More About Job Creators

Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, and even Romney continue to spin the myth about job creators. According to their line of bull, small business owners appear to “live” to create jobs. Give small business more money in the way of tax cuts, and small business will use that money to create jobs. While every bit of economic evidence contradicts that assertion the right continues to repeat that lie. If this were actually true, since the Bush tax cuts of 2001, the country should be awash in jobs waiting to be filled. Unfortunately, the decade since 2001 was possibly the worst ten year period of job creation. Or, putting it another way, the ten year period from 2001 saw the biggest increase in unemployment and underemployment since the great depression. OF course, politicians are not the best source of this information. Survey results of the current Office Depot Small Business Index of small (1 – 99 employees) business owners has reported the following: · "Making more money/increasing profits," "saving money/keeping costs down," and "sales" are the three biggest business issues on the minds of small business owners. · "Staffing" and "business travel" remain the areas where at least 20 percent of small businesses are making the biggest cuts. More than 1 in 10 are also reducing spending on "technology" and "marketing." · Looking ahead at the rest of the year, nearly 40 percent of owners would like to increase spending in "advertising/marketing" followed at much lower levels by "travel", "payroll/salaries" and "computer/IT support." It appears that the opinion of the small business owners, the “job creators” in the words of politicians indicate that rather than being focused on creating jobs their interests are more in line with “keeping costs down” which would include cutting “staffing”. In the real world, “cutting staffing” is not the same as “creating jobs” but just the opposite. Tax cuts may mean more money in the pockets of small business owners, but that money is not going to leave their pockets and “trickle down” to pockets of new employees.