Who’s at the Helm?

July 17th, 2009 by MarkTwain · No Comments

It was recently reported that Missouri’s unemployment rate has hit a 21-year high of 9.3%. Despite this bleak news, Governor Nixon has NO jobs proposal to get this state back on track. Either he is practicing a radical form of laissez-faire economics, or he is asleep at the wheel at a time when more and more families are having trouble paying their bills and keeping food on the table.

It is sad, though not entirely unexpected, that Nixon seems to be on auto pilot only 6 months into his term. He has been given a free ride by most of the drive-by media, so he does not feel the need to act on anything that might require him to demonstrate a modicum of leadership or make a hard decision. While unemployment continues to climb, Nixon is content with his normal schedule of photo ops and dinner with donors. At some point, he is going to have to face the situation and accept responsibility for it. He can’t blame his predecessor – under Blunt’s watch more than 70,000 jobs were created. To paraphrase a favorite adage of another famous Missourian, the buck must stop with Nixon.

Nixon and Obama both have horrible ideas for creating jobs. Obama wants to borrow money to support massive spending and somehow create jobs by increasing taxes, while Nixon wants to do nothing but eat filet mignon with his friends at the Governor’s Mansion. Both are wrong. Maybe Nixon could oppose cap and trade, cut taxes to put money in people’s pockets, launch some job training programs, attempt to lure businesses to Missouri, or stop making cheap political plays like threatening to slash the budget for job-creating events like the Tour of Missouri. Instead, he’s wasting tax dollars flying on a luxury plane around the state for photo ops, cutting important economic development funds from the budget, and eliminating family-supporting state jobs while spending massive amounts of money on his own pet projects. Unfortunately, Jay Nixon is just practicing business as usual.

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