August 23, 2011 by Mark Dotzour

Have you heard anyone talk about specific plans to encourage job growth in America? I haven’t either. I hear lots of talk about how job growth is “sluggish” and that hiring is not rebounding as it should at this stage of the economic cycle. Our leaders in Washington appear to be bankrupt of ideas for promoting job growth in America. So everyone can complain and point fingers at others and try to blame them, but none are willing to come out and say what America needs to resume its normal path of business expansion.

Here is what I hear directly from business owners when I’m on the road. There are several reasons why they don’t want to hire people right now. Here they are in a nutshell:

■Complete uncertainty regarding the future cost of health care for business owners

■Two thousand pages of bank regulation that has yet to be enacted

■Regulation of health care and health insurance

■Regulation of off-shore oil drilling

■Regulation of oil-shale deposits

■Complete uncertainty about future income tax rates

■Complete uncertainty about future capital gains tax rates

When business owners are unsure about their future, what do they do? Nothing! They just try to survive until the storm is over. They also hoard cash, like almost $2 trillion at this point. Our economy is not going to recover until businessmen and women regain confidence in the future opportunities in our country.

So how can our leaders in Washington encourage businesses to start to hire again? First, they need to let businesses know that they are not the enemy. Businesses need to be encouraged and know that government is working with them, not against them.

We are creating such a hostile environment for businesses that we could be in for a long period of economic stagnation in America. What would a business-friendly agenda look like? Well here it is.

Imagine if the President and Congress came out with a bi-partisan plan to:

1.Repeal the health-care nightmare.

2.Repeal Dodd-Frank, and come up with 15 pages of meaningful bank reforms.

3.Tell China to stop manipulating their currency and buy something produced by Americans.

4.Roll back EPA regulations to 1999 levels.

5.Roll back all other business regulations to 1999 levels.

6.Announce an airtight plan to reduce the deficit to zero in seven years.

7.Lower corporate tax rates to stop companies from fleeing America.

8.Foreclose on four million homes and sell them to private sector investors.

You may think that this sounds like Alice in Wonderland. But actually these are the issues that are killing economic opportunity in our great country. Either we address them, or we look more and more like Japan every day. Let’s do it! Now.

Source:  Real Estate Center