High Unemployment Rules Out Recycling of Failed Policies

By Tom Price

This piece first appeared in the Marietta Daily Journal on November 10, 2011

In Washington, there is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of some when it comes to the role of government in job creation and economic growth. One sees it in the Obama Administration’s latest “jobs” plan. The president wants Congress to do exactly what it did last time — pass a massive “stimulus” measure.

Stimulus measures — no matter how well-intentioned — have not worked. In the meantime, to the further detriment of the unemployed, Washington has proven itself all too capable of stifling economic growth through wasteful spending, harmful regulations, and excessive taxation. To turn our economy around, Congress must focus on bringing an end to that reckless behavior.

Here in Georgia, we are feeling the effects of a stubborn economy held hostage by the ineffective economic policies that have reigned over the past few years. In September, the unemployment rate in Georgia increased to 10.3 percent. Georgia families and job creators are looking for leaders to step up to the plate with positive solutions to get this economy moving again.

It would be reckless for Congress to answer that call for leadership by doubling-down on policies we know have not succeeded in encouraging private capital to get off the sidelines and back to work.

In Georgia, there is no way we can expect sustained, robust economic growth so long as the government tries to manipulate the economy, pick winners and losers, and pay for itself with borrowed money. The solutions to today’s jobs crisis are not more spending, taxing, and regulating authority for Washington.

The American people won’t tolerate being asked to accept the promises that another gamble with taxpayer dollars will succeed where others have failed. Today, unemployment nationally is over a full percentage point higher than the 8 percent President Obama and his supporters promised would be the peak if we enacted his first stimulus bill. According to their projections, the unemployment rate for October 2011 should have been in the range of 6.5 percent, not 9 percent.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans have drafted, debated, and passed legislation to help expand the production of American-made energy, provide regulatory relief for job creators, and pay down our debt — all to make America more competitive in the global economy. Our budget would cut $6 trillion in spending and put us on a path to paying off the nation’s debt. It calls for significant reforms to the tax code to lower rates, simplify it, and eliminate loopholes and distortions that make it a tome of contradictions and inconsistencies.

Our regulatory relief measures would roll back the overreach of federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and National Labor Relations Board — agencies that have effectively painted a target on the backs of job creators. These bureaucracies must be held accountable, and we have made that clear by voting to stall the implementation of regulations that would cost jobs in America.

We are targeting these barriers to job creation — the regulatory, debt, and tax uncertainty that is keeping private capital investment on the sidelines of the economy.

There are over a dozen pieces of legislation we have passed and sent to the Senate that would create a more positive environment for job creation. Georgians need relief. That begins with getting Washington out of the way of those who can rebuild this nation’s economy and put our neighbors back to work.

Let’s stop trying to solve long-term problems with short-term proposals that have already proven inadequate to the task at hand.

We must adopt solutions that embrace the principles of free enterprise that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world.

U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell represents the Sixth District of Georgia and currently serves as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the House of Representatives.