Republicans Discover Evidence of Jobs Crisis

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. has been in a jobs emergencysince at least 2008. The cause of the crisis -- too littledemand -- isn’t mysterious, and neither are the solutions. Wecould invest in infrastructure to create construction jobs. Wecould give tax breaks to employers who hire new workers. Wecould restore the payroll tax cut to workers so they have moremoney to spend. We could help state and local governments hireback some of the employees they laid off during the recession.Macroeconomic Advisers, an economic consulting firm, found thatthe American Jobs Act, which contained many of these policies,would have created 2 million jobs.

But in recent years, these policies have been eitherblocked or canceled by congressional Republicans. They foughtDemocrats to scuttle the American Jobs Act and allow the payrolltax break and long-term unemployment benefits to expire.Creating jobs, they argued, was neither feasible nor affordable.