US Chamber on the jobs bill: Much room for improvement

Like most business leaders, US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue likes parts of President Obama'a jobs plan. But there is signficant room for improvement.

From an op-ed that origianally ran in the Wall Street Journal:

We need affordable energy—and our nation could have plenty of it, and the jobs that come with it, by responsibly developing the enormous resources beneath our lands and off our shores. Producing more American energy would be a boon to our economy, our workers, our national security, and our government tax coffers. The administration has yet to seize this extraordinary opportunity. It should.

Finally, Mr. Obama touched only briefly on tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms. These reforms should be the centerpiece of an American jobs plan—not mere footnotes.

Instead of piecemeal tax breaks, for example, Congress and the president should negotiate and pass comprehensive pro-growth tax reform that lowers individual and corporate rates and broadens the tax base.

And while the administration has recently taken some steps to rein in regulations, it does not fully appreciate the negative impact that its new regulatory rulemakings—in health care, labor, capital markets and environmental policy—are having on business confidence, expansion, and jobs. Congress must reaffirm its oversight role, and the president should issue executive orders to reform the federal environmental permitting process for new infrastructure and energy projects and to declare a time-out on new major discretionary regulations.

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