Put 15 Million Back to Work by November 2012

[georgephillip]

FDR tried this during the depression and golly gee, it didn't work.

History speaks volumes if people take the time to go back and look it up.

Golly gee...the WPA worked really well for my grandpa and his family.
You got any credible links for your version of "History"?

"Liquidated on June 30, 1943 as a result of low unemployment due to the economic boom of World War Two, the WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for 8 years.[6]

"Most people who needed a job were eligible for at least some of its positions.[7] Hourly wages were typically set to the prevailing wages in each area.[8] However workers could not be paid more than 30 hours a week..."

Works Progress Administration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Avatar4321]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

 

[daveman]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

 

[Avatar4321]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

Perhaps. I have hope for everyone.

But thankfully, he isn't the only one reading

 

[boedicca]

WPA-II that's how.

Split the entire work force into two divisions, deployed military and able-bodied civilians all overseen by Army Corps of Engineers or Navy Seabees.

"Projects: Roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, ports, waterways, water-sewage and drainage systems, levees, flood control, rail beds, rural electrification systems, fisheries, hospitals, schools, libraries, national/state/local parks and recreation systems, adult literacy programs etcetera.

"New projects would involve finishing repairs from Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

"Others systems would include light- and high-speed rail, solar/wind/water-based energy, erosion control, environmental protection, energy conservation, earthquake-proofing house foundations for the poor and disabled and dismantling/cleaning up decommissioned nuclear energy plants...

"Funding: With the winding down of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a portion of Congressional appropriations to both the DoD and the State Department would be shifted to underwrite WPA-II expenses that previously were dedicated to foreign infrastructure and economic aid.

"This would include salaries of all DoD participants, including payroll for deployed military.

"The State Department would shift funds from most of its foreign-aid programs and much of the $3 billion presently earmarked for the Baghdad Embassy security forces.

"In addition, USAID would turn over its Congressional appropriations to the WPA-II and rely in future upon financial support from US businesses and industry and/or the US Chamber of Commerce to continue its global activities..."

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

Thank you, Uncle Josef.

Indeed.

This is as Shovel Ready as the last Stimulus.

 

[daveman]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

Perhaps. I have hope for everyone.

But thankfully, he isn't the only one reading

I'm a pretty optimistic guy, but I think you've got me beat.

 

[georgephillip]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

How's the job hunting going?

Maybe WPA-II can help?

 

[georgephillip]

Wouldn't it just be easier to swing WW3 into wide open mode and reinstate the draft ?

Only if the richest 1% of humanity are the first fatalities.

But you leftists always want to kill off the Bourgeoisie - the middle 50% - not the top 1%. So when are you going to march Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Steve Jobs, Algore and Michael Moore off to their deaths? They are all in the top 1% after all?

Expand it to the top 2% and you can add your beloved Messiah® - Barack Obama into the mix.

While you fascists never fail to miss the poetic license.

If it was up to me every elected Republican AND Democrat in DC would be FLUSHED from government and into prison. Along with most of those you mention, I would add the draft-dodging shit birds Dubya and Dick Cheney to the mix.

Killing is too easy.
Take all their money, and start filling US prisons with the richest 1% of Americans.
Hope AND Change.

 

[georgephillip]

WPA-II that's how.

Split the entire work force into two divisions, deployed military and able-bodied civilians all overseen by Army Corps of Engineers or Navy Seabees.

"Projects: Roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, ports, waterways, water-sewage and drainage systems, levees, flood control, rail beds, rural electrification systems, fisheries, hospitals, schools, libraries, national/state/local parks and recreation systems, adult literacy programs etcetera.

"New projects would involve finishing repairs from Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

"Others systems would include light- and high-speed rail, solar/wind/water-based energy, erosion control, environmental protection, energy conservation, earthquake-proofing house foundations for the poor and disabled and dismantling/cleaning up decommissioned nuclear energy plants...

"Funding: With the winding down of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a portion of Congressional appropriations to both the DoD and the State Department would be shifted to underwrite WPA-II expenses that previously were dedicated to foreign infrastructure and economic aid.

"This would include salaries of all DoD participants, including payroll for deployed military.

"The State Department would shift funds from most of its foreign-aid programs and much of the $3 billion presently earmarked for the Baghdad Embassy security forces.

"In addition, USAID would turn over its Congressional appropriations to the WPA-II and rely in future upon financial support from US businesses and industry and/or the US Chamber of Commerce to continue its global activities..."

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

BARBARA G. ELLIS PH.D.
Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., is a long-time journalist (LIFE magazine, Washington DC Evening Star, Beirut Daily Star). She was a technical-journalism professor (Oregon State University/Louisiana's McNeese State University). She's written several books and was a nominee for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history ("The Moving Appeal") and principal of a Portland, Oregon, writing/PR firm.​

Ahhh. No expertise in economics. Just another leftist journalist.

Dismissed.

Care to refute any of her assertions?

