Who Are The Real Job Creators?

When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor recently repeated in a Fox News interview a favorite Republican mantra that  “the government doesn’t create jobs, the private sector does” he knew it wasn’t true. 

For starters, he himself has a government-created job and it pays a nice $193,400 a year plus a very generous benefits package.  What’s more tens of thousands of his fellow Virginians, including many of his constituents, also have government-created jobs.

This month, during one of the Congress’s many well-paid vacations, he’s been leading a delegation of fellow Republican lawmakers to Israel and talking about strong U.S. support for the Jewish state, including $3.1 billion in annual aid.  Tea Partiers like his fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky want to end foreign aid; someone, maybe Cantor, should tell him how many American jobs — that’s right, jobs right here in the U.S. — those taxpayer dollars produce to say nothing of their value in protecting American interests and alliances around the world.

Why is it the people who most want to cut taxes for the very wealthy in the name of job creation are the same ones who refuse to raise the sub-poverty-level  $7.25/hour minimum wages of their employees and customers on the grounds that it will only raise prices, inflation and unemployment?  How many of them agree with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) that eliminating the minimum wage “could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely”? Do they really think the American people are gullible enough to buy into that kind of bubbehmysis?

Read about who the real job creators are in my Washington Watch column.

About the Author
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a syndicated columnist, Washington lobbyist and consultant. He spent nine years as the legislative director and chief lobbyist for AIPAC.
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