Morning Bell: Stop Sending Jobs Overseas

Conn Carroll / April 01, 2011

Today, the Labor Department released its monthly jobs report showing that the U.S. economy added 216,000 jobs in March and unemployment fell to 8.8 percent. Despite these encouraging numbers, Americans still consistently tell pollsters that jobs and the economy are the most important problems facing the country. And yesterday, Gallup released a poll showing that the number one way Americans would like to see more United States jobs created is to stop sending new jobs overseas. That is a fabulous idea, and the simplest way to accomplish it would be to lower out nation’s corporate tax rate.

The United States was once a leader in tax rate reduction. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan passed a broad tax cut package to encourage economic growth. How well did it work? Just compare the drops in unemployment from both the Reagan and the Obama economic recoveries. Since the Obama recovery began 21 months ago, the national unemployment rate has fallen only 0.6 points, from 9.4 percent in July 2009 to 8.8 percent today. Contrast those anemic results with the robust job growth that occurred during the Reagan recovery in the ’80s. By the 21-month mark of the Reagan recovery, unemployment had dropped from 10.8 percent to 7.5 percent—a 3.3 point drop. (more…)