Will Bush’s Huge
Tax Cuts for Investors
Create Jobs for Unemployed Americans?
by Harry Kelber
Dissident Voice
January 13, 2003
Not long after he
won the White House in a disputed 2000 Presidential election, George W. Bush
achieved his prized goal: a $1.3 trillion tax cut. Responding to evidence that
the lion’s share of the tax cuts would go to 5% of the wealthiest individuals
and profitable corporations (including big-time contributors to the Republican
Party), Bush apologists said the tax cuts would stimulate investment, expand
the economy and create thousands of new jobs.
It turns out
that in the two years that Bush has been in the White House, 69,000 jobs were
lost each and every month. The wealthy recipients of the tax cuts had no
obligation to invest in job-creating enterprises. They could invest their
windfall income abroad or spend it in luxurious living or stash it away in
family foundations.
While the
economy is undergoing an anemic recovery, a new wave of mass layoffs are
expected in 2003. Workers who are still employed worry whether they will be
next in line to be dismissed. Last November alone, the nation’s employers
initiated 2,150 mass layoffs affecting 240,000 workers, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (A mass layoff is defined as any firing that
involves 50 or more people.) Between January and November 2002, there were
17,799 mass layoffs involving nearly two million workers.
On January 7,
President Bush proposed a $680 billion “growth and jobs” economic package, that
would eliminate the taxes individuals pay on stock dividends, accelerate
income-tax rate cuts approved two years ago and provide $400 rebate checks for
middle-class parents.
The new White
House tax initiative is also designed to increase corporate profits and boost
stock market prices, but offers little solace to those who can’t find a job.
The Bush plan
gives some assistance to workers who have exhausted their unemployment
benefits, including eligibility for up to $3,000 to spend in looking for work
or training for work. But there is not the slightest suggestion that the White
House favors creating public works projects for the jobless.
Although the
unemployment rate has risen from 3.5% to 6% in less than three years, there is
no sense of alarm in Washington, even though the single-digit figure represents
9,600,000 human beings who can’t find a paying job. It’s understandable that a
great many of them feel useless and unwanted by our society and are having a
miserable time trying to feed and care for their families. They can’t blame the
government for their hard luck, can they? Nor can they be bitter against their
employer for following the rules of the business world. They’re made to believe
that no one’s to blame for their deplorable situation, except possibly
themselves.
The jobless
population represents a cross-section of America in terms of race, gender, age,
nationality, religion, occupation and other attributes, with one common need: a
decent job. It is larger than that of more than 40 States and nearly all of our
nation’s cities. It could jam-pack at least 300 sports arenas, and there are
enough of them to line up on the side of a national superhighway from New York
to San Francisco, standing a yard apart and nearly two deep. They could make
plenty of noise and terrify politicians if they were organized.
It’s hard for even
baby boomers to believe there once was “The Employment Act of 1946, ” which
declared that “there will be afforded useful employment opportunities,
including self-employment, for those able, willing and seeking to work, and to
promote maximum employment, production and purchasing power.” The Act, which
was passed out of concern for the 12 million soldiers returning to civilian
life, has long gone the way of the dodo bird.
Surely, there is
plenty of socially useful work to be done in America that could use the
know-how, talents and experience of this enormous army of unemployed workers.
It’s easy to make long lists of public works projects that could enrich America
while providing job opportunities for those in need. But since the unemployed,
despite their enormous numbers, are leaderless and politically powerless,
hardly anyone in Washington pays attention to their needs.
Not only
President Bush, but influential Republicans and Democrats, firmly believe that
the government owes no worker a living, and there is no such thing as a right
to a job. They support the “trickle down” economic doctrine under which the
welfare of the employer is paramount, and the worker will get a job only if and
when the employer determines it is profitable to hire him or her — and not one
day sooner.
In reality,
employers have said they are reluctant to hire any new workers until they
absolutely have to. They are trying to make their current employees more
productive to take up any slack because of layoffs. They don’t want to be
caught with newly-hired workers at the next business downturn. This means that
rehiring will be sluggish for at least the coming year, according to employment
experts.
Clearly, the
unemployed need a champion to fight in their behalf. Is the labor movement
prepared to take on that role?
Harry Kelber is the founder and editor of The Labor Educator. He has devoted his entire adult life to
the labor movement as an organizer, strike leader, union printer, labor editor,
pamphleteer, professor of labor studies and author of several books and
booklets.