Question for the forum: Can the government "create jobs"?

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Our economic plight is dire.

Deficits are huge. Inflation is an imminent possibility.

Nobody seems to want to assume responsibility. Some want higher taxes - on others. Some want lower taxes and less regulation of industry.

These approaches have been tried, in varying degree, with little lasting result that I can see.

Both major parties have had control of Congress recently, and yet unemployment remains problematic.

Each side tends to blame the other, fairly or unfairly.

I have to ask if government can (or should) "create jobs"?

What's the answer?

Since it appears that many of you are politically polarized, can you present any factual information supporting your opinion?
 
Rtber said:
Our economic plight is dire.

Deficits are huge. Inflation is an imminent possibility.

Nobody seems to want to assume responsibility. Some want higher taxes - on others. Some want lower taxes and less regulation of industry.

These approaches have been tried, in varying degree, with little lasting result that I can see.

Both major parties have had control of Congress recently, and yet unemployment remains problematic.

Each side tends to blame the other, fairly or unfairly.

I have to ask if government can (or should) "create jobs"?

What's the answer?

Since it appears that many of you are politically polarized, can you present any factual information supporting your opinion?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Government create jobs in the public sector, which are not outsourced, and very few private sectors jobs are created without government activity, either through patent protection, investment in R&R or regulation to create a level playing field. Here is a FACT that must not be forgotten; the entity and vehicle our founding fathers created to protect the lives and well being of We, the People and to address our needs and problems is a GOVERNMENT...OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people.

The problem today is we needed an FDR, and we got Herbert Hoover instead...

During the Great Depression, government took the a necessary step of creating temporary jobs programs via the Works Progress Administration (WPA) or Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and other popular New Deal workfare programs

Let us reflect, for a moment, on what the men and women employed by those programs achieved (aside from earning cash to buy food and pay for shelter, of course). In his paper, "Time for a New, New Deal," Marshall Auerback (pointed to by economist James Galbraith) summarizes:

The government hired about 60 per cent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York's Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown.

It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country's entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

In other words, millions of men and women earned a living wage and self-respect and contributed mightily to the national infrastructure. ref.
 
Thank you.

Do you think that our government can continue to fund "stimulus" programs, given the current deficits?
 
Bfgrn,

I would much rather see what you described (creating FDR-style workfare programs) than what we currently have, which are unconditional unemployment benefits. Just think of everything that could have been accomplished over the last couple years. The 1 trillion dollar stimulus could have employed 7.5 million workers for three years at $45,000 -- a modest salary, but I doubt any hard-working individual who is out of a job would turn it down.
 
Voltaire said:
Bfgrn,

I would much rather see what you described (creating FDR-style workfare programs) than what we currently have, which are unconditional unemployment benefits. Just think of everything that could have been accomplished over the last couple years. The 1 trillion dollar stimulus could have employed 7.5 million workers for three years at $45,000 -- a modest salary, but I doubt any hard-working individual who is out of a job would turn it down.
Click to expand...

I agree. Besides the benefit to this nation, the individual gains more self-respect and the very real possibility of learning skills to launch a new career or business.
 
Thanks for your suggestions.

Can the US Treasury afford to fund such an initiative, if it were to be proposed?
 
Rtber said:
Thank you.

Do you think that our government can continue to fund "stimulus" programs, given the current deficits?
Click to expand...

From what we're seeing at the state levels, the stimulus was too short and small. The Wall Street economy may have rebounded, but the main street economy hasn't. We constantly hear from the right that raising anyone's taxes during a deep recession is a huge mistake. But what we never hear from the right is cutting safety net programs would be lethal. I don't believe cutting programs that help the most vulnerable in our society, or helping people survive who out of work because of nothing they did and they can't find a job because there is only one job available for every five looking for work, is ethical or what this nation should stand for. If the well being of the American people is not most important, what kind of patriotism excludes them?
 
Supposing that the funding to support a modern WPA-type program could be found, there is another issue.

Does the federal government have the constitutional authority to guarantee an income at public expense to citizens who are unemployed?
 
Rtber said:
Thanks for your suggestions.

Can the US Treasury afford to fund such an initiative, if it were to be proposed?
Click to expand...

