Investor's Business Daily Slams "Job Summit"

IBD isn't expecting much from today's White House job summit and they weren't afraid to say so in a column posted last night. Certainly worth a quick read.

The White House will hold its jobs summit Thursday. Don't expect this administration, so deeply devoted to government, to actually do anything that will create jobs for a country so in need of them.

Earlier this week, we published a chart showing the percentage of each president's Cabinet appointments with prior private sector experience going back to the first Roosevelt administration.

It was no surprise that not a single White House in more than a century has had a smaller ratio than the current administration. Only the Kennedy — less than 30% — and Carter — just over 30% — administrations were close to the Obama mark of less than 10%.

It is the height of hubris for an administration in which fewer than one in 10 Cabinet appointments have private-sector experience to hold a meeting with the goal of creating jobs.
The government, from lawmakers to bureaucrats, does not create jobs. It can move jobs from the private sector to the public through tax-and-spend wealth redistribution policies. But because government spending crowds out private investment, it is not a wealth creator and therefore cannot be a job creator.

Government is often a job killer. Economist Richard Rahn noted during the last Bush presidency that "government spending reduces more jobs in the private sector than it can create in the government sector."

"Countries with large government sectors," such as France and Germany, Rahn said, "tend to have much higher unemployment rates than countries with smaller government sectors."
Economic reality won't matter at the summit, though. What matters are appearances.

The White House wants to make a show of doing something, especially after its policies have done nothing to boost growth or stop the job losses. It would like to erase from public memory the utter failure of the $787 billion stimulus legislation approved just after Barack Obama took office. The administration knows its claim that thousands of jobs have been created or saved by the stimulus is bunk. And it knows the public knows.

But the stench of failed government solutions will remain.

Thursday's summit will be too heavy with union executives and eggheads whose experiences don't go beyond the academy. Neither group has a shining record of creating jobs, and their presence virtually ensures that little worthwhile will be considered.

Organized labor, for instance, contributes to unemployment. Its demands for above-market wages and lavish benefits mean that companies often can't afford to hire as many workers as they want.