Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House
Number one job today is to create jobs
The number one job today is to create jobs. America only works when American's are working. And nothing would do more to balance the budget than to go from 9.2 percent back down to 4 percent unemployment, taking 5 percent of people off of unemployment,
off of food stamps, off of Medicaid, put them back with a job, paying taxes, giving their family a future.
And I'll be candid. We did not need a deficit commission. We needed a jobs commission who talked with people who only create jobs.
I am sick and tired of Congressional hearings, where people who have never created a job show up to explain what their theory is of doing something they have never done.
I am going to outline two large strategies that will move us towards job creation: an American Energy Plan and an Environmental Solutions Agency to replace the Environmental Protection Agency.
Unions want to take away right to secret-ballot elections
As unions cannot win many secret-ballot elections to organize workers, they have come up with a new solution. It's not to make the union more desirable. It's simply to take away the American worker's right to have a secret-ballot election.
This would repeal reforms to protect workers from intimidation and extortion that go back to 1935. It's not an idle left-wing fantasy: it actually passed the House of Representatives in early 2007 with almost no public notice. Under the
Orwellian name of the "Freedom of Choice Act," this legislation is backed by President Obama, who has vowed to sign the measure if passed by Congress, where it enjoys wide Democratic support. This the Democratic Congress and president are fighting to
eliminate a fundamental American right just to make it easier for their union allies to acquire more members, more dues, and more power. And yet 89 percent of the American people don't want workers to lose their secret-ballot rights.
In the United States, there exists a coalition of union leaders who prefer protection over competition; environmental extremists who value nature over the well-being and prosperity of their fellow citizens; and liberal intellectuals who distrust the
fluidity and uncertainty of the market and prefer the orderliness of command bureaucracies. This liberal coalition complains about companies’ outsourcing jobs while insisting on corporate taxes that encourage companies to go overseas. They prefer that
government impose on business obsolete, absurd work rules, even though these raise costs, lower productivity, and make America less competitive in the world market. These liberals believe in expanding regulation even when it fails to meet any
cost-benefit test and clearly drives jobs out of the US. The Left refuses to reform litigation or create a better system of civil justice even though it knows the explosion of lawsuits makes it less desirable to create jobs and invest in the US.
Unions focus on politics; corporations on doing business
The media have in recent years become fixated on the questions of corporate contributions and what they call “soft” money for financing campaigns, but the truth is, nothing on the right is at all comparable to what the unions do.
First of all, corporations are much less capable of being organized--each of them operates politically on its own--and they are, as profit-seeking institutions, much more inclined to seek accommodation with whoever is in power.
Labor bosses, on the other hand, have a strategic view of politics and spend a great deal of time and effort developing long-term political muscle. By contrast corporate leaders focus mainly on their respective businesses
and spend very little time of effort on politics. When major business leaders do for one reason or another concern themselves with Washington, they usually set up Washington offices or lobbyists and leave matters to them.
Incentives to businesses create jobs & raise wages.
Gingrich wrote the Contract with America:
[As part of the Contract with America, within 100 days we pledge to bring to the House Floor the following bill]:
The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act: Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.
Source: Contract with America 93-CWA10 on Sep 27, 1994
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