Even as I type, President Barack Obama is rolling along on his Canadian bus-fueled (he couldn’t go Government Motors?) “Re-Elect Me” Tour.
I mean his “Beat the Living Heck Out of Republicans, Rich People and Wall Street” Tour.
I mean his “Jobs” Bill Tour.
(He just left North Carolina and entered Virginia — two undoubtedly remorseful states that he won in 2008 but will most likely lose next year. But I digress …)
The president is on this Ken Kesey-esque expedition (is this Canuck bus nicknamed “Further Still?”) incessantly flogging his latest Keynesian “stimulus” — which is nothing more than another heap of our coin that he wishes to sacrifice on the altar of this, the Third Age of Bailout.
At the outset, President Obama wanted us to rapidly “pass this bill” — all of it, as is. Presidential consigliere David Axelrod asserted, “We’re not in a negotiation to break up the package” — that “it’s not an à la carte menu.”
How very meet-in-the-middle of them.
Nevertheless, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell graciously and obligingly moved to bring the full bill to the floor. To which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded by invoking the pseudo-nuclear option to block it (so confident was he of it passing).
When it did finally receive a vote — for which Senator McConnell had in so bipartisan a fashion worked — it failed. In bipartisan fashion — as two Democrats joined Republicans in voting nay.
Suddenly, the all-or-nothing Obama “jobs” bill became an à la carte menu. President Obama now urges Congress to break the package into “bite-sized pieces,” because as President New Tone suggested — without a hint of deprecation — “Maybe [Republicans] just couldn’t understand the whole thing all at once.”
All of this pomp and circumstance for a jobs bill that Obama administration Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner admits will cost $200,000 per gig generated (if even that titanic number isn’t low-balling it).
Fret not, though: Geithner says that $200,000 is a “bargain.”
Just like the 2009 $878 billion “stimulus” was a bargain.
Just like Cash for Clunkers was a bargain. And Cash for Caulkers.
And Solyndra (about $500 million). And Government Motors (about $15 billion).
The great news here is that there is a jobs bill pending before the Senate that will cost us nothing, save for the electricity used in casting the 51 ayes necessary to pass it (not even the usual 60).
It is the Congressional Review Act (CRA) Resolution of Disapproval to undo the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) illegal Internet power grab — executed so as to then illegally impose network neutrality.
The Senate passing the CRA will dramatically help the U.S. job market in two ways.
There’s the New York Law School study, which shows net neutrality will cost the economy upwards of 200,000 jobs over the next five years.
So by nullifying the FCC’s illegal order, you really, truly save gigs — no pseudo “created or saved” situation here.
Then there’s the current tech industry job situation, which is a phenomenal example of un-regulated uber-success.
The Internet sector has grown into a free speech, free market Xanadu — and one-sixth of our nation’s entire economy.
One-sixth of the economy — that has an extraordinarily low 3.3% unemployment rate, while the overall unemployment number has been stuck above 9% for the two years since we were told that the trillions of dollars in “stimulus” we dumped down the rat hole was going to keep us below 8%.
This begs the question: Why did Obama’s FCC illegally force-feed this incredibly successful sector of the economy these titanic, unwieldy and incredibly damaging net neutrality regulations?
Net neutrality is a supposed “solution” to a purported “problem” that even the most virulently pro-net neutrality folks begrudgingly acknowledge doesn’t exist.
Given the tech sector’s unbelievable success — in employment and all things else — the lack of net neutrality has obviously not caused anyone any harm.
And, all things considered, the lack of net neutrality has done us all a World (Wide Web) of good.
So senators have a golden opportunity to pass a real jobs bill — to really save real jobs — and allow the private sector, where jobs are really created, to continue to create even more.
The Congressional Review Act Resolution to undo the FCC’s illegal net neutrality order is that jobs bill. And it will soon be before you, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate. So prepare to vote aye — to really, truly create and save hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs.
And perhaps save a couple of public sector ones as well in November 2012.
Seton Motley is a consultant and the founder and president of Less Government, an organization dedicated to, well, less government. He is editor-in-chief of StopNetRegulation.org, a Center for Individual Freedom project.