Mitt Romney takes Barack Obama to the economic woodshed in an op-ed for USA Today; then offers suggestions on how to repair the ship.
The economic woodshed:
In an attempt to disguise the truth, the administration has touted inflated figures of jobs "created."But every month, in good times and bad, jobs are created and jobs are lost. What matters is the net difference between the two numbers. Focusing solely on jobs created while ignoring the far greater numbers of jobs lost is Harry Houdini economics.
Btw, Newt Gingrich suggests measuring the stimulus' impact via a different metric -- focusing on jobs "lost and dislocated."
Newt in Forbes.
Since stimulus actions are meant to be temporary, knowing how many workers have been "dislocated" is essential to forming a realistic long-run economic outlook. The more dislocated workers that Obama creates today, the higher the number of workers that will have to eventually be reabsorbed by the private sector tomorrow when the stimulus winds down.
So what figure should we use for the number of "dislocated" jobs since the stimulus program was enacted? Thankfully, the White House has, perhaps inadvertently, provided us with an estimate. When the White House says that jobs have been "saved or created" by the stimulus program, then we should say that this is the number of jobs "dislocated" by the stimulus program.
Back to Romney.
Having finished in the woodshed, he gives Obama a ten point plan to help reduce unemployment. Ideas range from ensuring key tax cuts don't expire to scuttling any more chatter on cap-and-trade to creating tax incentives motivating businesses to hire and expand.
As a Romney PS, the Fix notes that Mitt will be on Larry King tonight.
