
Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states that Congress has the power (and responsibility) to provide for, among other things, the general welfare of the United States. The Preamble to the Constitution also enumerates among the responsibilities of “The People,” and especially those who represent them as their voices in the elected legislature, as insuring “domestic tranquility” and promoting the general welfare.
As a member of Congress, a United States senator is sworn to uphold the Constitution, and is obligated to abide by its enumeration of powers. As such, it is a U.S. Senator’s responsibility to promote a climate that encourages and fosters economic growth and the job creation that comes with it.
The current senatorial race in Nevada is focused heavily on the economy, and the rhetoric coming from both major party campaigns has to do with jobs and job creation.
The state of Nevada is among the nation’s leaders in unemployment with about 14 percent of the state’s population out of work.
On one side, the republican challenger, Sharron Angle, is questioning the democratic incumbent’s Congressional efforts to create jobs and lower the unemployment rate. She is also ultimately charging U.S. Senator Harry Reid, D-NV, with responsibility for job creation.
Reid, meanwhile, is disputing his challenger’s criticism, having stated that he isn't responsible for our nation's unemployment rate. And yet, out of the other side of his mouth, he has stated unequivocally that job creation is a senator's responsibility. His campaign has launched political television advertisements touting the senator’s efforts to save existing jobs and bring new clean energy jobs to his state.
Interestingly enough, the challenger has said that job creation isn’t the job of a U.S. senator. Yet, she charges her opponent with responsibility for Nevada’s high unemployment rate.
Strange how both candidates tout the economy and job creation as the most important issues in this year’s senate race. Both candidates play up the importance of a senator’s role in job creation. And both also deny that jobs or their unemployment counterparts are a senator’s responsibility.
Oddly enough, both are right and both are also wrong.
Angle, the GOP challenger, has said quite plainly that the job of a U.S. senator is not to create jobs. She’s right.
It is not the government’s role or responsibility to create jobs. That task belongs primarily to the private sector. Sure, government can create government jobs or pass legislation for projects that require temporary jobs. But long-term, permanent job creation can only be achieved by those entities that exist on profit and engage in marketplace competition. Economic growth is reliant on the success of the private sector, which itself is reliant on consumers, the majority of whom are employed in the private sector. Our economy is circular, and the rightful place of government is not in the circle or even part of it, but on the outside.
By this I mean to say that the government’s proper and Constitutionally appropriate role—as defined by the philosophies of its framers—is to provide an economic climate in which both consumer spending and job growth can flourish.
As such, a U.S. senator’s responsibility is to support a strong economy by proposing bills and voting on legislation that promotes and provides for the general welfare of the United States.
How this gets accomplished is among the fundamental differences between left and right wing politics.
Reid, who has held his senate seat for the past 24 years, is facing a serious challenge for the first time in more than a decade. As the acting Senate Majority Leader and arguably the third most powerful politician in Washington, D.C., few in the nation’s capital are in position to affect a climate of economic growth and job creation than he is.
Angle has charged Reid with responsibility for Nevada’s 14 percent unemployment rate, among the highest in the country. While he isn’t responsible for unemployment, and job creation isn’t a senator’s job, the most powerful man in the senate does have a responsibility to support policies and laws that promote economic growth, part of that general welfare clause in the Constitution.
In a manner of speaking, then, Angle is correct.
Reid is partially responsible for Nevada’s economic woes.
After all, he did support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federal home loan programs for low income, first-time homebuyers. The programs have proven to be abject failures as viable financial entities.
Reid also supported federal policies that strong-armed mortgage loan companies into offering products which low income consumers could afford. This precipitated the housing collapse, the impetus of which was a tidal wave of loan defaults and foreclosures on properties purchased by people who could no longer afford their mortgage debts.
Contrary to the claims of the Democratic Congressional leadership, and the Reid campaign, the recession is not entirely the result of corporate avarice and greed, or deregulation by the Bush White House and former Republican Congressional majority. Many of the big problems we face from this recession were simply the result of government literally putting its two cents where it really doesn’t belong. Others responsible for the recession include the millions of consumers whose incomes were far exceeded by their spending. The current recession is the result of a credit crisis, and financial irresponsibility run amok.
Everyone, from Congress and the President on down to the individual consumer overextended on his or her credit, has a role to play in this recession and shared responsibility for it.
This includes Senator Harry Reid, who, along with his cohorts in Congress and the White House, has done a poor job of fostering economic growth with policies and legislation aimed at promoting real, long-term recovery. What Reid and the Democrats have done is spend hundreds of billions more dollars on financial bailouts to companies and industries “too big to fail,” and a largely ineffective stimulus package that could only offer, at best, short-term, temporary relief to a long-term problem.
Despite the $787 billion stimulus package passed in the spring of 2009, the national unemployment rate remains in double digits. Nevada’s, in particular, has grown to around 14 percent. This is legislation that Reid whole-heartedly supported. It was claimed to be an answer to the recession; but what it has done is only perpetuate the problem.
The Reid campaign claims that the Senate Majority Leader has either saved or created thousands of jobs in Nevada by way of promoting clean energy technology and using federal pork to bail out Nevada businesses in financial trouble.
And yet, the campaign disputes the challenger’s assertion that the incumbent is responsible for Nevada’s unemployment rate and sour economy.
Well, which is it, Senator?
