--The purpose of conservatism is to stand athwart history"--William F. Buckley, Jr.
No one should have any illusions that the Republicans have a slightest interest in helping the American economy recover. Their interest is solely in gaining power, and consolidating the rule of the rich. In order for a meaningful jobs plan to have a prayer of passing, therefore, strategic considerations are paramount.
There are 3 key politically strategic ingredients to have a chance of success.
First, it must be bold. Not only will half-way measures not work very well, they will not ignite the support for steps 2 and 3 that will be necessary to get it passed.
Bold means big in its impact. Bold also means direct. That is, there can be no room for estimating jobs that will be created. The jobs must be guaranteed, with the government the employer if necessary. That way, no one can credibly say, "it won't work to create 4 million jobs."
I have proposed a modern WPA, funded by a 0.5% financial activities (FAT) tax plus expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the upper bracket, to hire, directly, 4 million workers for 4 years. That is big, bold, and the jobs are guaranteed. If those jobs become private sector, because private companies hire the workers themselves, so be it. At least they are guaranteed.
Harry Hopkins hired 4 million people in 4 months.
Moreover, since the "job-creators" the Republicans argue they so desperately need to protect are clearly not hiring 4 million people, claims that "taxing the rich like this will kill jobs" will fall flat on their collective faces. They will retreat, therefore, to fears of "big government." that can be effectively addressed by a) pointing out the obvious that ONLY government embarks on these very long-term investments; and b) listing the projects Republicans asked for, in writing, from the stimulus funds and other federal agencies.
The jobs would be to rebuild roads, bridges, schools, water pipes, sewers, rail, upgrade the electric grid, and retrofit buildings to save energy. No one can credibly say that those projects will not pay dividends long into the future. No one can credibly say that they do not need doing. No one can credibly state that private enterprise has ever funded these projects in the last 75 years or more.
In economic terms, what this does is transform excess or idle capital that is, today, doing nothing, and invest it in our shared future.
This is not to suggest that the above proposal is the only way to go. But, any proposal needs to meet the tests of bold and guaranteeing large number of jobs through direct hiring.
Second, there needs to be a big march on Washington supporting the legislation. Telephoning Congress, signing online petitions, is not enough. Very large numbers of real people need to show up. Labor is best suited to organize it, although other groups will certainly help.
There were about 2 million people in DC for the president's inaugural. This march needs the same or more if it is to be effective.
The middle class has just as much right to get government to work for its interests as the right-wing has successfully manipulated government to work for the interests of the rich. The marchers must demand, therefore, not ask that the legislation guaranteeing those jobs be passed. In addition to appearing on the mall, the marchers should stream into the halls and offices of Congress.
Third, in order to guarantee this an up-or-down vote in Congress, it should be made part of the SuperCongress's recommendation to cut the deficit. There is nothing that I read in the so-called debt ceiling bill, in which John Boehner got 98% of what he wanted, that said that the entire recommendation of the SuperCongress had to be done all in one piece. All it said is that it must complete its work by November 23, 2011.
No one denies that increasing jobs and growth will decrease the deficit. Thus, the SuperCongress is a highly proper and appropriate vehicle through which to propose this legislation. Although paying for it by taxes will raise barriers to its passage, it also enables it to fit within the deficit-reducing mandate of the SuperCongress. If not those taxes, then hiring more IRS agents to collect part of the $350B in annual tax receipts, due but not paid, might substitute.
Will all this work to get a meaningful bill passed? Probably not. But, unless it is bold, there will be no massive march to support it. And, then Washington DC will continue to believe that it can thwart the peoples' will and ignore their needs with impunity.
Yesterday, I spoke with striking Communications Workers of America members who were on a picket line. I asked them if they would join such a march. They almost could not wait to board a bus, but they will not do it for something piddling.
A bold proposal needs bold actions and bold messaging to support it. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) just entered the race for the Republican Presidential nomination with his stated goal of "working every day to make the federal government inconsequential" in peoples' lives.
