The Opportunity Deficit

Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on May 10, 2011

Every day we get multiple people all over television, the radio, and the newspapers saying how we cannot afford our entitlement programs, how the nation is going broke, and how there is no choice but to make federal spending cuts.  Rarely does anyone mention the unemployed anymore.  Last year the country seemed in agreement that the most pressing issue was jobs.  Now, much of the country has lost interest in the plight of the jobless and are wanting to focus on the deficit and the debt.  The unemployed are still just that, unemployed.  Yet few seem to understand the reason that we are running such large deficits is because 25 million people who want full-time jobs cannot find them.  Additionally, many are in full-time jobs beneath their skill level.  Basically, the country is running a massive Opportunity Deficit, and it is this deficit that is the source of the fiscal deficit.  If the unemployed returned to good paying jobs tax revenues would roll into Washington and social spending would automatically drop sharply without anyone being cutoff.  The main reason for the fiscal deficit is not President Obama’s healthcare plan or stimulus plan, it is not the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is not President Bush’s tax cuts.  All of those reasons combined don’t equal the fiscal cost of the Opportunity Deficit.  If Washington would put people back to work in good jobs the fiscal situation would handle itself.

The focus of our leaders should be to do whatever it takes to close and eliminate the Opportunity Deficit.  Amazingly, the Congress and the President have all of the tools they need to put people back to work and they refuse to use them.  The tool is to actually have the federal government spend money on everything from roads and bridges, to teachers and schools, to research and development, and to anything else it takes to get the unemployed back to work.

The federal government has an unlimited check book and it refuses to take it out.  In Texas, the State has $9 billion in a savings account called the Rainy Day Fund and State Representatives and the Governor refuse to use it to avoid laying off Teachers.  Are these people crazy?  No, they are misinformed.  In Texas they seem to believe money has no strong correlation to a good education.  In Washington they seem to believe that a government that can print dollars might run out of them.  Both beliefs are clearly false, but they persist and exacerbate the Opportunity Deficit.  Virtually no one is standing up for those crushed by the Opportunity Deficit with an attitude that we will end that Deficit no matter what it takes.  But we will stand up for it here.