"Then, there's the mother lode of foreign-aid outlays delivered almost unquestioningly to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"By April, the wars/occupations alone had cost taxpayers over $806 billion and $444 billion, respectively, according to the Congressional Service Report.

"Unaccounted billions of that $1.3 trillion have been spent, allegedly, to win the hearts and minds of the locals for repair and replacement of infrastructure destroyed by American air and ground power.

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

Give us your "thoughts" on using taxpayer dollars to bomb infrastructure to rubble, and then turning to the same taxpayers for the money to "rebuild" said infrastructure, all the while winning hearts and minds of human beings we are murdering for money and market share.

 

[georgephillip]

Yes, because the last 780-some billion Obama spent to 'create jobs' worked out soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo well, right?

"Why not a WPA-II? We do have that civilian army of 15,000,000 unemployed, which could tackle the $2.2 trillion dollars of vital work needed by 2014 on our ramshackle infrastructure system...

"The latest report from the nation's premier engineering experts, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), estimated that such Congressional disinterest has caused damaging consequences so extensive that $2.2 trillion will be required by 2014 just to meet current demands.

"That estimate was prior to the June tornado that tore up an estimated $75 million worth of roads, bridges and public structures in Joplin, Missouri[9] and the rampaging Mississippi and Missouri rivers wracking up $4 billion to $9 billion in repair work.[10]

"Communities affected by Katrina and the BP oil catastrophes still await billions for infrastructure work - and this year's hurricane season has just started."

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

Pay me now.
Or pay me (more) later.

Think this might be a good time to hike taxes on rich individuals and corporations?

I don't want infrastructure built, maintained, and repaired by inexperienced and untrained people.

Why do you have such a low opinion of American labor?

Millions of skilled and semi-skilled workers have seen their jobs outsourced over the last few decades.
Many can and will be retrained for 21st Century labor.
But not if we wait for the private sector to lead the way.

Here's a partial list of what the original WPA accomplished in SEVEN years:

" 3,300 storage dams, as well as Montana's Fort Peck dam

651,000 miles of roads and streets paved and repaired

78,000 bridges

9,000 miles of new storm drains and sewer lines

800 airports and 280 miles of runway

20,000 miles of water mains

Upgraded flood-control systems throughout the United States, including part of the Tennessee Valley Authority

Dozens of levees in Louisiana and New Jersey

Hundreds of upgraded port facilities

Dozens of upgraded waterways

Water conservation taught to thousands

Renovation of US Navy's Algiers station in Louisiana

325 new firehouses and 2,384 existing firehouses renovated

8,000 new parks, hundreds of others repaired

Hundreds of rural electrification systems

Hundreds of sanitation programs

4,383 new schools, repairs and additions to 30,000 others

130 new hospitals, repaired and upgraded 1,670 others

5,800 mobile libraries, staffed hundreds of libraries

24 million trees planted

2,500 sports stadiums built or upgraded

3,000 tennis courts

103 golf courses

30,000 women trained for domestic work

Large quantities of clothes and bedding produced

Literacy classes for one million civilians and 90,000 Army draftees

1920 US Census indexed

Hundreds of grave-registration systems

Malaria control

Dozens of fungus pests eradicated

Marl fertilizer introduced and produced

Thousands of children's summer recreation programs [12]"

Do you honestly believe today's workers could not match and surpass those accomplishments?

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

 

[editec]

A WPA type response would be welcomed.

Sadly, we have pissed away so much revenue on stupid wars and tax breaks for billionaires that even that response seems impossible now.

 

[Oddball]

How about we make individuals responsible for finding or creating their own employment and let the government simply not over tax the worker nor overspend their money and get out of the way?

We need to stop outsourcing our responsibilities to the government. The longer we do this, the longer it will take to fix our nation.

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

How's the job hunting going?

Maybe WPA-II can help?

Maybe throwing some more vestal virgins in the volcano would help!

 

[georgephillip]

A WPA type response would be welcomed.

Sadly, we have pissed away so much revenue on stupid wars and tax breaks for billionaires that even that response seems impossible now.

While it's never too late to tax billionaires into extinction, Barbara G. Ellis lists a number of other federal sources to fund WPA-II:

"For years, billions have been lavished on foreign economic aid - principally infrastructure - especially in this last decade. From 2001 to 2009, taxpayer monies have been spent on economic aid to 161 countries, including Uganda (over $2 billion); Somalia (over $7.3 million); and, incredibly, Russia (nearly $6.7 billion).

"Media coverage showcasing foreign road-and bridge-building projects and state-of-the-art schools and clinics has begun to outrage American audiences stuck with broken-down counterparts in their own backyards.

"Another federal big spender in those countries has been the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whose chief function has always been to open foreign doors for American business - a mission that should, seemingly, be the job of those businesses or of the US Chamber of Commerce."

