Can We Get a Break?

The ink has barely dried on the mammoth new health care bill and many are urging Obama to address the still struggling economy. Despite the $787 billion stimulus bill passed last year, the economy is still foundering. The National Urban League is calling on Obama to address high unemployment in minority communities. Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League asserted that, now that health care reform has passed, "it's time for a strong jobs bill." As it turns out, $787 billion was not sufficient to stimulate the economy enough to affect minority communities. Even the mammoth new health care law will not be enough to close the racial gap in unemployment according to the League: a fine time to point that out. Neither will the $38 billion jobs bill Obama signed Thursday be enough.

The National Urban League has proposed that $150 billion be spent for jobs creation through offering grants to cities and states. The money would be allocated on the basis of local unemployment rates. The goal is the creation of 3 million jobs. At $50,000 a job, it seems like a bargain. It is also proposed that an additional $5 billion to $7 billion be spent to hire 5 million teens from urban areas with high unemployment rates: that's $5,000 or more a teen. If those teens are put on the federal pay roll, the cost will go up significantly since they will have to be paid. The League is calling for a "jobs surge." Those jobs naturally would come with health care benefits. And not just any old package of health benefits, but the same health benefits available to federal employees. At the top of the list is the League's demand is that "a new federal agency be created to guarantee a job to every person seeking work to improve public works projects." A year ago, I would have been surprised if someone demanded a new federal agency dedicated to providing a job to every one who sought one. After last week, I am no longer so. If every American has a right to health care, it is not a stretch to assert that every American has a right to a job.

The administration's willingness to shovel out money as a solution to every problem is creating a new culture of entitlement. Groups and agencies are lining up to get their share of government largess. It is felt that every social, ethnic, and economic disparity can be remedied through the right amount of money and the right regulations. Government commitment is now measured in billions. The League believes that since the government has seen fit to spend hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out the insurance and auto industries, it is only meet that the government spend billions to create jobs in minority communities. They have a point. Why shouldn't everyone be allowed to drink from the river of money flowing from Washington?

If entrepreneurship was something that could be bought, many, if not all of our economic problems would be solved in short order. It is starting to seem as though Washington exists in a parallel universe where money is limitless. A place where human nature does not exist and the laws of economics do not apply. Perhaps, worst of all, it is a universe in which there is nothing beyond the reach of government and no problem or disparity that cannot be corrected through government spending and manipulation. After spending nearly a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy over the last year, the economy is still struggling. Perhaps spending $150 billion more as the Urban League suggests will be the thing to finally put the economy over the top.