This week I met with job creators to get their ideas on how to get more Americans, and particularly more East Texans, working.  What I heard from them was that it is the uncertainty caused by President Obama’s economic policies – and other choices made in Washington – that is holding them back from making the investments necessary to hire more people.

The Obama Administration and Washington Democrats have pursued jobs-killing policies such as the government takeover of health care, a national energy tax, a financial regulatory bill that enshrines us as a bailout nation, and doing nothing to stop the automatic $32,428 average per household tax increase that is set to occur at the end of this year.

These policies have injected uncertainty into the economy, causing nearly $2 trillion in private capital to stay on the sidelines.  Given all of this uncertainty, why would anyone want to start a new business, or expand a current one in this environment?

By any measure this is an economy that should be recovering, but it is not, due to what has become a crisis of confidence, not a crisis of capital.

This all the more frustrating because it doesn’t have to be this way.  There are a number of ideas that could be passed on a bipartisan basis – extending the current tax rates to avoid the automatic tax increase coming at the end of the year and improving the equipment depreciation and expensing deductions for business to encourage them to invest some of the $2 trillion that is currently being held back to cover the unknowns in the looming storm clouds of Obamanomics are two that I support and that have been endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Unfortunately, due to a rigid adherence to ideology it appears these ideas will never pass muster with President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  These are the same folks who passed a trillion dollars on a stimulus package on the basis that unemployment would never go above 8%.  After 16 months of unemployment hovering near 10% their credibility on the economy is shot.  It is time for them to admit that their effort to spend, borrow and bailout our way to prosperity has failed.