They lie.

Elected officials who believe in regulating the economy tend to believe they can create jobs. The truth is that by continually expanding government, they *can* increase jobs. But government doesn’t produce anything. So sucking labor out of the private sector produces a negative benefit in the long run.

The only people who create jobs for a net benefit are business owners. And in order to increase employment towards what some might call “full employment”, businesses need to be liberated from the shackles of reckless people granted certain powers.

I challenge you to ask a politician on how they plan to create jobs. More often than not they will reply with something about business tax credits or other means of incentives to encourage employers to grow their businesses. But remember, what the government takes from one man and gives to another is not a net positive increase. Creating incentives encourage businesses to act. Those businesses that can not act or are not in a position to act on the incentive are then held held back while their competitors might respond.

For example – lets say a city offers a company a sales tax rebate for 5 years to land a nice, new, super-retailer. The problem is that every other retailer and consumer in the area is essentially financing that business. Instead of reducing the sales tax for all businesses to promote growth, only one business gains the incentive and other businesses and consumers pay the price.