Words Well Said

The following is from a letter a friend of mine sent to Maryland State Senator Jim Rosapepe.I agree (duh), and I think he's expressed it so clearly I'm sharing it with you:

That argument that it's up to the private sector to create jobs strikes me as deeply flawed, for precisely the same reason that I find faith in upper-income tax cuts as a job creator so badly misplaced.

The private sector will not create jobs before the demand for goods and services is there. It doesn't matter how much surplus cash they have or how many tax breaks they're given. The private sector is not in the business of providing charity. They won't create jobs for workers to produce and sell what people are not buying. That's not how a free-market economy works.

When the economy has stagnated, the only entity that can and will create jobs is government.

Roads and bridges and schools and public infrastructures need to be built and repaired. Our borders and our water supplies and our food and our communities need to be safe.

What private company takes the initiative to do that? Why would they? That's what we elect governments to do. And it's the construction and inspection and repair and law enforcement and other jobs -- jobs that only government can create -- that will get people spending again. THAT's when the private sector will start to pick up and produce its own jobs. Not before.