The Washington Post editors almost get it right in chiding Obama over his new-found appreciation for the private sector as the only viable engine of job creation. They write:

In thinking about how government can best encourage private companies to restart their engines, Mr. Obama and Congress should consider the deterrent impact of their own policymaking. As medical device manufacturer Fred P. Lampropoulos told Mr. Obama at the jobs summit, it often seems that Washington has “such an aggressive legislative agenda that business people don’t really know what they ought to do.” Uncertainty itself may be retarding investment and job creation. The sooner the president and Congress make final decisions about health-care reform, cap-and-trade, financial regulatory reform and the rest of the issues before them, the sooner America can start getting back to business.

Well, let’s be clear– the failure to “make final decisions about health-care reform, cap-and-trade, financial regulatory reform, and the rest of the issues before them” is not the only source of the problem. Knowing that yes, we sure are going to get a government takeover of health care, isn’t going to do the trick, you see. The issue here is that the proposals that the Obama administration and Democratic Congress are contemplating are uniformly hostile to capital formation, risk taking, hiring, and wealth creation. When these agenda items are defeated or definitively taken off the table, employers might breathe a sigh of relief.

And then there is the matter of the Bush tax cuts. As Rick has pointed out, the Democrats are contemplating a mammoth tax increase, which, if health-care reform and cap-and-trade haven’t already squelched a recovery, are certain to dampen investment and hiring.

In short, the problem is not, properly speaking, “uncertainty.” It is that despite the new fluffy rhetoric, this administration is devoid of individuals with a track record of success in and an appreciation for the private sector. As they work their way down a decades-old liberal wish list, they are impeding a recovery. If they don’t change their tune, unemployment is likely to remain unacceptably high and those who voted for the anti-jobs policies may join the ranks of those looking for work.