We Need Demand

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, businesses will only begin hiring when there is a demand for their products. Or as simple economics tells us: demand must meet supply.

The best way to create demand is by providing tax breaks for the middle-class. It is by keeping benefits, like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits that millions of Americans are dependent on. It is by educating our citizens to ensure they are able to compete with the rest of the world. The American Jobs Act does this. Further, Obama’s jobs act will provide tax cuts for small businesses and provide immediate employment through infrastructure projects.

This past week, President Obama met with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, made up of almost entirely big businesses that are known by the Republican Party as the “Job Creators.” The Council—including the CEOs and Chairmen of GE, Xerox, American Express, Southwest Airlines, Proctor and Gamble, Boeing, Intel, Citigroup, and Comcast—specifically mentioned the need to spend on infrastructure to create jobs in the short run and provide long-term stability. Once again, the American Jobs Act does this.

For those who argue that we need less government involvement, it was the Bush administration’s lack of government regulation and oversight that caused us the economic crisis we are currently in. Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a small percentage of employers have reported regulation as a reason for laying off workers. Instead, the data shows that the main issues were tied to insufficient demand.

We need the American Jobs Act.

Earlier this week, however, Senate Republicans—while offering no plan of their own—unanimously filibustered, and thus killed, the bill. With over 14 million people out of work, low wages, rising poverty, and insufficient demand, the American Jobs Act was not even allowed to be debated on.

It seems as though the fate of our economy now rests on the seriousness of the Republican leadership.