Democrats, and others, who believe that government (which is, unlike Mitt's corporations, really of the people, by the people and for the people) should perform critical functions for the good of all, need to engage Perry's irrelevancy proposition directly and forcibly. The argument is not that government should do everything, any more than the private sector can do everything, but that there are critical functions -- one of which is to kick-start the economy after episodes like the disastrous Bush Administration that left it in shambles -- that government can uniquely perform.
Getting America working again is a good place to start. [And, the last thing the White House should do is allow Rick Perry to brand himself with that phrase.]
Follow Paul Abrams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pabrams2001
Government creates 4 million jobs by hiring a contractor to do road and bridge work that takes 4 years to complete using tax payer dollars. After 31/2 years them same contractors start laying off and gearing down to the end of the job. But I still get to be a hero as President for doing it?
Is this really a long term fix, or a short term make me look good and get my #'s up solution?
I think a long term fix to the employment problem would be to get rid of NAFTA, and don't ever have another Free Trade Agreement again, as well as fire the next person that even mentions the idea of it.
That way American companies can't outsource jobs any more and just bring their product back into the US and sell them here without any repercussions of what they are doing.
I think another long term fix would be to stop taxing and over regulating companies to the point they want to leave to get away from it in the first place as long as they leave and reinvest their earnings back and only back into the company creating growth and new jobs. That is a long term fix. That is what America needs. Long term fixes. Not short term make me look good for election or re election fixes.
That is how the economy works.
Another point that you wanted straight: US companies pay the lowest percentage of total tax revenues since world war II, so lowering corp rates would only be important if it were accompanied by elimination of loopholes so the system isn't skewed to those, like General Electric, who have 900+ lawyers and accountants who do their taxes taking advantage of loopholes their lobbyists had Congress insert for them--and paid zero taxes.
I totally agree that we should provide tax benefits ONLY for investments that create US jobs.
NAFTA is also part of that problem that keeps it going, so get rid of it. That is a long term fix.
The 4 years is fine for a temporary fix as I said if you just want to raise your #'s for election or re election. And I doubt they are as rosy as you describe the outcome. But stay optimistic. As you know, We need long term fixes.
And I don't see any candidates or bloggers or media speaking of them. as much as I see coverage of ways to manipulate the American people into putting up with the same crap we been putting up with for years. I do thank you for your reply, and appreciate and respect it. Thanks.
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Unless this is incremental, this would compete with current road work, where currently 1 million people work.
All in this would cost about $400 billion (45% in salary costs is national average) per year for 4 years or $1.4 trillion. You would train a pool of workers 4 times larger than the current supply which would push wages in the sector down for years in the future after the program runs out. You would encourage building of cement and asphalt facilities that would have no purpose after 4 years.
You would be better off committing to increase the pool of road construction labor by 100% (about 1 million workers) for 10 or 20 years than to over construct for the next 4.
Your scenario--that everything just stops in 4 years--suggests that there have been no positive multiplier effects from putting people to work. That is not what history suggests--get 4 million people working again, consumption increases, other businesses flourish, more tax revenues are generated to reduce deficits, and the workers involved in this reconstruction will either move on to other reconstruction projects (financed more traditionally), or will get other jobs in a revived construction industry to which they were previously accustomed.
But, you are correct in one sense. There will be transition, and the past experience with such transitions--such as the end of WWII--provide some good lessons on what to do, and what not to do, so we should at least learn from those.
If we have to pay SOMEONE to do nothing, I would propose that we choose leftist economists and pundits. At least in their case, doing nothing would be an improvement.
THe Grand Coulee dam, built by Keynesian government spending during the Great Depression, supplies a large fraction of Washington State's electricity, and irrigates thousands of acres of farm and orchard land--75 years after it was built by those wretched Keynesians.
