According to the 2012 Republican National Convention: “Romney claims to have a plan that will create 12 million new jobs.”
More or less, I believe the statement is a sales pitch to long-term unemployed who believe Romney and Ryan actually have a plan. And while it sounds ambitious it’s not entirely impossible. But Romney would need to create 250,000 jobs per month for four years from the moment he takes office. But Romney’s job plan specifics don’t exist and without them, there’s no telling how he and Ryan would increase military spending, cut taxes, restore over $700 billion to Medicare, meet the government’s core obligations and bring down deficits. In other words, it’s a pipe-dream to anyone willing to smoke it.
But’s let’s explore this a little. Maybe the economy will become reignited once the ‘Job Killing,’ ‘Job Crushing,’ ‘Job Destroying’ Health Care Bill gets repealed? Yeah, yeah! That’s it. It’s about healthcare. Boehner and company have often quoted the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as the source of their original analysis. But the budget office, which referees the costs and consequences of legislation, never produced an excessive ‘Job Killing,’ ‘Job Crushing,’ ‘Job Destroying’ number.
What the CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people, once covered, would no longer have to work or those that can downshift to less demanding employment because insurance will be available outside the job. That would reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount, roughly half a percent. And that half-percent equates to 650,000 jobs.
So, that leaves Romney with about 11.4 million jobs left to create. Well, damn … then it has to be the “…out of control government spending.” Yeah! Yeah! That’s it: an out of control government. According to Boehner’s website:
“The policies of the Obama Administration – out-of-control government spending, excessive regulations on small businesses, unnecessary barriers to responsible production of American-made energy, and the constant threat of increased taxes on private-sector job creators – continue to present a great challenge to economic growth in the United States. “
But as its been noted time and time again, on paper, the U.S. has a high statutory corporate tax rate. However, U.S. corporations actually pay incredibly low taxes due to the ever-proliferating loopholes, credits, and deductions in the tax code and the use of overseas tax havens. Thus, U.S. corporate taxes actually paid fell to a 40 year low of 12.1 percent in fiscal year 2011, despite corporate profits rebounding to their pre-Great Recession heights.
The U.S. both taxes its corporations less and raises less in revenue from corporate taxes than its foreign competitors. In truth, US companies are still sitting on a trillion dollar plus cash mountain, but this hasn’t changed the fact that U.S. corporations continue to tuch away hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.
So in keeping with a “right speech” theme, I will lay it out for you. At the end of the day, the Republicans want the White House back and Romney does not need a job plan. So what’s the secret Romney-Ryan don’t expound upon? Well as the Washington Post points out, Moody’s Analytics predicts 12 million jobs by 2016, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.
That’s why Romney cannot produce a job’s plan: it’s simply part of the natural employment cycle.