Yes. The other thing the right won't tell you is that the public held debt in relation to GDP, it is only a bit over half of what it was in 1946. When Republicans created massive deficits, it was not an issue...SUDDENLY it is.

During the Great Depression conservatives raised objections to F.D.R.’s programs and issued dire warnings of our imminent demise. They said the economy must be left alone and it would correct itself in the long run. Commerce Secretary Harry Hopkins shot back: “People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day.”

"Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy"
Edmund Burke
 
It seems that an effort was made to spend our way out of recession, yet has not been successful to date.

Do you think that a renewed stimulus initiative is likely to reach the floor in Congress today, given the current economic realities and political discord?

Are such devices even in the scope of the government's constitutional responsibilities?

I suppose I really have three questions, in the end:

1. Should the government guarantee economic prosperity, and if so,
2. Can the government accomplish it, and if so,
3. How?
 
I agree, they are very well presented.

I am still perplexed, however.
 
Rtber said:
It seems that an effort was made to spend our way out of recession, yet has not been successful to date.

Do you think that a renewed stimulus initiative is likely to reach the floor in Congress today, given the current economic realities and political discord?

Are such devices even in the scope of the government's constitutional responsibilities?

I suppose I really have three questions, in the end:

1. Should the government guarantee economic prosperity, and if so,
2. Can the government accomplish it, and if so,
3. How?
Click to expand...

There are 3 sources of spending in a nation: business, the people and government. When the first 2 fail to inject capital into the economy, it leaves us 2 options. One will cost us money, and doing nothing will cost us Americans and possibly America. President Obama did not run for the office on a government stimulus. It was a necessary move that was supported by economists from the left and the right. It worked, but not well enough because it was too short and too small. BTW, one way to reduce the debt to GDP ratio is to increase the GDP.
 
Is it the government's role to control the economy?

Can the government control the economy? If so, it seems to be a poor result.
 
Bfgrn said:
Absolutely. Government create jobs in the public sector, which are not outsourced, and very few private sectors jobs are created without government activity, either through patent protection, investment in R&R or regulation to create a level playing field. Here is a FACT that must not be forgotten; the entity and vehicle our founding fathers created to protect the lives and well being of We, the People and to address our needs and problems is a GOVERNMENT...OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people.
Click to expand...
How retarded. The Founders did not want the government to "invest" in R&D. If they did where is it written in Article I Section 8? And your bloated bureaucracy only serves to make "the playing field" full of bumps, holes, steeps and drops.

Government jobs beyond what the Founder's envision can only suck the life out of the economy. Only the private sector creates wealth.
 
Rtber said:
Is it the government's role to control the economy?

Can the government control the economy? If so, it seems to be a poor result.
Click to expand...

Here is an interesting discussion...

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/535551/More-Stimulus-or-Austerity%3F-Stiglitz,-Sachs,-Orzag-and-Rajan-Weigh-In

Keep a few things in mind. A "free market" doesn't exist. There is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The WTO [World Trade Organization] has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations are carried out. Every market has rules. For example, corporations have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder profit. That's a construction of the market. ref.

The other thing is what I call the right wing mantra of ignorance. The 'Constitutional' one. The only enemies of the Constitution are those who try to wield it as a weapon against the living, by using the words of the dead.

"I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect or imperfect, and think it a duty to leave their modifications to those who are to live under them and are to participate of the good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:29
 
Damn Yankee said:
How retarded. The Founders did not want the government to "invest" in R&D. If they did where is it written in Article I Section 8? And your bloated bureaucracy only serves to make "the playing field" full of bumps, holes, steeps and drops.

Government jobs beyond what the Founder's envision can only suck the life out of the economy. Only the private sector creates wealth.
Click to expand...

Really? How did the private sector send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth?
 
Bfgrn said:
Really? How did the private sector send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth?
Click to expand...

Where is NASA in Article I Section 8?

With regards to who built the vehicle that brought man to the moon and back:

Boeing built the Saturn V's first stage, North American the second stage, and McDonnell Douglas, the third.
Click to expand...
http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/saturn.html

And Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation built the lunar module.
 
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