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

Ellen Brown has also published on how state banks could be used to finance state infrastructure repairs. Obviously Wall Street is the big loser in this scenario which probably explains why elected Republicans AND Democrats will send their own children to Afghanistan before supporting WPA-II.

 

[Meister]

Reading what these liberals are saying....I can see why we are 14 trillion in debt....and that doesn't seem to be enough for them.

 

[georgephillip]

You may as well be speaking Klingon for all George understands this concept.

How's the job hunting going?

Maybe WPA-II can help?

Maybe throwing some more vestal virgins in the volcano would help!

Tossing all the billionaires into that volcano would help even more.

"In Sunday’s New York Times, Tom Friedman wrote that 'there is a deep sense of theft' in both Greece and Egypt that their nation’s capitalism was rigged to benefit only a connected few.

"In America, we don’t do things that way.

"Here, we just look the other way as the power of workers to claim their share of the proceeds declines. It’s not, strictly speaking, theft.

"But it has brought our economy down just the same."

Corporate America’s chokehold on wages - The Washington Post

 

[Full-Auto]

Reading what these liberals are saying....I can see why we are 14 trillion in debt....and that doesn't seem to be enough for them.

We already spend a ton on infrastructure.

Ease off on regulation. Make the tax code competitive with other nations. Then the federal coffers will begin to fill. Few seem to understand that deregulation sparked the tech boom.

 

[georgephillip]

Reading what these liberals are saying....I can see why we are 14 trillion in debt....and that doesn't seem to be enough for them.

"For years, billions have been lavished on foreign economic aid - principally infrastructure - especially in this last decade. From 2001 to 2009, taxpayer monies have been spent on economic aid to 161 countries, including Uganda (over $2 billion); Somalia (over $7.3 million); and, incredibly, Russia (nearly $6.7 billion)."

According to political commentators ranging from Pat Buchanan to Dean Baker, during that same decade that saw US taxpayers lavish those billion$ on foreign infrastructure the US lost more domestic jobs in a single decade than any other state in history except the USSR.

Do you think that is a coincidence?

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

 

[Mr Natural]

Reading what these liberals are saying....I can see why we are 14 trillion in debt....and that doesn't seem to be enough for them.

We already spend a ton on infrastructure.

Ease off on regulation. Make the tax code competitive with other nations. Then the federal coffers will begin to fill. Few seem to understand that deregulation sparked the tech boom.

Actually, the internet (a government invention) sparked the tech boom.

 

[Full-Auto]

Reading what these liberals are saying....I can see why we are 14 trillion in debt....and that doesn't seem to be enough for them.

We already spend a ton on infrastructure.

Ease off on regulation. Make the tax code competitive with other nations. Then the federal coffers will begin to fill. Few seem to understand that deregulation sparked the tech boom.

Actually, the internet (a government invention) sparked the tech boom.

Think wireless

 

[georgephillip]

WPA-II that's how.

Split the entire work force into two divisions, deployed military and able-bodied civilians all overseen by Army Corps of Engineers or Navy Seabees.

"Projects: Roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, ports, waterways, water-sewage and drainage systems, levees, flood control, rail beds, rural electrification systems, fisheries, hospitals, schools, libraries, national/state/local parks and recreation systems, adult literacy programs etcetera.

"New projects would involve finishing repairs from Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

"Others systems would include light- and high-speed rail, solar/wind/water-based energy, erosion control, environmental protection, energy conservation, earthquake-proofing house foundations for the poor and disabled and dismantling/cleaning up decommissioned nuclear energy plants...

"Funding: With the winding down of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a portion of Congressional appropriations to both the DoD and the State Department would be shifted to underwrite WPA-II expenses that previously were dedicated to foreign infrastructure and economic aid.

"This would include salaries of all DoD participants, including payroll for deployed military.

"The State Department would shift funds from most of its foreign-aid programs and much of the $3 billion presently earmarked for the Baghdad Embassy security forces.

"In addition, USAID would turn over its Congressional appropriations to the WPA-II and rely in future upon financial support from US businesses and industry and/or the US Chamber of Commerce to continue its global activities..."

Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administration | Truthout

You neo-socialist fools. Don't you understand that government jobs do not grow the economy? Government does not earn a dime. It confiscates money from the private sector. A massive tax hike to pay for "shovel ready jobs" that Obama snickered about does not generate wealth. One simple way to generate jobs and kick-start the economy is to open a small portion of ANWAR for oil drilling.

While Tea Party Trolls don't understand that without government there are no dimes.

Government supplied wages and salaries are spent in US businesses in exactly the same way private sector pay is spent.

Putting millions of unemployed Americans back to work in a matter of months at prevailing local pay scales would SURGE billion$ through the US economy in less time than it took Dubya to back away from Ken Lay.

If you see the connection between income and wealth, putting millions of people back to work will generate far more wealth than letting them rot in the underground economy.

Finally, if you think increasing our reliance on fossil fuels for jobs and energy will "kick-start" the 21st Century US economy, you're starting from a flawed (fascist) premise.