Wednesday, July 4, 2012

America needs jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Want to fix the deficit? How about our national health care fiasco? What about persistently high unemployment? High crime rates in our inner-cities? Can anything be done about our poor performing public schools? What about student loan debt after graduation?

The answer to all of these problems is the same: jobs, jobs and more jobs.

I am sick and tired and also fed up financially with the bogus right-wing talking point that government spending does not produce jobs. That is silly. Government spending produces many jobs.

Here is one small example. Take Rosie the Riveter. Government Spending created her private sector job as manufacturing technician. So, Rosie has a job.
From the Rosie's Rivets to Rockwell's canvas: jobs are good for everybody.

Rosie's job also supports other jobs: it enables her to buy essential items like food, rent and utilities. That's money for the grocer, the banker, the electric company, and the gas company. And those companies have employees, who, thanks to Rosie and the government, have jobs.

That same government that produced Rosie job has helped produced other jobs: the engineering crew to design and test the airplane that she helps build, the managers who supervise her, and the janitors who wash the floor every day. Thanks to to the government, all of these people have jobs.

And then there's the king of American illustration, Norman Rockwell. Thanks to the government, he's got a job. Well, in his world, it's more like a gig. But it's a paying gig. None of this work for free "exposure" nonsense.

Right now, America needs jobs. Millions of them. These jobs are not luxuries. This country has work that absolutely needs to be done.

Many of our schools suffer from overcrowding. Studies show that classroom effectiveness declines precipitously if there are more than 23 students per classroom. So, make it a federal law. From this day forward, no primary or secondary school shall have a student-to-faculty ratio greater than 23 to 1. If a school district can't afford the extra staff, the federal government will pick up the tab. Bam. 250,000 teachers. Hired. A quarter million new jobs.

Moving on, I am fed up and disgusted when hear news reports about unemployed veterans. That is absolutely inexcusable. How many police officers does Detroit need? Or Chicago? What about Camden, New Jersey? Despite what Tom Brokaw says, our returning Veterans are more than skilled for the modern work force. What employer wouldn't want somebody who had the skills to do the job assigned to them from day one? Lock and load another 100,000 or so jobs. Again, if local districts can't absorb the extra cost, the federal shall pick up the tab.

Some people who are reading this might be thinking, wait a minute, Kevin, how is the Federal government going to pay for all this? To that I say, I understand your skepticism. Certain Federal spending projects have failed to create wealth and instead, made money simply disappear. We can help our country return to fiscal sustainability by reversing the damage caused by such boondoggles.

One such financial government calamity was the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Undertaken in 1953, the project required untold billions of dollars and a full two decades to complete a mere six and half miles of highway.  This highway removed business and apartments. As a result, a six and half mile stretch of revenue producing commerce and residential areas became a persistent revenue money hole. And no, it does not enable motorists to get across the Bronx any faster than local roads.
Never a good way to get around. But we do have a better option.

But should we give up? Should we surrender and begrudgingly accept the aforementioned problems? Nay, we should double down. Our mass transit system lags behind that of every industrialized and industrializing country in the world. As a result of our congested freeways and inefficient mass transit, American businesses lose billions of dollars in lost productivity, while motorists collectively waste approximately two billion gallons of fuel every year sitting in rush-hour traffic. It is past time to pay any cost, bear any burden, and provide whatever critical updates to our national infrastructure by any means necessary. And if that means bitch-slapping the corpulent Chris Christie into accepting money for mass transit from New Jersey into Manhattan, so be it. (I doubt will come to that, but like I said, any means necessary).

This is work that absolutely, positively, needs to be done. This is the work that was poorly articulated, and often insufficiently funded during the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009. The scale was to small, the need poorly articulated, and nearly 1/3 of the funds were not "stimulus dollars" but tax cuts. And tax cuts, while sometimes beneficial, can cause financial hardships when directed towards the wrong group of people.

In order for the United States, and by extension, the global economy to recover, the United States most adopt a progressive tax code. Income inequality causes financial hardship, as lower and middle-income earners are unable to have the necessary funds to participate in the economy, economic growth evaporates. When a small group of people have far too much purchasing power, and the majority; too little, the consumer price index is thrown of kilter. Housing prices in Manhattan illustrate this trend perfectly: The average rent on that island is over $3,400 a month. Who can afford that? No one earning less than $100,000 a year, that's for sure.

So things need to change. Now. Not only do the Bush tax cuts need to expire, but America must adapt a similar tax rate to what we achieved in the Johnson administration. He may have made a terrible mistake paying for a war that never should have been started, but under Johnson's leadership, this country enjoyed sustainable, bubble-free economic growth and a balanced budget.

President Obama is going to win, if for now other reason than the fact that Mitt Romney is a loser. That much is clear. What is sad is that Obama will set a dangerous precedent. If an incumbent can win re-election with 8 percent unemployment, what motivation does any sitting politician have to do anything about our unemployment crisis?

Economic forecasters are predicting, as they have been since 2009, that unemployment will remain persistently high for the next four years, and unless this country enacts major policy change, the naysayers will be correct. The best of course action? Take 'em out to dinner and win them over. That seems to work for Goldman Sachs.

Here's to hoping that Barack Obama feels emboldened with his recent Supreme Court victory and doubles down against his anti-jobs opposition. Based on the lukewarm support this blog as been getting for its chosen candidate, Obama may after all be a stronger candidate than George McGovern.