From USA TODAY, “$5,000 tax credit for each new job a big part of Obama’s plan,” reporting on the President’s State of the Union reaffirmation of a campaign pledge, “I’m also proposing a new small business tax credit — one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.”

There’s only one problem: Business groups say the credit won’t do much to boost hiring.

“I really don’t think it’s going to be much of an incentive,” says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Mostly it is going to be used by businesses that would have been hiring anyway.”

The National Association of Manufacturers is promoting its own job-creation package, featuring a cut in corporate income tax rates and a more generous tax credit for research and development. The group considers those changes more important than the $5,000 tax credit.

“For those manufacturers who are looking to hire, this will help,” says spokeswoman Erin Streeter. “We don’t anticipate this tax credit being a reason for them to hire. Our members are going to hire if there is a long-term need.”

Erin is referring to the NAM’s new Milken Institute study, “Jobs for America.”

Very few people take the tax credit for hiring seriously as anything other than politics.

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Popping up here and there have been versions of an op-ed on the Employee Free Choice Act by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a “progressive” think tank funded by the usual foundation suspects. (George Soros’ Open Society Institute AND Barbra Streisand. Whew) Weisbrot argues that the social causes supported by organized labor would come to fruition if only we could do away with secret-ballot elections in the workplace.

Rarely do you see such a clear statement of totalitarian practices and aims in the major media.

As published in the Chicago Sun-Times, excerpts:

This bill would mandate that an employer recognize the union if it obtains the signatures of a majority of employees. There would be no need for the long and costly election campaign.

And…

This law would probably change Americans’ lives more than any legislation since the New Deal brought us Social Security. The political influence of millions of new union members would also bring us closer to such basic reforms as universal health care. It’s all long overdue.

Radical change, accomplished through a mass social movement without democratic elections.

Historically, these movements have not ended well.