Tallying the Pelosi Bill’s Effects on Job Destruction
Over 1,300 Americans Could Lose Their Jobs Every Day as a Result—Will You Be One of Them?
President Obama’s recent “jobs summit,” and Speaker Pelosi’s renewed focus on yet another “jobs bill” full of additional government spending, highlights the majority’s ineffectual attempts to combat record-high unemployment levels. For much of the past year, Democrats have focused on a government takeover of health care whose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases will destroy jobs, not create them:
- In order to pass her government takeover of health care (H.R. 3962), Speaker Pelosi forced her House Democrats to pass a whopping $729.5 billion in job-killing tax increases over the next ten years. According to a model developed by Christina Romer, President Obama’s chief economic advisor, such a level of increased taxation will demolish or destroy up to 5 million jobs.
- Based on a total job loss of 5 million employees over the ten-year budget window, H.R. 3962 would demolish or destroy more than 1,300 American jobs per day—at a time when unemployment remains at 10 percent.
- According to the Romer model, the daily job losses included in H.R. 3962 would result in a loss of more than 41,000 jobs every month. Had such activity occurred last month, the 11,000 job loss figure for the month of November would have been nearly four times higher.
- While the Pelosi bill’s tax increases would begin in 2011—a year when the White House’s own budget projects unemployment would average 8.6 percent—its coverage expansions would not occur until 2013. Thus, using the extrapolated Romer model, H.R. 3962 could demolish or destroy nearly 1.5 million jobs before any of the major coverage expansions even take effect.
The American economy remains in the midst of record-high unemployment, and voters want their elected leaders to focus first and foremost on returning the economy to prosperity. Yet the Democrat leadership in both chambers insists on pushing forward their government takeover of health care that would only increase job losses, while causing millions to lose their current health coverage in the process.
Many may question: What are the majority’s misplaced priorities that would see them jeopardize American jobs as part of their single-minded fixation with creating a new government-run health care system?