Obama's fiscal infusion approach to reducing unemployment is simply too little, too late. I have a better idea. Reduce unemployment by reducing the number of job seekers--present and future--through what we can call "enhanced natural attrition." There are already some proposals out there that can we can use to accomplish this.
1) Enhanced natural attrition through liberating the environment for entrepreneurs. Governor Rick Perry is a big advocate of this, arguing that onerous federal environmental regulations raise the cost of production to such a point that employers can't increase production and hire more workers. He's right, but what we also get from ending those oppressive protections of the environment is the side benefit of increased externalities--companies pass on the cost of production (the cost of say, air or water pollution) to the public space, where workers live. Studies show that typically it's the poor and marginalized workers who end up living in the more toxic spaces, so we can enhance the natural attrition of this population by increasing the toxicity of places where they live. With shorter life spans and greater infant mortality rates, we reduce the number of present and future job seekers, with the added benefit of reducing applicants for this or that social and welfare service. And our brave, risk-taking entreprenuers, with lower costs of production, will make more money so they can once again own that second, third, or fourth home, thus boosting the real estate and home construction sectors. Just one of many possible multiplier effects!
2) Enhanced natural attrition through more efficient healthcare delivery. Some of you liberal naysayers out there will likely point out that increased toxicity will lead to greater public healthcare costs. I'm a step ahead of you. It won't if we, as Michelle Bachman so wisely advocates, dump Obamacare. We need to liberate health care insurance companies, drug companies, and all for-profit entrepreneurs in healthcare provision from onerous rules that make them offer services to populations that can't afford them. We can enhance the natural attrition of this population of job-seekers that can't take care of themselves, thereby reducing the number of job-seekers, and those who probably can't even work anyway. What a plus!
3) Enhanced natural attrition through improving national security. The neocons, like those at The Project for a New American Century, had it right. We are a benevolent hegemon, and need to stop apologizing for unilateral intervention where needed to protect the picket lines of empire, and nip evil regimes in the bud before they flower into real threats. We've done Afghanistan and Iraq; it's time for Iran (and damn, we missed our chance in Libya, though Syria's still a possibility). We can enhance the natural attrition of working class folks who happen to be in the armed forces through expanding the scope of armed action in the Near East. What liberals might sneeringly dismiss as a quagmire is really a wonderful opportunity to reduce the number of job-seekers (and future ones they might produce), and, get this, with all the privatization of security-related operations, we simultaneously create more jobs. It's perfect!
Write your Congressperson today! Let's abandon the fantasy of increasing the number of jobs available and instead demand enhanced natural attrition of job-seekers!
