Nevada continues to suffer one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. The lingering 13 percent unemployment rate among the general population and 30 percent among those of Hispanic heritage is completely unacceptable. Washington keeps telling us help is on the way, but after a Trillion dollar stimulus package and 15 Trillion national debt, reality is clear, this administration has failed!
Washington’s attempts to reduce our extremely high unemployment and underemployment have proven to be poorly designed, poorly executed and completely ineffective.
The solution to our unemployment problem requires the federal government to return to commonsense, proven policies so that small businesses, the backbone of our economy, can grow again.
Nevadans deserve more than meaningless political rhetoric. We deserve straightforward, honest, effective solutions to our economic crisis.
Elected Officials and political appointees must stop changing the rules, regulations and taxes that impact businesses. Job creators need a stable environment free from fear that Washington will suddenly and arbitrarily change the rules, regulations and/or taxes (again) and undo any progress they may have made.
It has become clear that Obama and his vast stable of Czars have forgotten what it means to sign the front of the check not just the back.
There is no “Silver Bullet” to get our economy moving again, but some immediate actions that should be considered are:
- Approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline. This one project would result in a minimum of 20,000 good-paying jobs and increase our supply of energy, not to mention increase our national security.
- Increase access to our federal lands and offshore leases for safe exploration and production of both oil and natural gas deposits.
- Allow coal-fired electric plants to continue to operate while they develop ways to reduce pollution. This would remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s demand to shut down 62 such plants forcing thousands of Americans to lose their jobs.
- Promote pro-business growth policies such as setting business taxes as low as possible for as long as possible. This will help make them profitable at home and competitive overseas. A positive attitude with business-smart policies will encourage the private sector to invest the $2-3 TRILLION they are holding on the sidelines, and another $3-5 TRILLION of money from overseas investors looking for a good place to invest their money.
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Immediately review business taxes that start to change in 2013. The CBO Director recently reported that the business sector will soon be hit with $800 Billion in “restored” taxes. This enormous tax bill will derail any recovery. We cannot afford to let this happen.
- Replace the Obama administration’s Health Care Law with something more manageable, affordable and acceptable.
- Each member of Congress should be responsible for finding $1 Billion in savings.
- Serious spending cuts to balance the budget and begin to pay off the national debt. If Washington can’t find many billions of dollars of wasteful and unnecessary spending in its $3.5 trillion budget, then those looking need to join the unemployed.
- Congress must commit to conducting a bottom-up review of every federal program, to ensure that programs work efficiently. Those programs that are no longer needed must be eliminated!
- Delay spending billions of dollars on routine items like office equipment, supplies and leases. Most Nevadans can’t afford to remodel their homes, why should federal employees keep redecorating their offices on our tax money every year?
- Washington needs to take a page from the private sector and update its purchasing procedures. Many Billions of dollars are wasted simply by the way the government buys things and conducts logistics.
- Employ, house and station federal employees here in America rather than moving them across the globe. We can perform many missions abroad with far fewer personnel stationed overseas often by using technology. In many cases, the work can be done anywhere. This would save us tens of billions of dollars, create jobs at home, grow our economy, help our housing market and still get the job done. For federal personnel who must be stationed overseas, extend their tour of duty a year or two. This would have many benefits including significant cost savings.