Through the stimulus package, President Obama promised to get the unemployment rate under 8 percent. While we’re heading closer to that “magic number,” the reduced rate is not a result of economic growth, but rather because thousands of Americans have simply given up when it comes to finding a job.

When tallying the unemployment rate, the federal government only counts those individuals who are actively looking for a job, but are unable to find employment, which helps to create an illusion of progress even when our economy continues to shrink.

A better measure of progress may be to review how many jobs were added per month. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest report which was unveiled yesterday morning, just 115,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in March 2012 – hardly enough to even sustain the number of individuals entering the workforce every day, let alone putting unemployed Americans back to work.

Government spending will not produce economic growth. Increased taxes will not produce economic growth. Regulations will not produce economic growth. The single best proposal to empower businesses of all sizes to reinvest in the economy would be to lower and simplify our tax code- especially the corporate tax rate.

Today’s code was designed 25 years ago – before the Berlin Wall came down, before the technological revolution, and before America’s economy collapsed. While competitive when it was enacted, America’s corporate tax rate is now the globe’s highest at 39.2 percent when you combine state and federal rates. Reducing the corporate tax rate would allow the United States to better compete with other countries in attracting foreign investment.

Read the full article here at RedState

Stephen DeMaura
President, Americans for Job Security