This is the video that opened the jobs summit.
They held the White House' jobs summit today. Unless some sort of specific policy initiative comes from it, it was one big photo opp.
Nevertheless, it's odd how joblessness is suddenly getting all this attention. And everybody has an idea what should be done — or what shouldn't be done.
In TIME, Michael Scherer calls the jobs summit a "show" that Barack Obama has presented before. "They are all," he writes, "to put it bluntly, somewhat painful exercises — long, monotone and repetitive."
Before the summit began, David Malpass wrote, in Forbes, that "[t]he answer [to creating jobs] lies in small businesses that take advantage of freedom, a sound currency and low tax rates. Anytime those three things are available, they hire like crazy."
Malpass added that job creation is thwarted by "a weakening dollar and the threat of high tax rates."
Tami Luhby of CNNMoney.com writes that the summit brought together "130 executives, economists, small business owners and nonprofit officials," who discussed a number of important issues. But Luhby touches on a point that has bothered me — Washington's limitations.
"The administration and Congress are tied up with health care reform and foreign policy issues," Luhby writes. "And their ability to institute new programs will be hampered by the nation's record budget deficit."
Federal spending will get even tighter when additional troops are deployed to Afghanistan on their high–risk, low–reward mission.
If the Democrats are going to enact anything, it is my guess they will have to do it on their own. Republicans, as Luhby points out, have used the unemployment rate as evidence that the president's economic policies have failed. Democrats can expect few, if any, Republicans to side with them.
Katrina vanden Heuvel urges, in The Nation, the enactment of "a bold jobs bill." Good idea. Wish someone had thought of it about 10 or 11 months ago.
Let's see what the jobs report says tomorrow.
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