How Dems create jobs

Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison appeared over the weekend for an interview on MSNBC by the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney. How did Carney sneak in there? I don’t know, but he made the most of his appearance. He elicited this exemplary teaching from Ellison (video below), summarized by RealClearPolitics:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tells MSNBC regulations create jobs because a business will have to hire people to help them comply with the new requirement.

“I think the answer is no,” Ellison said when asked if he believes regulations kill jobs. “And here is why: When we talked about increasing fuel efficiency standards, the industry responded, and they need engineers and designers and manufacturers, and they need actually more people to help respond to the new requirement.”

“I believe if the government says, look, we have got to reduce our carbon footprint, you will kick into gear a whole number of people that know how to do that or have ideas about that, and that will be a job engine. I understand what you mean, because if anything adds a cost to a business, you could assume that that will diminish that business’s ability to hire. But I don’t think that’s actually right. I think what businesses want is customers and what — if they are selling product, if they have a product to sell they will do well even if they have some new regulations to meet,” the Congressman said.

John Hayward provides the charitable explanation underlying Ellison’s comments with admirable concision: “Ellison reveals the truth: the Democrat Party is a band of lunatics who have no idea how private industry works at all.”

Momentary digression for Minnesota readers: Will the Star Tribune note Ellison’s howlers, as it faithfully records Michele Bachmann’s occasional slips? Not bloodly likely.

Ellison’s deep thoughts are not some kind of aberration. On the contrary, Ellison’s message is right on the party line. IBD catches President Obama, Senators Barbara Boxer and Ben Cardin, the EPA, and Paul Krugman all conveying the same line in one way or another. IBD makes the definitive comment: “[I]f regulations were job-creation engines, the economy should be in danger of overheating right about now. Obama has overseen the fastest growth in new federal rules ever, imposing 75 new major regulations in his first 26 months in office at a cost of more than $40 billion, according to the Heritage Foundation.”

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