Maybe someone can smuggle this commentary past the Secret Service, the White House staff and Rahm Emanuel to President Obama. Obviously, he did not read the commentary I wrote two months ago citing three suggestions on how to end the recession and create jobs.
Here are those suggestions, plus three more, none of which were even mentioned at the jobs summit. Once again, these are not original ideas. They are just common-sense ideas that several people have suggested, but somehow they have not made it to the president's ear:
1. Suspend the payroll tax for one year
This gives an immediate 7.65-percent increase in take-home pay to all workers. It also lowers the payroll costs for all employers by 7.65 percent for one year. A total of about $900 billion would be injected directly into the economy immediately, rather than through the inefficiency of the federal government.
2. Suspend federal tax on repatriated profits
Multinational U.S. businesses are hungry for cash flow, which could come from cash they have sitting in foreign countries to avoid double taxation. The last time this was only partially done, in 2005 during the Bush administration, nearly $300 billion came back to U.S. businesses from their overseas operations.
3. Pass tax-cutting legislation, not more tax credits
Tax credits come after the fact. Tax cuts for businesses come before you have to lay more people off. And if they are the "right" tax cuts, businesses may even be able to hire some people.
4. Suspend limits on business investment deductions
Accounting rules require businesses to depreciate large business investments over time, rather than deduct the full expenditure in the year it was spent. This puts a strain on business cash flow, which is needed to add jobs.
5. Suspend proposed job-killer legislation
Suspend work on passage of cap-and-trade legislation and health-care legislation. They are both huge new taxes on businesses, and the prospect of passage has businesses in a state of "stop." They stop hiring. They stop taking risks. And they stop investing in their businesses. All of these "stops" are job killers. They are not job creators.
6. Replace tax code with single consumption tax
This is popularly known as the Fair Tax, H.R. 25. It would produce a huge sucking sound of businesses from around the world wanting to establish businesses here in the U.S. It would supercharge our economy like never before. It gives power back to the people. What a patriotic idea!
Mr. President, I know the sixth suggestion would cause your fellow Democrats in Congress to have massive political coronaries, so just focus on the first five and you could save this economy, and possibly your presidency.
I am offering these suggestions because our economy cannot wait any longer for relief to get going again. But it needs to be the right kind of relief.
The estimated 16 million people out of work can't wait any longer to find a job. They have run out of what little savings they had. They have used up all of their borrowing capacity. And their relatives are not even taking their calls anymore.
We do not need another summit. We do not need another speech filled with vague platitudes and insincere calls for other ideas and shared sacrifice. So far during your administration, the ones making the most sacrifice are the ones without jobs, and the ones that you and Congress want to tax even more than we are already.
Stop the rhetoric. Businesses are in a state of stop. Start the solutions.