Rep. Paul Ryan has a jobs creation plan:
Wheelbarrow drivers to carry the extra cash his
budget proposal would give to the already wealthy.
While House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's proposed budget is going absolutely nowhere in its intact form, that's not something he and his backers figure would happen anyway. The purpose right now is twofold: 1) giving Republicans an arguing point in the elections, and 2) continuing to nudge the tax-and-spending conversation rightward, something they've had good success at in the past few decades.
Which is why, even though the Ryan budget is dead-on-arrival in the Senate, it's important to keep talking about its potential impact. If there is any single thing that characterizes the strategy of these guys—from reproductive rights to austerity programming—it is their stubborn relentlessness no matter how many times they get blocked. Part of their persistence emerges out of the fact that they consistently win small victories. And those add up over time.
At the Economic Policy Institute, Ethan Pollack has taken a look at what impact the Ryan budget would have on jobs. "Impact" is the proper term. That budget would not just crater the modest job growth we've seen in the past three months—a monthly average of 245,000 new jobs—it would wipe out millions of existing jobs. All other things being equal, by 2014, the official unemployment rate that is now at 8.3 percent would rise to 11.9 percent if his plan were enacted.
Against a current policy baseline, the budget cuts discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, sucking demand out of the economy when it most needs it and leading to job loss. Using a standard macroeconomic model that is consistent with that used by private- and public-sector forecasters, the shock to aggregate demand from near-term spending cuts would result in roughly 1.3 million jobs lost in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs lost in 2014, or 4.1 million jobs through 2014.
As Pollack points out, Ryan also wants to cut taxes for affluent Americans. The resulting loss of federal revenue he would cover by spending less. This austerity insanity, Pollack says
...will likely result in a small job loss because it shifts the tax burden from high-earners to middle-class households. Low-income households will also face higher taxes because Ryan would allow certain tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit to fall from their current levels. Redistributing money away from people who spend more of each marginal dollar of disposable income (low- and moderate-income households) to those with much higher savings rates (high-income households) is broadly recognized as leading to a decline in aggregate demand.
And you thought the Republicans were never going to do anything about job creation.