They Took Our Jobs!!!

“They took our jobs!!!”  This is the mantra that the creators of South Park have so endearingly given to middle class America.  However, despite their malicious intent, they may have stumbled across something.  Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the new economic data for the month of June and the unemployment rate increased to 9.2%.  With these dreary employment numbers one is forced to ask, who did take our jobs?  One need look no further than Washington, since Obama signed into law the “stimulus package” the unemployment rate has gotten nowhere near pre-stimulus levels.


According to the Weekly Standard’s Jeffrey Anderson, the stimulus has cost taxpayers $278,000 per job.  With this staggering price tag and lack of success of the program, it begs the question did we get the most bang for our tax bucks?  Due to the complete failure of this program, one begins to wonder as to what that money could have been spent on.  Perhaps tax cuts across the board?


Frederic Bastiat once said, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”  No clearer an example of this is the “stimulus package.”  In an attempt to create jobs Obama passed this terrible legislation and as a result the unemployment rate is higher now than when Obama first took office.  This stimulus package takes money from the people and places it into politicians’ pet projects and programs in the vain hope that jobs will magically result from them.  However, if the people were allowed to keep more of their money they would be able to stimulate the economy and create jobs far better than any government could ever hope to do. 
For when the people are allowed to keep more of their money their purchasing power is increased and they know how to spend their money.  In our consumer culture, I seriously doubt that we need the government to help us spend our money.  As a result of our spending, more jobs would be created and a true stimulus would occur.  The heart of this issue is who do you want to plan your finances, the politicians in Washington or yourself?  As the economy continues to get worse and unemployment continues to climb, every American should be screaming at their elected officials “They took our jobs!!!”