posted September 11, 2012 08:40 AM            

Without serious accountability, the rallying cry for more “job creation” is likely to amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, recently declared on Face the Nation that President Barack Obama “is hostile to job creators,” reciting a standard Republican canard.
Especially since movements such as Occupy Wall Street began shining a spotlight on inequality, right-wingers have tried to rhetorically position the rich as engines of economic progress. However, the tired policies of trickle-down tax cuts don’t boost jobs.

For their part, liberals are advocating a new wave of spending to stimulate the economy. Yet, given a hostile Congress deep into election-year politicking, a jobs plan reliant on expanding government outlays is dead in the water. To bring much-needed relief to an ailing job market, we need a different solution.

Here’s one step we can take immediately that should command broad support across the political spectrum. Why not demand accountability for the public support we’re already doling out to companies large and small?

The watchdog group Good Jobs First recently reported that taxpayers currently spend $70 billion per year on business incentives. In return for tax breaks and other subsidies, companies routinely make big promises about the number of jobs they will create.

Sounds great. But there’s rarely any follow-up. We don’t know if these companies are keeping their promises, and they have few incentives to do so.

“Many states fail to even verify that companies receiving subsidies are meeting their job-creation goals and other commitments, and many more have weak penalty policies for addressing non-compliance,” wrote Michelle Lee of Good Jobs First upon the report’s release.

Many people argue that government should be run more like a business. But what company would enact policies that hugely affected its revenue stream without making sure it was getting a worthwhile return on its investment?

Any spending that’s supposed to generate new jobs should hinge on accountability. If a business promises to generate 1,000 new jobs in return for a public subsidy, our states and localities should demand that money back if the jobs never materialize.

Fortunately, we’re seeing some progress in this direction. In its $15-million program providing cash grants to companies that create jobs, Vermont included measures to get its money back from supported businesses if promised jobs don’t materialize. The state will publish online the names and penalties incurred by any companies failing to meet their obligations.

North Carolina and Virginia both have subsidy programs that carefully track grants, and companies must return tax dollars if they don’t prove that the public benefitted from them. Iowa, Oklahoma, and Maryland are also taking commendable steps to ensure accountability.

In other cases, investigative journalists and public interest activists are picking up the slack. They’re holding companies accountable on the public stage for job promises not kept.

One hopeful example has emerged over the past year in Chicago. There, diligent reporters at the Chicago Reader, along with advocates at the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, worked to expose a program known as tax increment financing. Half a billion dollars raised through property taxes were sent annually to fund this program, originally designed to help struggling neighborhoods attract investment that would spur economic development. But in practice, the program became an unaccountable slush fund.

Shamed by the exposé, three businesses — Bank of America, the insurance company CNA Group, and a financial exchange company called the CME Group — announced that they would give back a total of $34 million that the city of Chicago had paid in subsidies. In the case of the first two groups, the businesses had promised — and failed to deliver — a total of 2,700 jobs as a condition for public support.

Additionally, the uproar compelled Mayor Rahm Emanuel to announce reforms to that program, including outside auditing of whether businesses receiving public subsidies were actually meeting job-creation pledges.

Republicans can call for corporate tax breaks and Democrats for public funding to generate jobs. But unless we’re all calling for serious accountability, the rallying cry for more “job creation” is likely to amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric.

******

This commentary was distributed by, and cross-posted at, Otherwords.org.

posted September 11, 2012 11:48 AM            

Let's start with O'Bomber's big campaign contributors from Solyndra which went belly up after taking more than half a BILLION from taxpayers...to create JOBS. Then, we can work our way through the rest of O'Bomber's contributors which were nothing but payoffs for campaign contributions disguised as JOBS creators.

Let's get them all...including his KASH for CAULKERS program which to my knowledge never created a job.

Oh, and let's be sure to get a refund for the difference between what the average American income is...and what each job O'Bomber claims to have created actually cost American taxpayers. How about that? You down with that? I don't really think you are but I'm open to you proving me wrong...so prove it!

CBO: Jobs Created and Saved By Stimulus Cost At Minimum An Average of $228,055 Each
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-jobs-created-and-saved-stimulus-cost-m inimum-average-228055-each

posted September 11, 2012 04:32 PM            

What was that jobs created number again which drove the unemployment rate down to 8.1%. Yeah, now I remember, under 100,000 for the month for the entire country. Wow.

But that's not what took the unemployment number down from 8.3% to 8.1%.

While fewer than 100,000 people found jobs in America, almost 400,000 became so discouraged they stopped looking for work and got dropped from the rolls of the "unemployed"...as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. AND THAT'S WHAT DROVE THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DOWN TO 8.1%.

I suppose we should give O'Bomber credit for the lower unemployment rate for discouraging those 400,000 people who stopped looking for a job.

Hell, if O'Bomber could only manage to discourage the rest of the unemployed Americans and get them to stop looking for a job the unemployment rate would drop to 0 and O'Bomber could claim credit for fixing the economy.

posted September 11, 2012 04:44 PM            

no, they are figuring out how to work for themselves...hence they do not appear on payroll lists OR unemployment.

perhaps you don't know anyone who works for themselves? so you don't understand that until tax time one such will appear "invisible" to officialdom? or are you just being pigheaded?

but people are spending more money. if they were on welfare their consumption would not be going up, nor if they were earing NOTHING as you seem to think.

posted September 11, 2012 04:53 PM            

You must be sooooo proud of your little Marxist Messiah O'Bomber.

It takes real talent to be a total screw-up in every single metric of presidential governance.

posted September 11, 2012 11:31 PM            

but "no doubt" there is not an honest man in the country apart from you, jwhop, and the snarky, foamy mouthed bloggers you call journalists...

posted September 12, 2012 10:15 AM            

Two successful* examples are the 'contracts' between gov. and the auto makers, as well as the bailouts*

*The Bush II bailout had no strings attached whatsoever.

*The auto industry made good on their loans and are nearly paid off.

* It was reported recently that the AIG stock sale made the FED 13 bln

posted September 12, 2012 11:11 AM            

Hidden out of view in the background are billions from the Federal Reserve..given to GM to pay those loans back. Money taken from a third party..Fed to pay back US taxpayers is a sham payback because every dollar of obligation by the Federal Reserve is an obligation of the United States AND US taxpayers. So, it's all bullshiiiit!

Further, the US government is buried in Government Motors. The US has invested far more in Government Motors than the entire worth of the company.