Either you are or you aren’t responsible for jobs.
Reid’s campaign slogan this year is that “no one can do more” for Nevada than Reid can.
Perhaps.
But what exactly has Harry done for his state lately? Don’t just show us the money, Harry; show us what has been done with it.
All of those clean energy jobs you claim to have brought to the Silver State don’t do a majority of out-of-work Nevadans much good, because they are skilled jobs requiring a certain amount of technical experience and education. Many unemployed Nevadans are unskilled or possess skills limited to the construction and service industries. What good are those skills in qualifying for clean energy jobs?
And once all those solar panels, wind farms and geothermal projects are completed, what will happen to the project-based jobs? More than likely, they will be gone with the Nevada wind.
I find it fascinating that Sen. Harry Reid, one of the most powerful voices in Washington, claims that no one can do more for his state than he can; and yet, in spite of this, his state continues to be among the highest in the nation in unemployment, foreclosures and loan defaults, declining real estate values, individual and corporate bankruptcies, and failed small business ventures.
Are you sure you can’t do any more for Nevada, Sen. Reid? Either you haven’t done enough, or what you’ve done so far has been ineffective, because the results speak for themselves.
More to the point: Are you sure, Senator, that most of the bacon you’ve brought home to your state has gone to promote and provide for the general welfare? Or has it perhaps gone to promote and provide for the welfare of your specific interests?
Considering the evidence, I’d be hard pressed to believe that Nevada has truly benefited from your power and influence.
Sharron Angle is right that you haven’t done enough for the economy in your state while you’ve been in the best position a Nevada Congressional representative has held for the first time ever.
If your leadership and influence in Washington, D.C., has been so great for Nevada, then why is it worse off now than it was three years ago when the housing market crashed and the recession hit? Frankly, it gives me reason to pause and question the kind of policies you’ve supported of late. Have these policies really encouraged and fostered a climate of strong economic growth, or have they merely feathered your nest and those of your most important campaign contributors?
I wonder.
I also wonder why, Senator, you of all people have so vehemently opposed nuclear waste in Nevada when there is evidence showing that nuclear waste can not only be recycled, but also provide efficient alternative, renewable energy and be a possible economic boon to your state? An entirely new industry is right here for the taking. The feds don’t want the waste, and either do the other states that send theirs to us. Why don’t we take advantage of that and develop it into a viable industry that will provide jobs, energy alternatives to consumers, and vital dollars to the state of Nevada?
Why not? Because your interests don’t want it here; that’s why not. As a result, you’ve turned your back on a possible solution to Nevada’s economic woes. You do nothing while an industrial boon just sits underneath a mountain collecting dust and half-lives.
Sharron Angle is right to question your efforts to help your state. Throwing money at the problem isn’t going to solve it. Rather, it’s like putting a bandage over a severed artery or ointment on a first-degree burn. All it does is cover up the problem temporarily until another bandage or more ointment is needed to relieve the bleeding and the pain.
What you ought to be doing, Sen. Reid, is promoting policies and proposing legislation that will foster economic growth in your state and create a climate that encourages entrepreneurs to not only make money, but to grow their ventures and invest in new ones. You should be supporting policies and proposing bills that encourage small businesses to stay in business, to grow, flourish and invest in their communities.
Instead, you support the President’s tax plan to increase income taxes on the wealthiest Americans earning $250,000 a year or more. Don’t you realize that a significant number of these so-called wealthiest Americans are also small business owners around the country and in Nevada?
All you’ve done so far is throw money at the problem. As soon as that money is spent, then what? What has happened to the Big Three automakers is a perfect example. They were bailed out twice in three months. And yet, in spite of all this government cash, two of the three have filed bankruptcy; the same two that clamored for a bailout in the first place.
Much of the stimulus money Nevada was due to receive it hasn’t got. Yet you are the Senate Majority Leader. I might have expected your state to be among the first to benefit.
Exactly what good has all of your power and influence done Nevada in the last three years?
To Sen. Harry Reid I’d like to say that you haven’t done near enough to help your state out of its economic doldrums, in spite of all the help you claim to have brought. I don’t see the evidence. All I see is more Nevadans out of work now than when the recession first began, and more foreclosures, loan defaults and bankruptcies than three years ago, too. Whatever money you’ve sent Nevada’s way, it hasn’t addressed the root problems. And frankly, no amount ever will. You have to stand up and be a statesman for your state, an advocate in the senate, before Congress and the President. Stop being a party stooge and a money launderer for your special interests. Stop trying to buy off your constituents with hush money and be the representative to them that you once were. Stop being a politician and start being a representative. The two are distinctly different: One requires a lot of back scratching and boot-licking, while the other requires simply that you be your own man instead of somebody else’s, and stand up on your own rather than with the aid of your party crutch.
To Sharron Angle: It isn’t enough to just attack Sen. Reid. Your party is just as responsible for America’s and Nevada’s economic mess as Reid’s party is. Are you prepared to vote for prosperity and economic growth? Are you prepared to propose bills and support policies that encourage private sector growth? Paying it lip service isn’t enough, either.
You must be prepared to act, and do differently than Harry Reid has done as of late. You must accept the responsibility of addressing jobs and the economy that the office of U.S. senator requires. No, creating jobs isn’t your job; but creating an atmosphere and a climate conducive to job creation is your job. Remember that.