Holt vs Sipprelle: Jobs

Rush Holt has a new section on his website dedicated to comparing his positions to Scott Sipprelle's. It's appropriate that he put JOBS at the top of the page, since economy and the jobs seem to be the most serious issue on the voters' mind going into the November elections. Here's the comparison that Holt makes:

Rush Holt:

• Helping create jobs with tax credits for small businesses.
• Created the New Jersey Technology Center to build the jobs of the new economy.
• Demanded that big banks that took government bail outs make more loans available.

Scott Sipprelle:

• Opposes raising the minimum wage.¹
• Opposes equal pay for equal work for women.²
• Profited by investing in and promoting corporations that shipped American jobs overseas.³

Let's go through the list, starting with Scott Sipprelle:

1. Economists are unanimous in agreeing that raising the minimum wage results in unemployment. It's a basic economic principle. Raising the minimum wage is good posturing as social justice, but it results in higher unemployment for those categories of workers that work at minimum age, especially teenagers. After the last minimum wage increase, teenage unemployment skyrocketed.

2. Holt still has to document Sipprelle's opposition to equal pay for women. What Sipprelle opposed is not equal pay, but a new law mandating it. Wages are settled on the labor market, and interfering with the free market always has unintended consequences. If a woman is paid less than a man in a certain job, that can be due to a lot of factors. Mandating equal pay, since it imposes artificial wages for certain female employees, will results in less jobs for women. Again, Sipprelle's position would prevent an increase in unemployment.

3. Did the rocket scientist ever wonder why would a company ship jobs overseas? It's because of the high payroll taxes they're subjected to here, to the vast array of Government regulation which increases the cost of employing in the US, and (especially now) because of the climate of incertitude regarding new taxes and regulations that may come (like health care insurance costs, union mandates, carbon taxes, expiring or not expiring tax cuts). Scott Sipprelle's positions would definitely help contain all those reasons for companies to outsource jobs overseas. Holt still didn't mention what his incentives for companies to hire are.

Now on to Rush Holt:

1. What credits exactly? I have a small business and I'm not receiving anything. I just have to pay more and more taxes and I see no logical economic reason of hiring anyone right now.

2. What? Where? How does that help?

3. Wait, isn't that how our current crisis started? By Government forcing banks to make loans to borrowers who should't have otherwise received them? If a bank considers it safe to make a loan, it will make it, that's how banks make profits and bankers get rich! If they don't make a loan to someone, it's because they consider the risk outweighs the benefits. And now Holt again wants to force banks to make loans to borrowers who might be able to pay back??

The bottom line is: who would you trust more about the economy and jobs? A bookish rocket scientist, or an investor and small business owner?