October 14, 2011
One would hope so, since its reporting on the topic is so embarrassing. The paper told readers:
“There have been some compromises on jobs measures this year, as both parties have sought small wins. On Wednesday, Congress approved new trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, lowering barriers to American exports.”
While politicians from both parties, including President Obama, have called these trade pacts job bills, it would be very difficult to find any economist anywhere who is not obviously on someone payroll who would claim that these deals would lead to any notable number of jobs ever, and certainly not in the next few years. Most analyses show that these deals will have very little impact on jobs and it is entirely possible that they will end up as net job losers in the short-term as has been the case with past trade deals.
The piece also described the repeal of a 3 percent withholding tax on payments to businesses that contract with state and local governments as a jobs measure. This is nonsense. The withholding an effort to increase tax compliance by small businesses who often cheat on their taxes, just like paycheck withholding is an effort to keep workers from cheating. Ending the withholding is a sop to these businesses for political reasons, no one believes that it will create any jobs.
[In response to popular demand, here is the International Trade Commission (ITC) report on the South Korea deal, by far the biggest of the three. It projects that when fully implemented (@ 10 years), it would increase GDP by around $10 billion or approximately 0.05 percent. The ITC projections for trade agreements have generally proven to be overly optimistic.)
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