Like a bad penny, glum news about the U.S. economy continues to turn up. Lawmakers just narrowly avoided a government shutdown...again and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently called the unemployment situation a "national crisis." Neither situation bodes well for the significant reform proposals that the super committee on deficit reduction is required to unveil in November.
The President for his part is touring the nation and selling his jobs bill with the message that it will put people back to work. All the while, Congress is trying to determine what job-creating policies, if any, they can pass into law in this political climate.
There is no doubt that we need more Americans earning a paycheck and contributing to the treasury to get our economy back on track. But, putting people back to work does not necessarily mean giving a corporation an incentive to hire. In fact, the best job for some of the nine million unemployed could be one they create for themselves: self-employment.
Not everyone may know what it takes to start, run and grow a small business, but there are resources that can help entrepreneurs successfully launch a new venture. There are also 22 million self-employed business owners already proving it is possible to be your own boss. Creating a national self-employment initiative to help those ranks grow could present a solution to both our employment and deficit crises.