This morning's unemployment report is relatively positive news — private sector payroll growth, government payroll reductions. But there is plenty more to be done to encourage economic growth and private-sector job creation. Some possibilities:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Web site reports that Warren Buffett's lieutenant Matthew Rose, the CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroad, wants to increase the federal gas tax.

Council member Matt Rose, who also is a member of the U.S. Chamber's board of directors and chairman and CEO of BNSF Railway Company, agrees that the private sector is the answer. To get it moving and creating jobs, the government has to get capital into the hands of job creators and invest in infrastructure, according to Rose....

While the council hasn't yet made any infrastructure recommendations, Rose stresses the need to invest in the critical roads, railways, and waterways that facilitate commerce. Adequate investment requires increasing the federal fuel tax, which has remained constant since 1993 and is producing declining revenues due to higher fuel efficiency; allowing toll roads; and tapping private investment, according to Rose. "We've done a poor job of educating the public on how roads are paid for, and now we're paying for it with inaction."

Jacob Weisberg. last seen inveighing against "the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large," has a new piece out claiming that a lesson of the debt-ceiling "crisis" is "that there's no point trying to explain complicated matters to the American people."

If President Obama, who the left believes is such a great orator, failed to win the American people over after all those press conferences, town hall meetings, and even a prime-time televised address, then the problem must be with the American people. This logic eventually gets you to dictatorship of the elites. If life is complicated, and the American people are too childish and ignorant to understand, why bother explaining it to them. Why even bother trying to explain it to them? If one really believes all this, why even bother with elections?

Maybe things will change by day's end, but for now, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke are avoiding the George W. Bush-Henry Paulson-era practice of emerging after these bad stock market days and trying to issue reassuring statements that don't actually succeed in reassuring anyone. Silence is golden. Not that I expect it to last. For now, my theory of the stock market rout is that it was triggered by the news that Secretary Geithner is expected to stay through the end of President Obama's (first? only?) term, and by Mr. Geithner's call in an August 3 Washington Post op-ed for "extending unemployment benefits; and financing infrastructure investments" as well as "tax reforms that will raise revenue."

From a Wall Street Journal editorial on a possible 2% cut to Medicare providers as part of the debt reduction deal:

Congress would decree that U.S. medicine must provide the same level of services to patients but do so for 98 cents on the current government dollar. And that dollar is already below actual costs. For the same hospital services, private insurers on average pay $1.49 today, according to Medicare data on relative public and commercial rates. A doctor to whom Medicare pays $1 would receive $1.25 from a private carrier for delivering the same care. The rest of the economy does not work like this.

If the Republicans in Congress hadn't agreed to raise the debt ceiling and the stock market had performed the way it has the past week, everyone would be blaming them for the losses. Since the stock market tumbled anyway, the press seems to be blaming it on Europe and concern about the overall global economy. I suppose that politically that's better for Republicans than the alternative scenario, but it points to some of the inherent silliness in the commentators who were running around last week saying that if there was no debt ceiling agreement the stock market was going to tank. There was a debt ceiling deal, and the stock market tanked anyway. I don't recall anyone predicting that last week.

"What Economists Won't Tell You: Why Competition Works" is the headline of an article Warren Kozak has posted at the Web site of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

If one had to name a company that was one of President Obama's favorites, Caterpillar would have to be high on the list. On February 6, 2009, Mr. Obama named the company's chairman and CEO, Jim Owens, to his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. On February 12, 2009, Mr. Obama flew with Mr. Owens aboard Air Force One to Caterpillar's headquarters to tout the stimulus bill. On November 24, 2009, Mr. Owens and his wife were invited guests at Mr. Obama's first state dinner at the White House, in honor of Prime Minister Singh of India. On February 7, 2011, Mr. Obama praised the company, which is based in the president's home state of Illinois, in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce.

Another example of an article that it would have been nice to read before the vote on the debt deal: Binyamin Appelbaum, in a front-page news article in the New York Times:

There is something you should know about the deal to cut federal spending that President Obama signed into law on Tuesday: It does not actually reduce federal spending.

By the end of the 10-year deal, the federal debt would be much larger than it is today.

Indeed, both the government and its debts will continue to grow faster than the American economy...

The Department of Agriculture has posted the latest data on food stamp uptake, which is for the month of May 2011, and a record 45,753,078 persons, or about 1 in every 6.8 Americans, participated in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, at a cost of $6.1 billion for the month. For comparison, in December 2008, the last full month of the George W. Bush administration, 31,567,037 Americans participated, at a cost of $3.6 billion for the month.

Thomas Sowell writes, citing Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation:

80 percent of "poor" households have air-conditioning today, which less than half the population of America had in 1970. Nearly three-quarters of households in poverty own a motor vehicle, and nearly one-third own more than one motor vehicle.

Virtually everyone living in "poverty," as defined by the government, has color television, and most have cable TV or satellite TV. More than three-quarters have either a VCR or a DVD player, and nearly nine-tenths have a microwave oven.

"Growing the economy isn't just about cutting spending; it's not about rolling back regulations that protect our air and our water and keep our people safe. That's not how we're going to get past this recession. We're going to have to do more than that." — President Obama, statement, August 2, 2011.

Senator Grassley, Republican of Iowa, explaining why he voted against the debt compromise:

Remember also that in February, President Obama submitted his budget proposal to Congress that refused to address looming deficits and debt. His budget would have added another $13 trillion to the national debt over ten years. Then the President delivered a speech in April that magically found $4 trillion in spending cuts. So, in just a matter of weeks, President Obama found $4 trillion in spending that no longer needed to be spent. The American people have to wonder how Washington can be serious about budgets and spending if the President, in a matter of weeks, can find $4 trillion of spending that was of national importance on February 14, but is no longer necessary on April 13. It's this type of behavior that leads people to be cynical of Washington and the federal government.

Former Obama aide Lawrence Summers writes in the Washington Post:

Remarkably for a matter so consequential, the deal calls for a "super-committee" that will seek to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion but lacks agreement on the baseline from which the $1.2 trillion is to be subtracted. Is it a baseline that includes or excludes the Bush tax cuts? Includes or excludes tax extenders and the annual fix for the alternative minimum tax?

Bloomberg News reports:

MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MF) plans to sell bonds with an interest rate that will rise if Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jon Corzine receives a federal appointment from the U.S. president.

The futures broker is selling $300 million of five-year senior unsecured notes to repay a bank line and for general corporate purposes, according to a person familiar with the offering, who declined to be identified because terms aren't set. The coupon will increase 1 percentage point if Corzine is appointed and confirmed by the U.S. Senate before July 2013, MF Global said today in a regulatory filing.

Apparently the issuer thinks bond-buyers will think Mr. Corzine is worth more to the company as an executive than as a government connection. Bet that if Mr. Corzine joins the Obama administration, it's not only MF Global's bond coupon that will rise, but that on Treasury bonds, given Mr. Corzine's propensity for government spending.