House GOP Should Refocus Obama's Jobs Bill

The jobs bill President Barack Obama delivered to Congress should open a much-needed debate on what government can do to put Americans back to work. That alone makes it a useful exercise. But as it's proposed, the bill is not a serious, long-term jobs strategy.

Obama is betting that no matter what Congress does, he'll come out on top. If House Republicans reject the key elements of the bill, as they should, he can place blame for the stagnant economy on their obstructionism.

If they allow themselves to be bullied into charging another $450 billion to the national credit card, he may be able to achieve enough of a temporary job surge to diminish unemployment as an issue in the 2012 campaign.

And Republicans will be preoccupied by explaining to their constituents why they broke their fiscal discipline pledge.

For that reason, the GOP has been treading lightly in its criticism of a proposal that ought to be completely rewritten to focus on the creation of permanent jobs.

Instead, what Obama wants is a program similar to the $1 trillion stimulus passed in 2009, the one that contributed mightily to the deficit but produced no net new jobs.

He is sticking to the contention that government-bought jobs can trigger a comeback. But the jobs "saved and created" by the original stimulus came at a cost of $288,000 each, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Much of the jobs bill funding would be spent the same way. Obama is touting new spending on infrastructure to jump-start the moribund construction industry.

But before squandering more taxpayer money on inefficient and politically driven projects, Congress should insist the president first get out of the way of private infrastructure spending.

A good place to start would be to approve construction of the pipeline to carry petroleum from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to the United States.

The project, which has been stalled in Washington since 2008, would create 13,000 construction jobs in the United States and an estimated 118,000 spin-off jobs.

It would coax $20 billion out of the private sector to provide American jobs.

But the administration, pressured by environmentalists, won't give the go-ahead.

This should be an easy one for the White House; the pipeline is going to be built, whether it goes south to the U.S. or west to ports that will ship the oil to China. And when it's burned, the carbon will go into the global atmosphere, whether it originates in China or America.

Likewise, Obama should undo the damage done by his ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A slowed-down permitting process has kept exploration activity from rebounding, with an estimated 12,000 jobs lost.

The American Petroleum Institute insists that 1 million jobs could be created over the next 20 years by relaxing oil and gas drilling restrictions in the United States.

Those are just a couple of examples of how administration policies are getting in the way of private-sector job creation, making a mockery of Obama's commitment to reducing unemployment.

Republicans in Congress should push the debate entirely toward unleashing the estimated $2 trillion in private money sitting on the sidelines waiting for a more favorable investment climate.

Providing certainty in the regulatory and tax codes should be the highest priority. Instead, Obama is offering gimmicks, such as the $4,000 one-time tax credits to hire the long-term unemployed.

The idea promises more than it is likely to deliver. Employers are not going to take on workers they don't need just to get a tax credit, especially when they'll likely end up paying for it themselves through increased tax rates on the upper middle class.

While even temporary jobs would be welcome in the many parts of the country hit hardest by the recession, the jobless will benefit far more from the permanent jobs that would be created by substantive policy changes that generate a more robust, sustained recovery.

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