The obvious answer to this economic mess we're in.

[MadHound]

As months and years pass by and no hope in sight for an economic recovery, the answer is starting to become painfully obvious to a large number of people.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

Such Keynesian economic solutions have long been punted around as a political football, a ball that almost nobody in DC, right or left, wanted to touch. But as time passes, and the solutions that have been tried fail one after the other, people from all walks of life are starting to come to the same conclusion.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

Not just liberals, leftists and Democrats are coming to this conclusion. Not just renowned economists and pundits like Reich and Krugman are coming to this conclusion. But ordinary, everyday conservatives are coming to this conclusion as well.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

I regularly talk with my very conservative neighbors(in a deep red county, in a red state). For various reasons, like they need a job, they remember how such job creation brought us out of the Great Depression, a sense of frustration after having tried everything else, these people are now openly speaking of spending a massive sum on a true jobs creation program. An editorial in my local small town paper called for such a program. People are starting to wake up to the fact that this economy is not going to recover unless employment is addressed in a meaningful, effective manner. There is only one way such a problem can be addressed.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

Of course our leaders, and national pundits are either too obstinate or too timid to get behind such a thing. Bernie Sanders is one of literally a handful in DC who are pushing for such a program. The rest, including the Obama administration, are wanting to continue to fiddle around with half measures. Nobody wants to step up and lead in this manner. And until somebody does step up to lead this fight, our economic recovery is going to go nowhere.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

I know, I know, you don't have to say it, the question is how do we get such a program past the Congress. That's where you and I come in. Start talking to your neighbors, even the freeper neighbors, and start spreading the news.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

You will probably be pleasantly surprised to find that deep down in the pit of their heart, they are thinking the same thing. People are desperate out there, and desperation can bring about many strange and wondrous things. Desperate people are willing to try something, anything, that holds out the promise of hope and change. If both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats start putting major pressure on Washington, especially with an election coming up, they will listen. Unemployment and a bad economy cross all party lines, and so does desperation. Push this one item, hard, from both the right and left, and who knows, we might just get what we need to put us on the path to sustained economic recovery.

We need a true, WPA style jobs program on a massive scale.

If not, then we're looking, at best, at a lost decade, and at worst, a massive economic downturn that will change this country permanently for the worse.

[chill_wind]

1. K & R.

[The2ndWheel]

2. Economy vs. Environment

That choice was made a long time ago though.

[MadHound]

8. But it doesn't have to be an either/or choice,

You can resuscitate the economy while helping the environment. Green energy, cleaning up messes that we've already made, all of this can come to fruition with a jobs creation package.

[The2ndWheel]

13. We don't know for sure that it doesn't have to be an either/or choice

However, so far, as of October 4th, 2011, it ultimately has been. Our infrastructure is at least one of the worst things we've managed to do, in an environmental sense. Economically it was terrific.

[MadHound]

14. So do nothing then, is that what you're advocating?

Just let the economy go to hell because it is best, in your eyes, for the environment?

[The2ndWheel]

24. I'm just saying that up to this point so far it's been one or the other

I see no reason why that's going to change, as we still exist within physical reality. I'm not advocating anything, because I don't really think there is an answer to the question, or a solution to the problem. More and more people are increasingly on the same boat, and it can only go in one direction at a time. There aren't many choices to pick from. We can't stop, but we can't continue. It's an interesting situation to be in.

[mother earth]

3. Emergency action is needed. People are holding on by a string.

[hfojvt]

4. you make it sound massively expensive

when the truth is that we could hire 4 million people at $27,000 a year for less than the cost of the (2%) Social Security tax cuts.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/164

Those 4 million workers would pay taxes instead of collecting unemployment.

When those 4 million workers spent their paychecks, that would provide as much economic stimulus as the tax cuts would.

[MadHound]

9. Then let's double or triple that number

With 14 million people out of work, and millions more underemployed, the bigger the better.

[ProSense]

5. Seems

I regularly talk with my very conservative neighbors(in a deep red county, in a red state). For various reasons, like they need a job, they remember how such job creation brought us out of the Great Depression, a sense of frustration after having tried everything else, these people are now openly speaking of spending a massive sum on a true jobs creation program. An editorial in my local small town paper called for such a program. People are starting to wake up to the fact that this economy is not going to recover unless employment is addressed in a meaningful, effective manner. There is only one way such a problem can be addressed.

...the solution is to get these people to start talking to their elected representatives. Better yet, vote them out if they don't approve of progressive solution to jobs.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. "But I have a bad back."

"But I have a degree from PRINCETON!"

"I'm really not an outdoors kind of person."

"I'll sit on a COMMITTEE to rebuild that bridge, but I won't turn a shovel."

"Pfft. I'm going to go blog about this disgrace, this manual labor you want me to do."

"I'm not doing anything until something is done about ____________."



And so on.


Good luck getting people to work in this day and age.

[LiberalAndProud]

7. Serious?

[MadHound]

10. Your cynicism is over the top,

And simply shows how out of touch with the current reality you are. There are already those with a college degree, including from Princeton, who are working McJobs. There are plenty of people, like builders and other tradesfolk, who would be more than willing to do manual labor.

Argue your limitations, and sure enough, pretty soon they're yours.

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. No it isn't.

In the 30's, people were accustomed to sweating their asses off to earn. Now, not so much.

[MadHound]

17. Do you have anything to back this assertion up?

Or is this simply your own biased observation.

Remember, job productivity has been going up for decades now, which means that people are working harder and harder for the same amount of money. But darn those pesky facts, eh?

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. Productivity at ass-sitting jobs, sure.

Again, most people in the 30's expected to work with their hands and backs. Now, not so much.

[MadHound]

19. Ah, so real work is manual work,

Working with your head isn't real work, eh?

[Dreamer Tatum]

21. Tell me how a new WPA would need millions of 'thinkers,' please.

The WPA built stuff. Can you think me up a dam? An observatory?

DU is full to the brim of sarcastic posts about how stupid, fat, and lazy Americans are. I'm just applying that to the
concept of a new WPA.

[MadHound]

22. Ah, so you applying the words of DU, an acknowledged bubble world,

And extrapolating that to what is going on in the real world:banghead:

Also, I suggest that you check up on the history of the WPA. They didn't just "build stuff". Some of our greatest cultural and intellectual contributions came courtesy of the WPA.

[Dreamer Tatum]

23. I will expect you to come out in great force

the next time anyone criticizes Americans as fat, lazy, and stupid.

The day I see a former Director of Human Resources accustomed to driving thru Starbucks on the way to their air-conditioned office swinging a hammer or pushing a wheelbarrow in the hot sun, I will eat my shirt.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. do you REALLY think a WPA program would be men digging ditches?

Even if the program targets construction projects, you have everything from engineers to heavy equipment operators to secretaries to the guy who stands in the road with a 'caution' sign.

And WPA, in its original form, included such things as the CCC, the Federal Art Project, the Federal Writers' Project, and a number of other non-construction works. There was even a project that trained 30,000 women how to be household domestics.

And with people unemployed for 18+ months, I doubt you'd have much trouble getting them to accept a job that paid half their former salaries, if they could pay their bills with it.

The people who would turn something down are not the ones who NEED the work in the first place. If you've lost your home, lost your car, and run out of unemployment, you take what you can get.

Hunger is not fun.

[Rex]

12. Eat the rich!?

[B Calm]

15. I hate to say it, but the only thing we'll get is another Free Trade Deal

[madinmaryland]

20. Paul Krugman has been saying that for three years. Had we gotten a real stimulus

at the beginning of the Obama administration, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today. By a real stimulus, he meant $2-3 trillion.

Recommended.