There was a point in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Democrats changed their nomenclature and started using the term ‘investment’ as a substitute for almost any kind of proposed spending.

Democrats had been successfully tarred and feathered with the ‘big spender’ label for quite a while and needed a way avoid being pigeonholed.  A decade of successful real investment by the private sector meant the free enterprise system was back in vogue and so ‘investment’ was adopted to sound much more appealing to the average voter.

For example, ultra-liberal Robert Reich is a huge supporter of ‘investments’ in public infrastructure, education and other government initiatives and he has used the term as much as possible since serving under Bill Clinton.  Really, any kind of government outlay is an ‘investment’ in Reich’s world.

But now, there is a new approach being taken by Barack Obama, which is to label every possible piece of legislation as a ‘jobs’ bill.

Obviously, there is the stimulus package, which he said would ’save or create’ 3 million jobs.  Putting aside the absurdity of the ’save’ portion of the bill, it is reasonable enough–in the political sense–for him to claim that his bill will create jobs.

Then there is his budget bill, which he also said would create jobs.  He never really spelled out how his spending priorities would actually do this, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt here, too, as all Presidents make such claims.

But moving beyond the realm of fiscal policy and economic pump-priming, he has gone on to claim his health care plan would also create jobs.  From his health care speech on June 15, he promised:

…a system that gives Americans the best care at the lowest cost; a system that eases up the pressure on businesses and unleashes the promise of our economy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But wait, he’s not done!

The House just passed a Cap and Trade energy bill that by most accounts will exact a huge price on the American economy.  But guess what?  Despite raising the cost of energy on already worn-out businesses and consumers, Obama says this bill will…you guessed it, create jobs:

And most importantly, (the bill) will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs. Now, make no mistake — this is a jobs bill.

Even Obama’s Cairo speech contained a paean to the job-creating powers of his policies:

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops.

I’m sure destitute Muslims in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are going ga-ga over the prospect of green jobs.  Having their, uh, personnel files digitized by their autocratic regimes is equally exciting! 

Anyway, it’s obvious that the White House strategy now is to couch every major initiative as a way to create jobs.  It makes one wonder how, exactly, Obama thinks jobs are created.

Surely, an energy bill that puts thousands out of work in one area of the energy economy–say, coal mining–but then pushes mere hundreds into a different sector–say, building wind mills–can’t legitimately be considered a ‘jobs’ bill.  Jobs are destroyed and created in the overall economy every single day.  The goal is for there to be net job creation, right?

Evidence that health care reform or cap and trade will produce a net gain in jobs is spurious at best.  Yet Obama keeps repeating the claim. 

Will anyone ever call him on it?