municipal bonds

In the The Wall Street Journal, two researchers call Obama’s proposed “jobs” bill, the $450 billion “American Jobs Act,” a “blue-state bailout in disguise,” noting that his proposal would dump “$200 billion in taxpayer money” onto state government employees and projects, and would provide a “special benefit” to the most fiscally-irresponsible “states in the blue regions of the country where the president’s most fervent supporters reside.”

But it would harm most states over the long run by increasing their borrowing costs, driving up interest rates on bonds used to pay for useful transportation projects. As the researchers, Paul Peterson and Daniel Nadler, point out, “States will face even higher interest rates if the president’s proposed limit on the deductibility of state and municipal bond interest income (to help pay for the jobs plan) is enacted. If the interest is no longer deductible, investors will demand a higher rate of return for buying bonds, and state calls for more federal aid will intensify.”

Obama’s so-called “jobs” bill would fail to create private-sector jobs, and increase the size of the national debt, while wasting billions on failed federal “jobs” training programs that backfire by spreading bad work habits and welfare dependency. It would also introduce discriminatory provisions into the tax code, provide disincentives to work, subsidize pork and boondoggles, impractical green-jobs schemes, and educational bloat, and pay off special interests.  Obama’s proposals simply disregard experts’ suggestions about how to stimulate the economy, such as adopting common-sense regulatory reforms.