The expenses of complying with Washington's torrent of mandates and regulatory overreach are costing American workers jobs and income growth.
It has long been said the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. Automatic enrollment for insurance of 401k loans would add an additional certainty. Fewer Americans would suffer the unnecessary loss of retirement savings due to unanticipated and untimely misfortune in an already stressful time of need.
I am not seeking any position in a Dole Administration.
Left-wing shareholder activists seek to leverage the mass economic power of institutional investors such as pension funds, whose managers are supposed to focus strictly on their fiduciary responsibilities to retirees.
There should be an immediate moratorium on federal regulations that endanger jobs.
Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest.
There are many reasons to worry; the evening news is full of them.
We have a lot of employers who are looking for skilled workers and not being able to find them. And we have workers who lack the requisite skills to access these good-paying jobs in high growth industries.
Even a healthy economy and labor market would have struggled under the additional expenses enacted and proposed in 2009 and 2010 - from healthcare mandates and higher taxes, to carbon cap-and-trade and delay in extending the last decade's tax reforms.
When the Smoot-Hawley bill landed on President Herbert Hoover's desk, more than 1,000 economists urged him to veto it. Tragically, the president ignored their pleas.
News-free existence is not a serious proposal, but it is worth noting that while today's 24/7 media environment is wonderful in many ways, it can also be like drinking out of a fire hose and intensify a downward reinforcing cycle of despair.
Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.
Perhaps the original layaway angel knew from experience, or simply deduced, that people resorting to the old-fashioned installment method of layaway may be struggling financially.
America's private sector job creators need elected leaders to lead and get out of the way.
To better deal with shortages of qualified applicants now and in the future, government policy makers need to acknowledge that government job training programs could stand improvement.
Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. World trade fell two-thirds as other nations retaliated. Jobs evaporated.
Employers should overcome a myopic quarterly earnings posture and focus on long-term strategies for growth that include investing in their own skills-training efforts to enable a broader pool of applicants.
America needs a new approach to boost the economy - one that does not doom future generations to being saddled with paying off today's federal deficits.
Washington's parasitic approach to the private sector must change for there to be widespread, near-term and enduring prosperity and job creation.
Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried - and found wanting - since the Great Depression.
