Man, if only we had a bunch of jobless construction workers:
Shrinking budgets are forcing PennDOT to make a tough choice. Do they fix bad bridges or bumpy roads first? It’s a no win situation…New numbers from PennDOT show more bridges in our area are classified as “structurally deficient” in spite of a state bond approved in 2008 to fund bridge repair…
But the news is also bad for roads, 18 percent of all state highway miles in our area are classified as “poor condition.”
Of course there is an obvious opportunity for a win-win situation here. There’s high unemployment in the construction sector and interest rates on 10-year Treasury bills have never been lower. The problem here is the lack of money, which is absurd because the federal government can’t run out of money. We could very easily put a lot of people back to work if the federal government borrows money to pay for these projects.
[Source: John Craven]
Just a simple question: have you ever had to meet a payroll, or balance a budget?
Years of fiscal neglect are coming to the surface. Serious spending cuts are required to set things in better order, else the value of those same T-bills will drop, their interest rates will rise (in order to spur sales), and we'll be in an even bigger hole.
Until you come out against Davis Bacon, you're making a false argument here and your real plan is to keep unemployment high and more people dependent on government handouts.
Also, this is what should have happened in the first stimulus – then it would have done some good instead of being a big sloppy pork pit and government employee bailout program.
And no, you don't get a second chance to waste a trillion. Your party screwed the pooch royally on it the first time.
Anon 729pm, no, Jon has never accomplished anything productive like that in his life. Instead he attends policy classes. And back politicians who admittedly lie and cheat, because "they're funny."
Pathetic.
Managing the macroeconomy is literally nothing like meeting a payroll. I'm well aware that running a business requires an important set of skills – it's just that those skills do not overlap at all with setting nationwide economic policy. Don't flatter yourself.
Banker, the first stimulus did exactly what we expected it to do – create or save between 1.5-3 million jobs. We got that. But the jobs hole is much much deeper than 1.5-3 million jobs. It needed to be bigger. It still needs to be bigger. We have to add 20 million jobs by the end of the decade to get back to full employment. Davis Bacon is not what's holding back the economy. There's nothing wrong with the government paying living wages for these construction jobs.
By the way, I can't imagine what it would be like to live inside your scrambled brain.
On the one hand, you are admitting that stimulus has the potential to boost demand and put people back to work, and would have if only the government had listened to your preferred policy prescriptions.
But putting money into the economy won't work why?
And taking money out of the economy is supposed to work now why?
What it comes down to is doing it smart, instead of half-assed.
What we needed to do, and it's worked all throughout history, are infrastructure projects. Not high speed rail (which except for the NE corridor will hemmorage cash for decades to come), or funneling $$ to the states so they can keep their bloated bureaucracies in place.
We needed to waive Davis Bacon because it significantly raises the cost of projects (check Allentown's failed energy efficiency program for a local example), prevents the vast majority of construction workers from benefiting, and has nothing to do with living wages. It's a political payback to the Democrat's Union Masters. And if it was reversed, you'd throw a tantrum about it.
Jon, my point has never been to not put money into the economy. My point is that politicians consistently fuck it up, waste $$ at the pork pit, invest in crap (high speed rail from Tampa to Orlando?????), and getting very poor returns if any return at all.
And I don't believe any of that 'saved jobs' crap. If you read any of the audit reports on it, you'd see why. One company