Why Can't We Be the Job Creators?

The Republicans always use the excuse that we have to give the rich huge tax cuts because they are the "job creators." Of course, the reality is that giving tax cuts to the rich is the very worst way of getting more money into the economy. The multiplier effect for tax cuts for the wealthy is the lowest of almost any stimulative program the government can try. Plus, if they are creating jobs, it isn't here. The money is flowing out of the country and into developing markets at an incredible rate. Between 2002 and 2008, the Bush tax cuts equaled $1.3 trillion. The amount of money leaving the United States in the form of investment in developing countries in that same time period -- $1.9 trillion. It can be argued that all of the tax cuts to the rich went out of the country and then some (of course, it's a little more complicated than that but obviously a huge portion of the extra money went into investment abroad). So, if jobs are being created through tax cuts it's probably in Shanghai or Mumbai. So, the Republican answer now is to give ... more tax cuts to the rich. They want to give $700 billion in tax cuts to the top bracket over the next ten years. I have a revolutionary idea instead. How about instead of giving the money to the rich and hoping that they create jobs, we just create the jobs! Imagine what we could build and how much good we could do for the country if we used that extra $700 billion to actually hire people directly. Imagine how many jobs that could create. It might be worth it if we just hired people to do what would otherwise be volunteer work. It might be worth it if we just built a whole new green energy sector. It might be worth it if we just hired an enormous number of teachers to give our kids the best education in the world. It might be worth it if we hired so many more cops to protect our streets or firemen to protect our neighborhoods. Or doctors to treat our sick. Or people to take care of the elderly or disabled. Or people to take care of our kids while we worked. Or people to build our bridges and our roads. Or just about anything else you can imagine. Imagine. $700 billion set aside just to hire people. To hire Americans. Or we can go with the Republican plan of giving it all to the rich and hoping they create jobs at some point and hoping that those jobs are here in America. You be the judge.

Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: @TheYoungTurks