The Republican Party opposes President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, which Macroeconomic Advisers says will boost America’s GDP and add more than 2 million jobs in the next two years. (See also former McCain campaign economist Mark Zandi — who says the bill would create 1.9 million jobs next year.)
But it’s not as though Republicans don’t have any ideas of their own about how to create jobs. Here are three recent Republican jobs proposals, all of which were really offered in earnest by Republican lawmakers.
A ban on exotic invasive species of snakes, such as the Burmese python, is Exhibit A for the Republican argument that over-regulation is strangling job creation:
In the on-going battle over the dismal state of the jobs market, Republicans argue that a “regulatory tsunami” from the Obama administration is choking off jobs growth. Committee members say the free market should handle the giant pythons and that government tampering would “devastate a small but thriving sector of the economy.”
2. De-fund Injury and Illness Prevention
It’s not just the dynamic Burmese python importation business being hobbled by government red tape, it’s also all those workers not being hobbled by injuries. A recent Republican budget proposal in Congress proposed economic stimulus through the elimination of the Labor Department’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program, ending research into repetitive-motion injuries, and getting rid of that rule about workers on rooftops needing safety harnesses.
The short-term harm to safety-harness manufacturers will, I suppose, be overcome by increased spending at emergency rooms.
No, really. See, those Big Brother socialists in Tallahassee banned the demeaning spectacle in 1999, but a Republican Florida lawmaker says repealing that ban — like all deregulation — will create jobs:
“I’m on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people,” [Fla. Rep. Ritch] Workman said. “This is an example of Big Brother government.”
So don’t let anyone tell you that Republicans don’t have any ideas for creating jobs.
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