Fixing Our Economy 101

Unemployment

Real U.S. unemployment is still around 20%.  Using 150 million jobs as a standard, we have 30 million Americans who would take jobs if we had them.   We legally import over  1 million workers per year from foreign countries.  The monthly workforce growth from this group of work visa and green card holders requires a job growth rate of 83 thousand jobs a month.   These legal immigrants are absorbing the jobs that are created. 

Beside the 30 million worker backlog, we have 1.4 million new grads entering the workforce each year.   50% of new college grads continue to be unemployed or under-employed.   37% of high school grads have full-time jobs and 16% of recent high school graduates have full-time jobs.  Over 2 million Americans enter the workforce each year, with over 1 million legal immigrants and there are less than 1 million jobs available each year.  Each year, we gain another 1 million unemployed and another 1 million under-employed.

The numbers of legal Immigrants doubled a decade ago and increased to 1.5 million this year. This is not a good time to be loading up on foreign workers.    We can lower unemployment by cutting legal immigration by 80% for the next decade.   The 12 million illegal workers still here need to be sent back to their own countries.

Demand

Jobs will not increase without increases in demand.   The easiest way to lift demand is to unleash drilling of oil and natural gas and the mining of coal and minerals and the harvesting of food and lumber.  We have resources that are in demand, but government regulations have not allowed us to make all of our land productive.  The EPA and Interior are trying to shut down farms by restricting water.   Logging was shut down long ago and drilling oil and natural gas on federal land is prohibited.  These restrictions must be removed to increase our productivity.

Manufacturing

The only operations worth having are manufacturing operations.  These were viable until recently and tended to locate in smaller cities in rural counties.   We need to lower  taxes  and lower the cost of regulations to allow the re-growth of manufacturing in the U.S.  

Government Obstruction

Our government, at all levels continues to work as cross-purposes to destroy our ability to operate a free-market system in the U.S., sufficient to rebuild our economy.    The Federal government and its agencies are the primary obstructionists who are killing our economy.   The federal government must cut its spending in half and the states will need to do the same.   Most of what they are currently spending money on is injurious to our ability to earn a living.  

The EPA is busy trying to close the coal-fired electrical generating plants, that produce 80% of our electricity, tearing down hydroelectric dams and terrorizing property owners.

Infrastructure

The most important infrastructure includes the Keystone pipeline and ensuring that freight is able to move efficiently and inexpensively to and from its destinations.   Secondly, roads and interstate highways  need to be maintained and expanded as needed.  

Government Waste

On top of the waste regularly noted in the news,  our government continues to waste our money on carbon abatement.  There is no global warming or man-made climate change, so what’s going on ? 


The U.S. DOT spending is largely wasted on U.N. Agenda 21 implementation, so you’ll see hundreds of billions squandered on public transit, heavy tail, light rail, streetcars, on-street bike lanes, bike and walking paths, landscaping, green-space and totalitarian zoning schemes.   Federal funds are given to states as grants in exchange for doing stupid, wasteful things. 

Government Layoffs

State and local governments have been cutting back on employees, now that the Obama-money is drying up.   Also, veterans are coming home.  All the more reason to slash legal immigration and deport our 12 million illegals.

Inflation

The Federal Reserve has increased the money supply by 300%.  We can pay for this with 10% inflation for 30 years or 30% inflation for 10 years.  This will be a drag-anchor on the economy for some time.  

Summary

If we unleash drilling, production and manufacturing and cut legal immigrant workers, we may be able to offset some of the unemployment government layoffs will produce.   If we don’t take positive steps, we will find ourselves with 30% real unemployment   Our current policies are designed to ensure that we continue a slow decline in job availability at a very high price of $1 trillion a year of federal over-spending aimed at undermining local government sovereignty, by supporting appointed, unelected regional government in our states.

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader