Robert Reich: Only US Jobs Program is US Military & Obama Asked Congress to Hike Defense Spending

[amborin]

America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military.

Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time.
Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.)
If we didn’t have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent.

And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — because all three have high concentrations of military and federal jobs.

This isn’t an argument for more military spending. Just the opposite. Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed. It creates jobs we don’t need but we keep anyway because there’s no honest alternative. We don’t have an overt jobs program based on what’s really needed

snip

The President has asked Congress to hike total defense spending next year 2.2 percent, to $708 billion.
That’s 6.1 percent higher than peak defense spending during the Bush administration.

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http://robertreich.org/post/938938180/americas-biggest-jobs-program-the-u-s-military

[dkf]

1. We had better foster job creation because I don't see the current system

Left on its own doing much.

Obama has not show much thought in this area. Even his infrastrucure program is a flop.

[xchrom]

2. recommend