While the president’s jobs plan contains some ideas that American business supports, it falls short by focusing too much on government spending and temporary tax breaks and too little on the trade, energy, tax, regulatory, and entitlement reforms we need.

The proposed payroll tax cut might give some small and medium-size businesses relief. But temporary tax breaks won’t create new jobs in significant numbers—and unfortunately, neither will the plan as a whole. It fails to adequately address the fundamental challenge facing our economy—too little growth—or the business reality that keeps companies from hiring—too few customers.

What’s worse, not one dime of spending will be cut to offset the $447 billion package. Instead, successful small businesses—especially those filing taxes as individuals—and productive industries will foot the bill through major tax increases. Any jobs that might have been supported under the plan would be wiped out by these hikes.

Though the president was on the right track with some of his proposals, like passing the free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, he stopped short of an aggressive trade agenda, which would open more markets to American goods and services. He also proposed more infrastructure investment, but he failed to call for multiyear reauthorizations of our nation’s core transportation programs that would allow communities to plan and hire. 

We could create hundreds of thousands of jobs and secure our energy supply by responsibly producing more American energy, which we have in abundance on federal lands and offshore. The administration has yet to seize this extraordinary opportunity, and it should.

Finally, the president touched only briefly on the tax, regulatory, and entitlement reforms that should be the centerpiece of an American jobs plan. Congress and the president should negotiate and pass comprehensive pro-growth tax reform that lowers individual and corporate rates and broadens the tax base.

While the administration has taken some steps to rein in regulations, many of its new rulemakings are killing business confidence, expansion, and jobs. Nearly 150 regulations costing $100 million or more are in the pipeline. The president should issue an executive order to declare a time-out on new major discretionary regulations.

And without meaningful entitlement reform, runaway costs and unsustainable obligations will continue to push us toward insolvency. No economy can grow or create jobs at its full potential when faced with such massive and expanding claims on its capital, credit, and other resources.

Bottom line: The president and Congress must act faster, be bolder, and put their faith in free enterprise, not in bigger government.