[T]he U.S. Transportation Department is dangling money before the government of Iowa seeking matching funds from the state for a high-speed rail line from Iowa City to Chicago. The “high-speed” trains would average 45 miles per hour and take five hours to reach Chicago from Iowa City. … [T]here is already luxury bus service, with plugs for laptops and wireless Internet, from Iowa City to Chicago. It’s part of a larger trend for private companies to offer convenient and inexpensive bus service. A one-way ticket on the bus costs $18, compared to a likely train fare of more than $50. And the bus takes only three hours and 50 minutes to get from Iowa City to Chicago. That’s one hour and 10 minutes faster than the “high-speed” train.
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1) Getting Permits to do the work. There is no way to get the required environmnental permits to build anything --- let along a major project without years of paper work. There are federal reviews, state reviews, local reviews. There are fish issues, wetlands reviews, Indian artifact reviews, endangered specieis reviews and consultations, even a single person opposed, and still more reviews. Any opponent with a lawyer and it disappears into federal court for a few years, etc.
Unless you are prepared to steam roller about a 100 agencies that need to sign off on any given
project (most of whom will not sign off until other agencies do first, your 4 years will be up before
a single project, except a few that were already going to happen gets started.
There are so many reasons for blocking and delaying projects under existing law, that getting to yes cannot be accomplished in 4 years.
2) The second problem is with the people and OSHA and the labor unions. If you are going to limit the work to qualified people----for the most part it will be limited to existing construction union locals.-----and will never reach those underclass who are suffering the worst.
Helping 4 million people for 4 years would cut unemployment to 5-6% itself, increase revenues to the government, reduce the deficit, build highly valuable foundations for a revived economy, increase the spending power of a large group of people, and basically reignite the economy.
Lastly, about 50% of all stock market trades are done by computers with a goal to earn 0.1% spread. If you put a FAT tax of 0.5% in place you will decrease the number of trades by half and therefore decrease the tax receipts by half.
So your concept is to bring in $120 billion and spend $400 billion to hire 4 million people (at $28k per year) to compete with 1 million people (who currently earn about $45k base per year). On top of that you will have to propose rules that contradict GATT by restricting purchases of raw materials to US produced to get the side benefits you are looking for.
Better to destroy the environment and build some dams to generate electricity. Oops, we did that already and now don't have any more spawning runs on the major rivers on the west coast.
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2. Remove uncertainty about employee costs by repealing Obamacare
3. Remove uncertainty about employer tax liabilities in the future
Use common sense...grow the economy. It's that simple.
2. Name a single employer who has not hired a worker due to potential tax changes.
Every single one. Ask any of them. It's like saying, "Name a single retailer who has sold more by putting their merchandise on sale."
By the way, there was never a single month under the Bush Administration that had unemployment as high as ANY month during the Obama Administration. I'm just sayin'...
Every single business owner I've talked with isn't sitting on job creation waiting for less regulation, or because of the health-care bill enacting in the future, or because of taxes. They are not hiring simply because their product or their service is not selling. They have no customers, no clients.
Why? Because people with jobs are struggling to save what they can in case they lose their jobs and consequentially not spending on goods and services, and people without jobs simply can't afford to spend.
Common sense is to fix our infrastructure problems and our unemployment problems by putting people to work repairing, replacing, and revamping our crumbling, falling behind infrastructure.
In the real world it is government regulations - including Obamacare holding the private sector and small business back.
- EPA regulations are preventing good pay jobs in the energy exploration and production industries
- Boeing is prevented from opening a plant in SC which would create thousands of jobs because the democrat party's masters - the unions - won't let them
- The insurance industry and health care industry have shed thousands of jobs because of the uncertainty created by Obamacare.
These are facts son. So you will find them difficult to absorb. But they are facts nonetheless.
That is a flawed assumption.
There has been no evidence in the last dozen years that Democrats have the political courage to make any bold moves to help the average American middle-class individual or family.
And, certainly none from Obama.
