Ribble Statement on Today’s Employment Figures
For Immediate Release
March 5, 2010
Contact: Kerry Niemcek
920-257-9746
“Once again, our national jobs picture is bleak. As Congress continues to dawdle on items that will have very little impact on our current employment situation, families in northeastern Wisconsin continue to suffer.
Wisconsinites are asking, for yet another month: ‘Where are the jobs that we were promised with the stimulus bill?’ The trillion dollar proposal was widely touted as the answer to the nation’s woes, but is acknowledged to have come far short of its supporters’ – and, more importantly, the American taxpayers’ – expectations.
In fact, most of the federal programs designed to rescue portions of the private sector have fallen flat. For example, a total of $2.87 billion was allocated to the “Cash for Clunkers” program, which attempted to prop up the automobile industry in the last year. In reality, the automobile market in Wisconsin has been in decline for several years.
National unemployment rate remained at 9.7%, with construction and information sectors losing ground while temporary jobs increased. Yet Congressman Steve Kagen continues to support Nancy Pelosi and increase massive federal deficit spending to increase government jobs at the expense of the true economic engines: private sector jobs. As a former small business owner, I saw first-hand how many of the federal programs passed in the last year stifle job creation nationwide, and especially in northeastern Wisconsin.
I’ve said it before: Business owners are reluctant to add jobs when we don’t know how much adding a job will cost. How much more will we pay under “cap-and-trade?” How much will the health insurance reform plan cost? How much will the stimulus plan ultimately cost me in increased tax dollars? Until small businesses find out the bottom line impacts of these massive federal actions they will be reluctant to add jobs.
Yesterday, Congressman Steve Kagen voted for – among other things — a payroll tax credit for businesses who hire the unemployed. While this makes for a nice press release, I question how many companies will hire a new employee for $30,000 to save 6.25%, or $1,875, of that salary. Even with the $1,000 bonus if the employee is still working in a year, given the costs of all the other expensive federal legislation out there, employees are still costly…and most of Kagen’s proposals make it much more costly.
With all respect to Dr. Kagen’s efforts, the only way to create jobs is for the federal government to stop spending our country into deficit, stop adding new regulations on our small businesses, and stop looking at the American taxpayer as one big piggy bank that can be raided on a whim.
Background on unemployment may be found at:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
State’s economy suffers as new car sales plummet – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/business/86093722.html
