Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that virtually no jobs were created in America in August. We have anticipated declining employment in the government sector all year as state, county and local governments downsize to new revenue realities. Our forecast since the first of the year was that government jobs would decline and be offset by private sector hiring; netting very little employment growth for 2011.

We anticipate that government job cutting will be completed as we enter 2012 and that private sector hiring will expand.

That was my outlook before the debt ceiling debate. I’m glad we had a messy, scary debate over the massive increase in debt that is happening in our country. It woke up a lot of complacent Americans to the truth that our government is not living within its means.

Then came the S&P downgrade to the U.S. credit rating. Clearly, S&P didn’t downgrade the U.S. credit rating. Congress and the president are the only ones that can do that. They do that by spending money they don’t have, year after year after year.

S&P was late in recognizing this, but give them credit. At least they had the courage to say something. You notice that Fitch and Moody’s haven’t done the same. You can see why. Within a few days after S&P announced their downgrade, the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to launch some kind of investigation of S&P. Under such threat of government intimidation, no wonder the other ratings agencies don’t follow suit.

In a post on Aug. 23, I outlined the key issues causing business uncertainty. Well, I need to add another that I believe has threatened to virtually halt all private-sector hiring for the rest of this year.

The nasty byproduct of the debt ceiling debate was the creation of a “super commission” to supposedly cut $1.5 trillion off the deficit. They are supposed to produce a report by Thanksgiving.

If business owners were full of uncertainty before this debacle, now there could be perfect uncertainty. Nobody knows what this commission will do. It could cut spending by $1.5 trillion, or it might raise taxes by $1.5 trillion. What will get cut? What industries will be impacted? Will they raise taxes? I told an audience in Austin recently it wouldn’t surprise me if nobody hired anyone between now and the end of the year.

I don’t think our economy can afford to wait until Thanksgiving to hear some good news. Our government has to act NOW to come up with long-term tax rules that encourage hiring. Not a tax credit for six months or one year. We need PERMANENT tax policy that will allow business owners and investors to make longer term investment decisions like hiring workers.

Forget Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. They are very smart people trying their best to keep a listing ship from sinking. But they are virtually out of buckets. They can’t bail fast enough when Congress continues to fire torpedoes right into the hull. Bernanke’s speech at Jackson Hole was loud and clear. It’s time for Congress to step up.