You guys just don’t get it. Once again let me declare that I have no allegiance to the Republican party. But the idea that government jobs will do anything to repair our thread-hanging economy is pure voodoo. Private sector jobs – jobs created by the private sector, funded by the private sector, and producing products or services either consumed by the US market, or exported for consumption by foreign consumers is what we’re lacking. The reason we don’t have jobs is because nobody wants to do business in the US anymore. Regulation upon regulation and a tax structure that gives a “tax break” today and then takes it back plus 10% two years later is not a stable climate for US job creators. We’re already running trillions of dollars over-budget on an annual basis and we ca’t afford continuation of the policies that got us to that point by spending more to perpetuate the same old broken system. A fair and CONSISTENT (permanent) tax code and easing-up on the unbelievable maze of regulatory hoops that must be navigated in order to produce anything in the US will ABSOLUTELY create jobs. Lots of them. Real jobs – not more government programs disguised as jobs.

We must cut the regulations and environmental rules before we do any spending on infrastructure because they are what makes the work cost so much. Between these rules, regulations, and prevailing wages all infrastructure rebuilding costs two to three times what it should. Anyone who does not believe that does not have a clue what is involved in doing work for the government.

SlyRobber, no one (in this forum at least) is suggesting that we adopt a fascist policy, outlaw trade unions, or remove collective bargaining from the private sector. But at a cost of $68 per hour for an assembly-line worker there’s just no way the US can compete against foreign producers. Like it or not, socialization or not, the global market is pure capitalism. The Chinese understand this and, granted, their methods of leading the competition violate every principal we hold as sacred in the US. Once again, noone is suggesting that we adopt a model anything like theirs. But look at how we’ve continually shot ourselves in the foot: Free Trade with countries like China that use slave labor and environmentaly devasting practices to lowball everything we produce; Labor unions who shell out millions to political campaigns and private organizations to elevate them to a Mafia-like status. Government contracts to French companies for mid-air refuelling tankers while we deny Boeing the right to produce a competetive product by telling them where they can and cannot set up their business (and I’m from Washington State!). Politics is all about manipulating the wealth. And where goes the wealth, so goes the power. Granting so much power to labor and government agencies wrests the control of private industry from the movers and shakers that make things happen and puts it in the hands of those with a very narrow focus, and who cow-tow to the whims of the biggest money sources.