Jobs or Cuts?

All this political talk about creating jobs while cutting costs has to be taken with a grain of salt.   The only way a sustainable job can be created is for someone or something to generate the demand for it.  Though private job creation is more desirable, private industry has been hesitating to do that, waiting for the demand for its products or services to pick up first.  That's okay.  It's a wise choice.  But for the government to throw money in that direction to create jobs is not likely to pay off well if at all right now.  This leaves it up to the federal government then to be the locomotive that pulls the rest of the train of growing our economy, mostly by engaging in public works spending.  

Here's where today's biggest problem arises.  Many in the Republican party want to balance any public spending with an equal measure of cost cutting.  What they don't realize is that cutting costs most often involves cutting personnel--the biggest generator of costs by far in most industries.  Cutting costs randomly at a time like this will involve cutting jobs, undermining the attempt to create more jobs and undercutting the momentum and speed of the train.  Their philosophical idea of cutting the size and scope of government is wise and greatly needed, but their timing is wrong.  Obama's stimulus plan has been working, if people will look closely.  As he himself stated, the only problem with it is that it wasn't big enough and didn't go far enough to enable a full recovery.  It wasn't intended to.  Maybe it shouldn't.  Isn't it better to struggle along and let private industry and laborers adjust to the changing times and needs than to become dependent on government to do the whole job, financed of course by more and more taxes?   There are presently encouraging signs that the economy is starting to recover, though it has and will be slow coming back.  What we do then in the near future will substantially affect whether and how well it will continue to move ahead.  In other words, we must watch carefully and decide again and again as we move along which to prioritize: jobs or cuts?

The other big mistake some governments are making currently is to cut education budgets.  There are lots of jobs available right now and have been all along.  The difficulty here is that there aren't enough skilled workers to fill them.  Our future economy depends on building an educated, skilled workforce.  How can we do that if our children and young adults don't receive a top notch education?  We have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot like this.  

It's time to bite the bullet, take some risks, and invest in our country and its schools until our nation grows into an improved ability to handle the deficit and costs of good governing.  There is no harm in streamlining what our officials are doing presently, but let's not cut those programs that are essential to maintaining and rebuilding our great American free, safe, and prosperous way of life.  

Calling for time, patience, common sense, and careful choices ahead,

Margaret