John Boehner’s constant refrain in advance of the 2010 elections was, “Where are the jobs?”
It was a simple question pertinent to the concern far and away foremost in the public mind — the state of the economy. Since the election, the question for the GOP has become, “Where is your concern about jobs?”
The unemployment rate is still at 9 percent. According to Gallup, 35 percent of people say the economy is their top concern, and 22 percent say jobs. Just 12 percent cite the federal deficit and debt. Republicans have taken the top concern of roughly one-eighth of the public and made it their existential cause. On top of that, they have taken a subset of the debt issue, the long-term fiscal sustainability of Medicare, and made it their calling card.
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If political life were fair, they’d be rewarded for their farsightedness. Medicare’s trustees report that the trust fund that covers hospital stays will go broke in 2024, five years earlier than forecast just last year. But bureaucratic reports about threats more than ten years off don’t hit people where they live, especially not during a recovery that still feels like a recession.
If you are worried about the security of your job, if your personal income is stagnant, if the value of your home is still declining, and if you are paying more for food and fuel, the perilous state of a government program circa 2024 that you know, one way or the other, will never be permitted to go bankrupt is not a subject of proverbial kitchen-table conversation.
The special election in New York’s 26th district served as an early, albeit imperfect, referendum on the Republicans’ new calling card. Democrats made the Republican plan to transition Medicare to a premium-support program the overwhelming issue. It worked. Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that blue-collar independents and Democrats who swung the GOP’s way in 2010 swung against them this year. The Republican candidate, Jane Corwin, even bled blue-collar Republicans to a bogus “tea party” candidate.
These voters are especially sensitive to economic conditions and especially chary of changes to government programs they will come to depend on. They also are absolutely essential to Republican hopes in 2012.
Retreat on Medicare isn’t an option now. Like Cortés in Mexico, Republicans have disabled their ships behind them. With Senate Republicans voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Ryan budget during a Democratic-engineered show vote, all but nine Republicans on Capitol Hill are on record for Paul Ryan’s reforms. They’ll have to fight it out, and, as Abraham Lincoln advised Ulysses S. Grant, “hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
But even the shrewdest Medicare messaging will not suffice. For a party obsessed with the legacy of Ronald Reagan, post-2010 Republicans have been quick to forget the absolute pride of place he gave to economic growth.
The Ryan plan is called “The Path to Prosperity,” although prosperity hasn’t figured prominently in the conversation. Deficit reduction should be only an element of a program for renewing the economy, which directly impacts people’s lives and also makes controlling the debt marginally easier. By a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation, every 1 percent of economic growth above the assumptions of the Congressional Budget Office knocks $2 trillion from the debt over the next 10 years.
House Republicans just released a growth plan. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio has been evangelizing for a growth agenda since his election last year. The elements are familiar — cutting taxes and reforming the tax code, reining in regulation, increasing energy production, passing free-trade agreements. It doesn’t have much chance of getting signed into law, but neither does Ryan’s Medicare plan.
All of it is an exemplary exercise setting out a vision counter to Pres. Barack Obama’s and demonstrating that Republicans still know the most important question in American politics: “Where are the jobs?”
Good advice, but I have a feeling they won't take it.
Along with "Where are the jobs?", if candidates are going to win hard-hit areas like western New York, he or she is going to have to provide a credible reason for the people to believe the answer is, "They're coming to your area, soon." Which is difficult, as the government can't actually create jobs, as we've been reminded over and over. (And the fact that most of this would be involved in local decisions, of course--how much is the President going to be able to affect decisions about local incentives, anyway? And would it be his business to promote Western New York over South Dakota?)
It's a hard sell, especially given the strong idea that we need to get the government out of the way in a lot of areas. People are cynical by now about promises that things will get better for them, or that the jobs will magically come back home if only the businesses become freer.
So, while "Where are the jobs?" is the most important question as a needling point against the Dems, it's still more important to be able to answer that question in a concrete way.
What's amazing is how closely the right's behavior following their big win tracked the left's behavior following their big win. Both decided to move purely ideological items to the front burner, for the left, universal healthcare, for the right, a balanced budget; while completely ignoring voter's number one concern, the economy.
The left paid for it's hubris. Now, I guess, it's the right's turn.
Forget it Rich. We’re screwed. The populace is simply too economically ignorant and too disinterested to understand anything that is even moderately complex. So they cling to economic fallacies and are susceptible to fear mongering.
For example I asked someone who was complaining about free trade, what the Chinese get from us when we buy their goods and he said “our jobs” as if the Chinese just wanted to make stuff for us and wanted nothing in return than the right to continue to do so. You simply can’t argue with that kind of ignorance and you certainly can’t craft a plan for governance around it. What you can do is plan an electoral strategy around it but unfortunately the Democrats already have done so.
