Rich Trumka is right.
The AFL-CIO president is calling for massive infrastructure investment. After decades of neglect, our infrastructure is crumbling as maintenance and replacement schedules get pushed back. Much of our aging infrastructure is beyond its useful life or at full capacity. We need to invest in repairing and renewing our crumbling infrastructure before disaster strikes.
There is a simple way to pay for needed investments which doesn't require taxing or borrowing. Congress has the power under Article 1, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to originate money, and Congress can use this power to pay for upgrading our infrastructure. We can provide direct investments and grants to the States to deal with their infrastructure needs
I've introduced a bill, H.R. 2990, The National Emergency Employment Defense Act (The N.E.E.D. Act), to allow our nation to fund this much-needed investment.
H.R. 2990 enables money to be issued by spending it into circulation on programs approved by Congress -- without taxing or borrowing. A priority is the repair or replacement of infrastructure, starting with the $2.2 trillion the American Society of Civil Engineers reports we need to spend over the next 5 years to make it safe. It also calls for grants to the States, to enable them to make investments in their own infrastructure renewal programs.
This investment in infrastructure is long overdue. This investment alone would create millions of well paying jobs across America. We simply can't afford not to do this. We need to act.
Learn more about the N.E.E.D. Act here.
Follow Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RepKucinich
BUT NOT HERE-
This is exactly the absolute wrong economic solution.
The predictable result would be massive inflation, much higher interest rates,GIANT rise in Interest-Payments-on-the-Debt (currently close to $1/2-TRILLION/year)
BTW- this is almost exactly what RonPaul-inspired drugstore-economists are already WRONGLY ACCUSING THE FEDERAL RESERVE OF DOING.
WHAT WE NEED IS
1) INTELLIGENT, FRUGAL, EFFICIENT STIMULUS
2) A SERIOUS PLAN TO COMPLETELY PAY OFF ALL OUR NATIONAL DEBT, WITHIN A SPECIFIED TIME FRAME, AND AN ON-GOING PLAN TO FORCE US TO STAY ON THIS PLAN.
Without such a plan, and serious means to keep it going, further borrowing will eventually cause GREAT HARM to our economy.
WE CAN'T JUST STIMULATE ON DOWNTURNS, we have to pay back debt during recoveries.
3) Collect Much More Tax Revenue from Deadbeat Corporations, WE MUST MAKE IT MUCH MORE COSTLY FOR THEM TO OPERATE FROM TAX-HAVENS, than to operate here in the US.
IF THIS IS A PROBLEM FOR THEM, then they can stop selling their goods and services here, and we can let other RESPONSIBLE business take their place
4) We need to start setting Taxes, Tariffs, and Duties to reflect what our trading partners do to us !
CURRENTLY, China taxes our exports @25%, and we tax theirs at 2%
( REALITY-CHECK= this will help US Business and Jobs, but will cause Walmart prices to increase somewhere around 5-15%)
Also, none of your claims are factual.
This same mechanism was proposed by Chicago School economists in the 1930's and under the 1939 Program for Monetary Reform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Program_for_Monetary_Reform
This 1939 Program had the public backing of over 400 economists at the time.
If you understood how the program would work you could never make those claims.
There is no debt-issuance, so no impact on either interest rates or interest payments.
Money paid on infrastructure cannot, by anyone's reasonable definition cause inflation.
Every dollar is spent on a NEEDed good and service.
And this has zero connection with what the private Federal Reserve is doing today.
The Kucinich Bill would end the Federal Reserve as we know it.
And, it does include a plan and mechanism for paying off the national public debt.
For the Money System Common.
You go, Dennis.
Officially, there are over 12 million unemployed….but probably much closer to 20 million.
There is a bill in congress (The National Emergency Employment Defense Act HR2990) which incorporates the Federal Reserve into the Treasury. Only then can we stop borrowing and then replace our current borrowed debt money supply with debt free US money AND most importantly CONNECT AMERICAN WORKERS with the WORK!
Once the Fed is brought into the Treasury, the Government (Of, By and For the People) will appropriate and then create $2.2 Trillion dollars (over 5 years) specifically for infrastructure repair and replacement. Then the workers, our citizens (who elect and authorize the government) trade their labor for wages as they create these assets of high value to society (the $2.2 Trillion in infrastructure repairs we need now). This is NOT inflationary because this money is EARNED into our economy as wages are exchanged for that labor and assets of value to society are created.
We have lost track of the true wealth creation power of labor and this is a simple and powerful solution which is based on the fact that LABOR is the cornerstone of wealth creation. Big banks and large corporations DO NOT create wealth. They ONLY concentrate it. Labor alone creates wealth.