American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Create ‘Green’ Jobs...

CNSNews ^ | February 9, 2011 | Penny Starr

[jazusamo]

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson holds up
the boxing gloves she was given at a
conference of labor unions and
environmental activists in Washington, D.C.
on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011. The gloves mark
her fight with lawmakers who oppose EPA
regulations. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson suggested on Tuesday that American businesses with a “record amount of cash holdings,” estimated at $1.93 trillion, could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control.

Jackson, speaking at the BlueGreen Alliance national conference in Washington, D.C., cited a Dec. 10 Wall Street Journal article about a U.S. Treasury report, which estimated that there is $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets of non-financial U.S. companies sitting dormant, not being invested.

VIDEO 1:12 minutes

“Even a portion of the $1.93 trillion invested in developing and installing new pollution control technology would result in good jobs right here for American workers,” Jackson said to the gathering of labor unions and environmental activists.

Jackson said that standards and regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are good for job creation and the economy.

“The fact is that updating environmental standards, which we do to protect American families from things like mercury and acid gases and other toxic pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease, especially in children, create a good economic climate for investment and good jobs for American workers,” Jackson said. 

The Wall Street Journal article also stated the reasons for businesses sitting on large cash holdings and that those holdings are not beneficial to businesses.

“The cash buildup shows the deep caution many companies feel about investing in expansion while the economic recovery remains painfully slow and high unemployment and battered household finances continue to limit consumers' ability to spend,” the article states.

“The buildup has a big downside for companies, which get little return on their money because interest rates are low, but it reflects the relatively few opportunities they see to deploy their cash more creatively.”

In a commentary on Jan. 12 on RealClearPolitics, Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that uncertainty is the “enemy of investment and hiring.”

“The degree of change and uncertainty is unprecedented -- is it any wonder that many companies and other employers are sitting on their hands waiting to see how things work out? To know what their tax and regulatory obligations will be? To understand how new policies will impact their operations?” Donohue said.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of investment and hiring,” he said. “Through smart, commonsense policies, lawmakers can help increase certainty, especially when it comes to health care, tax, and climate change policies.”

Jackson said that despite “polarized debates” about the effects EPA regulations and standards have on business and the U.S. economy “environmental protection and economic growth can and do go hand in hand.”

She said the EPA’s “fundamental responsibility is protecting the health of the American people,” and warned against “special interests” that don’t understand the importance of that mission.

“It is important, as special interests try to gut our safeguards like the Clean Air Act that EPA has worked for and under for decades,” Jackson said. “And while special interests try to find loopholes so big polluters can skirt other common sense health protections.

“It is important to recognize these possibilities at a time when American companies have a record amount of cash holdings and liquid assets,” Jackson said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, among those companies with the top cash and liquid assets are Microsoft Corp., with $43.25 billion in cash and short-term investments; Cisco Systems Inc. with $38.9 billion; and Google Inc. with $33.4 billion.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Taking their cues from Obama’s C of C speech, I think I have seen at least two prominent Democrats per day in the news pointing out that business has $2 bil. in reserves that they are not using to create jobs.

I think the template for the Obama 2012 campaign is set. “I tried. I asked them to be Patriots. I asked them to create jobs. But they refused. Guess now we’ll just have to take their money and create Green Jobs for them”.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I can turn her words around to make them palatable.

“There are great new technologies out there that can make business a fortune, with lower costs and better efficiency. More for everyone. Find those new technologies, develop and market them, and instead of capital just sitting there, it will produce handsome yields.”

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Perhaps Ms Jackson could invest some of her own damned money “to create jobs that advance pollution control”.

[Hoodat]

You are not going to see any job creation until he is gone and out of office.

You are right about that. The only economic growth you will see over the next two years is in ventures that require no employees. This Administration has created a business environment where having employees becomes a huge liability.

So the big question is: Are they doing it out of ignorance? Or are they doing it with the willfull intent of destroying the American economy.

[ApplegateRanch]

"We should find a way to confiscate tax those cash holdings at an 80% level (nobody needs that kind of money!) and use it to eliminate the deficit expand social and environmental spending.

"Taxing at that level would force businesses, most of them the DIRTIEST polluters in the nation, to actually use that money to open new, GREEN plants, creating new GREEN jobs, instead of collecting unearned income from it," Administration officials said in a private Oval Office meeting.

"We know how to put it to better use, than those greedy B*****ds who are sitting on it, trying to hatch it like a rotten egg!"

[bert]

Alternatively, the leftist clods in washingtong should be rounded up and carted off after a generous application of tar and feathers

[stompk]

"We should find a way to confiscate tax those cash holdings at an 80% level (nobody needs that kind of money!) and use it to eliminate the deficit expand social and environmental spending.

Seems like I've read a book about people with this mentality once. the parallels are striking. wow.

who is John Galt?