So all we can do is take comfort in the fact that we are right and they are wrong, while everything crashes around us.
Number of government jobs created (all levels)
Number of total jobs created
Number of private sector jobs created
Number of people still out of work (on UIC and those that have given up looking).
And if Obama starts with, "Tough times" talk, have Governor Perry note that his state led the nation in private jobs growth.
Perry also lied about how deep a fiscal hole Texas is in, wanted to secede & now complains the Feds aren't helping out enough with the wildfires. Hypocrites.
Lowry ignores the fact that almost every significant piece of legislation offered so far has been about abortion. I dislike abortion as much as the next guy, but I feel completely pandered-to, and would much rather they focus on issues that impact every last one of us, not a few.
What GoyoMarquez said--we overreached just like we accused the left of doing, and people see it.
It's not just the question of jobs. It's the question of getting things stabilized, which includes jobs, but isn't limited to it. People don't want big changes in any direction unless they're secure enough to try an experiment. When I have a little extra cash, I may put a flutter on a horse race. If I've got my last $2, I'm more likely to save it for the bus home. Granted, there are people who will bet it, hoping for a trifecta, but most people think they're a little nuts and need a 12-step program, rather than being brave and farsighted.
I know, Alaskan, that you don't think it's a bet, and you may be right--but emotionally, it is. When people are grasping at the straws of normalcy, someone saying, "I know, let's completely reconfigure the safety net" is just never, ever going to sell.
Get out of the jobless funk first. Then we can talk about the other things with people who are in a less risk-averse frame of mind.
Whether the economy/jobs improve or not; and let's hope that they do, what we should never forget is this...
"When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody" BHO POTUS (POTFLW)
The President Of The Free-Lunch World is guided by and committed to a redistribute the wealth lib-progressive agenda AND THAT IS JUST THE TIP OF THE FREEKIN' ICEBERG!!!
Growth in jobs will surely follow if the tax, fiscal, and regulatory atmosphere is changed. Business must be reasonably certain that the government is supportive and that the law of the land will be applied fairly. That the government will not be picking winners and losers. That simple mistakes won't be criminalized. That their money, if they work their butts off and take risks with their capital, won't be "spread around".
The Republican Congress is doing an excellent job, like Buckley, of crying STOP! Obama's redistributionist budget has been laughed out of the Senate 97-0. They held the line on the debt limit and new taxes despite fear mongering by Treasury & White House. And they had the guts to tackle entitlements. This is huge! Take comfort that the Republicans are doing a job that hasn't been done for years.
Rich, I think your focus is still not quite right. It isn't where the jobs are that matters - that question always brings out some opportunist (i.e. politician, enviro-wacko, etc.) who is eager to answer by claiming that they know where the jobs "should" be. The 'where' in the Opportunist's equation isn't where markets will determine they will be. What's important is growth, and growth depends on unleashing people to invest in and/or start-up an enterprise. Unleashing is helped by chopping government down to size, which results in smaller GOVERNMENT deficits and a happier populace. The GOP is closer than you think to supporting those goals.
Eric Cantor's radio message on this subject today was a good start. Now his points need to be repeated, repeated, repeated everywhere, until we all feel it's old hat but it's just starting to get through to the general public. And be sure to work in some compelling sound bites that even the laziest, most biased of reporters won't be able to leave out. That's called talking past the media.
I hate like the dickens to paraphrase anything Clintonian, but for 2012, the Republican mantra to themselves should be "It's JOBS stupid". I hate to say it, but all other theorizing and philosophizing is interesting to wonks, but won't resonate with the vast majority of voters.
Congressman Ryan's plan contains the entire pro-growth recipe - broad based tax terform, government spending cuts, as well as entitlement reforms. Unfortunately, anytime any attention is given to Medicare or Social Security from the right side of the aisle, it gets demagogued as republicans throwing old folks off a cliff (usually to pay for tax cuts for rich insurance execs). As a consequence, plans like Ryan's get distilled down to a single issue that is easy to vilify. Then guys like Rich start writing warnings to republican candidates about the "third rail" syndrom and the entire debate gets hi-jacked.
The fact of the matter is that business is not going to expand while there is so much uncertainty about the country's fiscal health. Nobody in the private sector is going to take any financial risk when there is no indication from the federal government that it is serious about debt and deficits. Thus, no job creation.
The fundamental political problem lies in the fact that the average voter seems to be so poorly educated in basic economics that he or she can't connect these two dots. This is where the battle must take place.
The Republican electorate gets lathered up by attacking people weaker than they are.
To take advantage of a growth agenda, you have to work. These Republicans don't want to work. They just want to be mean to poor people.
Growth is the way to go. Growth will be the winner. But I have many doubts that the growth agenda will come from the Republican field. How could you look at the energy coming from Republicans and claim that growth is a high priority for them?
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