It's All About the Jobs

Statement

We keep hearing on the news that the unemployment rate is dropping, yet we have family members, friends, and neighbors, who are still out of work. It doesn't really feel like the job market has gotten any better, so how is it that unemployment has dropped to 4.7 percent?

The problem is the unemployment numbers that get reported each month do not count those who have stopped looking for work or those who are underemployed. According to a recent survey by CNBC1, 43 percent (or nearly half) of those Americans who are unemployed have quit looking for work. And the longer someone has been out of a job, the more likely they are to have given up hope completely. Almost 60 percent of those who have been out of work for two years or more have stopped looking for a new job. As of the end of May, the number of people the Labor Department considers "not in the labor force" reached a record 94.7 million Americans.

There are many reasons for this. Some are basically out of our hands as our economy evolves. Technology, for example, has greatly improved our lives but has also made certain jobs obsolete. Some, however, are things we can absolutely fix, like government overregulation.

As I travel the state talking to Maryland voters, I have heard countless stories from small business owners about the problems they have encountered due to overregulation by the county, state and federal governments. All of the rules and regulations have made it cost-prohibitive for many of them to operate their business the way they have in the past. And, unfortunately, as the cost of doing business increases, often the only place to cut back is trimming the number of employees or not hiring anyone new.

In Maryland, we have seen some great progress under Governor Hogan. He has reduced state-based business regulations, cutting fees where he can, and has instituted new customer service standards for state workers. This is why it is important to have people with actual business experience like Governor Hogan in government instead of career politicians. They have seen what overregulation has done to American businesses, and they know what needs to be done to help rather than hurt. But Governor Hogan needs a common sense person with business experience to be his partner in Washington if we are going to be able to continue his progress.

That is not my opponent Congressman Chris Van Hollen. With the possible exception of an unknown summer job or two -- and I can't imagine the son of a diplomat would have needed a summer job -- Van Hollen's only work experience outside of Congress was his time as a high-priced lawyer at a large law firm in Washington DC.

As a small business owner, I appreciate experience as a qualifying factor for some jobs in the real world. For example, I would never hire an electrician that had never rewired a house before. But so far, I haven't seen that experience is much of a qualifying factor when it comes to elected officials. For decades we have sent the same career politicians to Washington and they have continued to let us down. Since Congressman Van Hollen was first sworn into office in January 2003, the national debt has tripled. For decades we have been promised our immigration system would be fixed and our borders would be secured with nothing to show for it except upwards of 11 million illegal immigrants in our country. Congressman Van Hollen said one of the reasons he supported Obamacare was because we needed to address rising premium costs, yet once again we are expecting another rate hike in the fall. And we now have more than 94 million Americans who either looking for work or who have become so discouraged by the state of the job market that they have given up hope altogether.

Government does not create jobs; however the government can create a pro-growth environment that can help business owners create jobs. But that will not happen if we continue to send career politicians with no business experience to Washington. It's not that they aren't well-meaning people. It's that they understand government -- not business. And the only way we can bring business sense to Washington is if we send someone with actual business experience there.

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