Here’s a letter sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) are eager to “create jobs” by spending other people’s money on a slew of top-down, bureaucrat-directed programs aimed at “closing the skills gap” (“How to Close the Skills Gap,” August 10).
My how creative.
Overlook the questionable record of government efforts to educate children and retrain workers. Ask instead: Why should anyone pay attention to what politicians say about job creation? In this case, Ms. Landrieu has been in politics since she was 25 years old; Ms. Murray – after stints as a pre-school teacher and as an environmental and education activist – has been in politics since she was 35. Apparently, the only qualification these women have to pronounce in your pages on the subject of job creation is their success at winning lofty political offices.
If the likes of Ms. Landrieu and Ms. Murray were to offer advice on how to repair your collapsed roof or on how to rid your house of termites, they’d be seen immediately for the imposters that they are. But when it comes to economics, politicians’ statements sadly are taken as serious contributions to the public discourse even though – as is the case in your pages today – those statements reflect a quality of thinking that would embarrass a twelve-year-old.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
