Run For Your Life! He's Creating Jobs!
In his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama this weekend issued a dire threat: That he "won't stop until every American who wants a job can find one."
As readers will recall from last week, this soft pivotry of job expectation is in fact nothing new–the president and his party have been focusing on "jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs" (including several signed-into-law jobs initiatives already long down the memory hole) since inauguration. It apparently has not yet occurred to them that the lousy jobs situation might in fact be related to their general approach toward jobs.
So what's Obama's plan? Mostly tinkering around the edges, some of it positive ("Let's cut red tape in the patent process so entrepreneurs can get good ideas to market more quickly. Let's finish trade deals so we can sell more American-made goods around the world"). But this speculative New York Times piece from over the weekend includes much to make you shudder, including:
The administration may also merge the Department of Commerce, the Office of the United States Trade Representative and some economic divisions at the State Department into a new agency, administration officials said. Possible names include the Department of Jobs or the Department of Competitiveness.
Competitiveness? Where have we heard that one before?
On Friday, Reason assembled a bunch of free-market types to come up with their own ideas for federal policies that lead to increased job growth. Read all about them here.