Our Political Leadership Is Struck Deaf, Dumb & Blind Over Jobs Creation

The profligacy of the Republican economic policies of the last decade continue to bite the U.S. in the collective ass as the painfully slow recovery from the Bush Recession seems to have stalled with consumers reluctant to spend, companies reluctant to hire and banks reluctant to loan.

Long story short, those policies (which many congressional Democrats went along with), were perversely simple: Keep lowering taxes for the wealthy, keep deregulating financial institutions, keep cutting back on job-creating infrastructure improvements, keep looking the other way as the middle-class got gouged, and keep telling the lie that the largess of the rich would trickle down and somehow end up in the pockets of ordinary Americans. All while fighting two wars that sucked the federal treasury dry.

With the private sector paralyzed, or unwilling to do anything beyond rewarding shareholders in the case of the many corporations flush with cash, the only recourse for jobs creation -- which is the key to stopping the economic flat lining -- is the federal government.

But President Obama, who looks increasingly like a shoo-in for a second term and seems reluctant to peddle the bold ideas that might spur job growth, while Republicans continue to sing from a frayed hymnal that declares that cuts in federal spending will spur private jobs investment.

If you had the keys to the kingdom what would you do to foster jobs creation?