Regime Uncertainty

by Kate Piercy “Where are the new jobs?” asks John Stossel in his article today. Why aren’t businesses hiring? Well, Stossel concludes businesses will not start investing in new workers until the current “regime of uncertainty” ends, explaining: After previous recessions, unemployment didn’t get stuck at close to 10 percent. If left alone, the economy can...

by Kate Piercy

“Where are the new jobs?” asks John Stossel in his article today. Why aren’t businesses hiring?

Well, Stossel concludes businesses will not start investing in new workers until the current “regime of uncertainty” ends, explaining:

After previous recessions, unemployment didn’t get stuck at close to 10 percent. If left alone, the economy can and does heal itself, as the mistakes of the previous inflationary boom are corrected.

The problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama’s vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden.

In at least three big areas — health insurance, financial regulation and taxes — no one can know what will happen.

Economist and historian Robert Higgs says, “Unless the government acts soon to resolve the looming uncertainties about the half-dozen greatest threats of policy harm to business, investors will remain for the most part on the sideline … consuming wealth that might otherwise have been invested.”

Illinois legislators need to realize this reality as well and eliminate unnecessary roadblocks to prosperity so businesses can grow and start hiring more instead of leaving Illinois for more friendly business climates.

For Stossel’s entire piece, click here.