Tea-Publicans will, of course, resist any attempts to change a situation that might disturb the current corporatist kleoptocracy for their plutocrat masters.
One must conclude, therefore, that without support from Obama and Democrats, your plan cannot succeed.
Hope is not a strategy.
Hoping that Obama will actually have adequate political courage to do something, anything, on behalf of the average American and in contravention to his big bank masters is not a good expenditure of time.
To change things Obama and the Democrats would actually have to do something of substance other than pass an empty, watered-down bill.
First, in this particular proposal, we are taking idle money and putting it to good use--you know, those roads and bridges that just appear like magic, or, if governments build them, must eat your car. Second, even if this were not idle money, last time I looked the Grand Coulee dam in my state supplied a large fraction of our electric power and irrigated thousands of acres of farms. That was built by the New Deal--with government money.
It is far more accurate to look upon government expenditures as money businesses do not have to spend themselves, but are supplied by the people to improve efficiency and commerce for everyone. If a business had to build its own road so it could get trucks to deliver good or parts or whatever it needed, there wouldn't be many businesses.
Another significant multiplier effect is synchronizing red lights. The traffic controlling system uses detection loops, and most people position their cars off the loop and throw the traffic control systems off, resulting in chaos. Updating traffic control systems to use the processing power found in the average smart phone and the hardware used to detect traffic will mean a savings of time, gasoline, and resources. Savings in a driver's pocket will be spent elsewhere, and extra time may lead to greater productivity, or to better family life, which will be less socially expensive, so that expenditure here is offset by increased savings in prison confinement, law enforcement expenses, education expenses, etc.
There are many other projects that have a multiplier effect; theoretically by investing in the projects that save or make more money than we cost, at some point we would all pay lower taxes in the long run (kind of like putting an LED bulb in your house, at some point you save more than your original investment, and after then you realize a savings).
I can already hear it now "this bill, which would create jobs, would be a job killer."
Unfortuantely nothing of the sort will be happening.
Why? well you niled it when you said:
"A bold proposal needs bold actions and bold messaging to support it."
Obama does not do bold. He's basically too timid and compliant to do anything of the sort. He still thinks the onlanswer is bipartisan cooperation with the enemies of the American people.
When he does bold things, he seems to be successful.
Hopefully, he will remember that--on what is the most critical domestic
Getting rid of the idiotic missile defense plan was simply common sense (which I grant you is often lacking). But NO ONE WANTED IT. It was only bold (but misguided) for Bolton and co. to demand this chimera. Crossing it off the list of undesirable projects is commendable, but not bold.
I would love to see him transform into a bold, yet judicious leader. Unfortunately he "leads from behind"- by design, apparently.
Obama could have acted boldly back in september or October of 2010 and then the midterm election would have helped him instead of hurting him.
Legalaize marijuana to:
empty prisons, promote growing cash crops------>harvesting, processing, packaging, distribution and
hefty tax base;
Tax ALL CHURCHES---- Religion has become a political statement, so should give up tax-exemptions;
Make SupremeCorporationJustices wear corporate logos on their robes....... Or else they get voted off the island......
If you don't fit the profile that the "Human Resources" executives are looking for, you don't get the job. Without that job, and the social identity that comes with it, you do not get to participate in our economy and will forever be operating on the margins.
We have to get the corporations to realize that this is our economy too:
http://www.flixya.com/blog/3201910/Beautiful-Butterflys
The corporations will not listen to us, they have no cause to. We can boycott as much as we want, they have plenty of other customers, here and abroad. We NEED to change to law and we need to remember that voting for the President is ALSO voting for who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. We've seen what the Republicans under Bush did to that court.
I voted for Obama not because I believed in Hope and Change (all politicians lie on the campaign trail), but because he wasn't the most direct continuation of BushCo, he didn't vilify our system with Palin, but mostly because we have some old Supreme Court Justices and I certainly didn't want Sarah Palin having ANY say in who to appoint to fill their shoes.
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