Sam Bregman is clueless. His cluelessness on economics drives me nuts. The latest exhibit is this piece in the Albuquerque Journal in which he again takes Gov. Martinez to task for “not creating jobs.”
I have debunked Bregman in the past, but I’ll take this opportunity to do it once again.
1) Politicians and government don’t create jobs. Yes, I know, plenty of people bring home paychecks from the government, but everything government does requires it to take resources from other parts of the economy. It merely shifts resources, usually to less economical/efficient uses;
2) Governors are not kings/queens. Gov. Martinez heads up one branch of New Mexico’s government (the executive). The Legislature and the Courts are dominated by Democrats. If Republicans held all three branches and the economy was in terrible shape, Bregman might have a leg to stand on, but he doesn’t;
3) New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 6.6 percent. That is too high, but it is lower than that in 33 other states and lower than the national average of 8.3 percent. The national economy, lest Bregman forget, is governed by a federal government that is headed up by President Obama. As I noted in a previous blog posting, Obama’s record on jobs is terrible. What is Bregman’s excuse for that?
4) On a more personal note, I suppose Bregman would know something about killing jobs in New Mexico. He has personally done it and no, I’m not referring to his career as a lawyer. Rather, he used to own the New Mexico Thunderbirds basketball team, but sold them to an out-of-state interest that moved them out of New Mexico, thus costing several people their jobs or at least moving them out of state. Do I blame Bregman for this? Not really. I went to a few T-birds games and enjoyed them, but if he was losing gobs of money on the deal, I don’t expect him to continue pouring money into it. But, it is bit silly for him to keep making such silly points in the newspaper.
I await Bregman’s opinion pieces on the job-killing aspects of minimum wage increases.
Democrat fiscal stupidity knows no bounds.
Replace the points in 1 and 2 with “Barack Obama” and this is a stringent defense of Obama!
But then Gessing decides to contradict himself and blame Obama for jobs on a federal level (even though private sector jobs have increased under Obama). More mendacity from Gessing. Hope CATO is getting its money’s worth.
Richard is wrong.
Re: his point 1, Obama DID say he would create jobs. And everything he has done since taking office has scared the real job creators into NOT wanting to create jobs because of his onerous regulation increases and threats to tax them if they make money, a typical dictatorial leftist tactic.
And he said he would bring down unemployment, Martinez did not say that.
Re: point 2 according to Richard,
She does not try to act like a potentate, like Obama does. She is a governor, not a dictator like he is (or tries to be).
Yes, the New Mexico Legislature and courts are dominated by Democrats.
Until 2010 Obama’s legislature (both houses, until the people rose up iand righted that wrong, but not completey enough) was completely dominated by Democrats also.
People of his own party even vetoed down his first budget as too radical for America.
Sorry, replacement of Susanna with Barack does NOT constitute any kind of defense of the indefensible, much less a “stringent defense”.
Hopefully we will right the Obama wrong in November. If not, well, we will just have to push more employers to lay off their lowest-performing employees until the unemployment rate is at 15% or more.
I delayed starting up my business until after the November election.
If Obama is not defeated, I will not start it at all.
Have you even lived in the United States the past few years? Even when Democrats controlled the two chambers, Senate Republicans manged to block everything by running more filibusters than every seen in the history of the United States.
And saying that Obama scared job creators into not creation jobs while private sector jobs have INCREASED under Obama is not only laughable, but shows a glaring disinterest for the facts.
Saying he is a dictator is a favorite of the conspiracy theorists that populate the far-right (the Glenn Beck zone, if you will) but it remains merely that — a far-out-there conspiracy theory by those who dislike Obama merely because of the D behind his name and are blind to hwat he has really done.
Richard, the minority party can’t filibuster when the majority has 60 votes had which the Democrats had until they overplayed their hand and lost a US Senate race in Massachusetts of all places. Of course, the economy should see tremendous job creation right now because we are, at least in theory, coming OUT of a recession. Unfortunately, this is the weakest post-war recovery ever. And much of the blame rests at Obama’s feet.
Obama doesn’t know what to do to create jobs. Those things that would create jobs are opposed by many of the pressure groups that support him. Environmentalists oppose all natural resource development. Socialists support Obamacare — a job killer. Unions support job killing labor regulations. The list is endless.
Romney is our only hope.
Minimum wage is still just a euphemism for compulsory unemployment. If people really want more employment we must be free to workout our own conditions of employment without the government deciding who can and cannot work.
No minimum wage increases in Albuquerque. That’s all ABQ needs to fall into a black pit. They will be in the same straights as Santa Fe; a real socialist mess.
No minimum wage increases in Albuquerque. That’s all ABQ needs to fall into a black pit. They will be in the same straights as Santa Fe; a real socialist mess.
Truthfully, Gov. Martinez, Obama, nor Romney can create jobs. They can, however help to loosen the chokehold that unions and regulators have on private employers. While that might not be a cure for what ails us, it would certainly be a good start.
Chokehold indeed – that would be a big help. Ending the government’s control of the money supply would be an even bigger help.