Press ReleaseApril 30, 2014

Healthy Economies Don’t Blame the Weatherman

GDP Failures Due to Bad Policy
(DALLAS, TX) – The corporate chief executives of Job Creators Network said today’s fragile GDP report shows an economy full of businesses being battered by bad policy decisions. The nearly non-existent 0.1 percent annualized growth for the quarter under-performed many expectations by a full percentage point. While some blame the recent harsh winter, JCN’s leaders say a recovering economy would shake off winter blues.
“Despite the immense devastation of Hurricane Katrina and another major storm in 2005, the GDP report with that rotten weather in it came in much stronger than expected,” said Staples founder and former CEO Tom Stemberg. “Good economic policy should trump bad weather, but that’s not what we have.”

The third-quarter GDP report for 2005 – called a “perfect GDP report” by some analysts – showed a very robust annualized growth of 4.3 percent, beating the U.S. Commerce Department’s expectations by half a percentage point. The historic destruction of Hurricane Katrina took place during the reporting period, as did category-3 Hurricane Rita, which smashed into the Gulf Coast just three weeks after Katrina, hitting Texas, close to the Louisiana border.

“Vibrant and thriving economies should be able to weather any storm. We simply do not have the right recipe for growing our economy and getting hard working Americans back to work,” said Alfredo Ortiz, president of JCN.

Ortiz, Stemberg and Slavic Group CEO John Slavic pointed to the overhang of regulations and taxes in the Affordable Care Act putting an ongoing damper on hiring. Additionally, a growing overall federal regulatory burden and recent calls for hikes to the minimum wage are further evidence Washington isn’t watching out for ways to let the economy grow.

“Whenever you look to our politicians, they’re looking at ways to raise the price of hiring and growing, and when you look to the economic data, we’re getting weaker growth and weak hiring,” said Slavic. “This isn’t a coincidence: It’s a perfect storm for killing prosperity, but it has nothing to do with the weather.”

ABOUT JOB CREATORS NETWORK
Job Creators Network (JCN) is the voice of real job creators that has been missing from the debate on jobs and our economic crisis. JCN members talk about paychecks, not politics, helping the public and policymakers understand how jobs are created. For more information please visit www.JobCreatorsNetwork.com.