Idea That Deregulation Leads To Jobs 'Just Made Up'

[robdogbucky]

Bruce Bartlett, Ex-Reagan Economist: Idea That Deregulation Leads To Jobs 'Just Made Up'

WASHINGTON -- Key proposals from the Republican presidential candidates might make for good campaign fodder. But independent analyses raise serious questions about those plans and their ability to cure the nation's ills in two vital areas, the economy and housing.

Consider proposed cuts in taxes and regulation, which nearly every GOP candidate is pushing in the name of creating jobs. The initiatives seem to ignore surveys in which employers cite far bigger impediments to increased hiring, chiefly slack consumer demand.

"Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today," writes Bruce Bartlett. He's an economist who worked for Republican congressmen and in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, "It's just nonsense. It's just made up..."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/gop-candidates-plans-on-economy-housing_n_1066949.html



Government and industry studies support his view.

[Ohio Joe]

1. No, it is not simply made up

It is a lie.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. It's about as ludicrous as saying "Famine causes morbid obesity".

[gratuitous]

3. Oh, like the popular media are going to listen to some socialist egghead

The Republicans are saying that deregulation leads to job growth, and when have you ever known them to lie just for political purposes? Why are you looking for "facts" or "evidence" that would lend credence to this? Isn't it enough that the Republicans are saying it? There are also some small business persons (All bow. Selah.) who say it, and they're the ones who create jobs, fella, so they should know.

This whole Occupy stunt is just stirring up trouble.

[robdogbucky]

4. More

"...The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks companies' reasons for large layoffs, found that 1,119 layoffs were attributed to government regulations in the first half of this year, while 144,746 were attributed to poor "business demand."

Mainstream economic theory says governments can spur demand, at least somewhat, through stimulus spending. The Republican candidates, however, have labeled President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus efforts a failure. Instead, most are calling for tax cuts that would primarily benefit high-income people, who are seen as the likeliest job creators.

"I don't care about that," Texas Gov. Rick Perry told The New York Times and CNBC, referring to tax breaks for the rich. "What I care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies."

Many existing businesses, however, have plenty of unspent cash. The 500 companies that comprise the S&P index have about $800 billion in cash and cash equivalents, the most ever, according to the research firm Birinyi Associates...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/gop-candidates...

[robdogbucky]

5. More from Bartlett

SAource: Daily Kos

Bruce Bartlett was on Hardball today. If you missed his appearance it was simply amazing.

He destroyed every Republican fiscal talking point in 5 minutes.

Transcript.
.

CM: Bruce Bartlett is former Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary under the first George Bush and a policy adviser to Ronald Reagan. Bottom line, let's look at the numbers right now. We've got a chart coming up. This shows the Bush tax cuts were responsible for increasing the debts. Now, we have about a $14 trillion debt right now, half came out since the turn of the century, and more than 40% of that has been from tax cuts.

BB: That's right. When Bush took office, we had a debt of about $6 trillion. The projections from the CBO were that we were going to run a $6 trillion surplus. By this point, if we had done nothing, we would have paid off the dead debt, but we added about $3 trillion of tax cuts. We lost about $3 trillion of revenue because of the slower economy and added about $6 trillion of spending, largely due to two unfinished wars and a Medicare drug benefits and a lot of other things. So, instead of getting -- paying off the debt--we ended up with about a $14 trillion debt.

CM: Some of these clowns, not all of them, running around saying Barack Obama is a Socialist, he drove up the national debt to $14 trillion and dance around in a circle and congratulate each other. That's not true.

BB: No, i think the dirty secret is that Obama is a moderate conservative. If I were a liberal democrat, I probably would be upset.

More at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/28/999759/-Hardba...