As panic sets in, Obama spins from one vague idea to another

John E. Sununu, a regular Boston Globe contributor, is a former US senator from New Hampshire

Whirling economics

The truth is that the role of government isn’t to create jobs; it’s to create an environment where entrepreneurs, businesses, and investors can make investments that create new opportunities for others. Yet elected officials, most with little private-sector experience, have a hard time seeing the difference between policy that creates a good environment and policy that simply subsidizes a particular behavior. The two are not created equal.

But the very changes that would promote a more competitive environment — tax reform that widens the tax base and eliminates deductions and credits, more restraint in promoting new regulations, and reform of the legal system — are not presidential priorities. In a sad irony, any meaningful tax reform would almost certainly raise the tax bill for Immelt’s GE.