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TURNOUT WAS HIGH AT LAST WEEK’S JOB FAIR.  It was my second job fair of the year and it was good to see so many businesses, actively looking to fill positions, meeting with job seekers from all across San Diego County.   

IF A JOB FAIR HELPS ONE PERSON GET A PAYCHECK AGAIN, THEN IT’S WORTH IT.  The debate in Congress on the economy continues, with the focus on getting us back on track, but job fairs are just something else I can do, away from the Capitol, to help get people back to work.  

A NOTE OF APPRECIATION.  A special thanks to Cuyamaca College and the East County Career Center for their contribution and hard work.  Both helped make the job fair possible.

NONPARTISAN CBO ISSUES WARNING.  The Congressional Budget Office confirmed that added federal spending, as a method for economic recovery, has failed to prevent unacceptably high unemployment.  CBO reports that unemployment will remain in excess of 8.5 percent for at least the next two years. Click here to read the full report.  

NEW SPENDING IS A NON-STARTER.  Calls for a second stimulus program should be refocused on an entirely different approach that creates certainty for small businesses, reduces spending, preserves programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the real cost-drivers of the budget, for future generations and reforms the tax code.  Tax reform alone would add trillions of dollars to the economy, according to experts. 

TAX REFORM: A PATH TO GROWTH. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School, argues that tax reform could expand the economy by a half to full percentage point per year.  He makes the case that 1) lower marginal taxes will increase capital formation and productivity 2) tax reform is part of the structural reform the economy needs 3) and tax reform is a precondition for deficit reduction.    

MANY SAN DIEGO BUSINESSES STILL FEELING THE PINCH.  A new report indicates that the number of San Diego small businesses filing for bankruptcy has nearly doubled since the first quarter of 2008.   The report serves as another reminder that small businesses, the backbone of the American economy, should be at the forefront of a broader recovery plan.  Read the entire story in the San Diego Union Tribune here.

LEADING ECONOMIST UNDERSCORES NEED FOR NEW DIRECTION.   In a recent interview on MSNBC, economist Jeffrey Sachs pushed back against new stimulus spending, saying that we had “a short-term stimulus that was supposed to get the economy back on track, but it failed.”  Watch part of the interview here.

DEFICIT REDUCTION TALKS CONTINUE THROUGH THE SUPER-COMMITTEE.  With the bipartisan super-committee meeting on a regular basis, expected to produce recommendations by the Thanksgiving holiday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton banded together to warn of any further cuts to national defense.  Failure by the super-committee to reach an agreement would trigger a $600 billion cut in defense spending.  Panetta and Clinton said this would have “devastating” impact on national defense and the State Department.

IMMIGRATION REFORM IS BACK IN THE NEWS, this time, due to a decision by the Obama Administration to review approximately 300,000 backlogged immigration court cases.  Before the Administration even announced its plan, which has already resulted in an unknown number of reprieves, I drafted legislation to help alleviate the backlog of immigration cases, without granting amnesty in any form.  Click here to read my press release. 

LATEST OP-EDS.  Check out my two most recent commentaries:  Stop Exporting American Jobs, published in the Washington Times, and A Tax on Technology in a High-Tech Town, featured in the San Diego Union Tribune.