Damned stimulus package just doesn't seem to be creating a whole pile of jobs. And the administration isn't particularly optimistic about the situation, at least not near-term. Take for example an August 3rd interview of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner by Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos: "When they see a little hope that there may be jobs out there, they start to come back in again. And that can cause the measured unemployment rate to go up — temporarily… But what we expect to see, and I think most forecasters expect this…is an economy that's gradually healing, gradually strengthening, businesses starting to add people back.," said Geithner. Geithner also admitted it's a "tough economy" and that the unemployment rate could get worse for a few months before it gets better.
You know, it might seem way too obvious, and, in this world where Congress men and women are tripping all over themselves to prove that they don't spend money – except on unwinnable wars – maybe an unlikely choice, but if the object is to create more jobs, why not… er … hire more people directly? Yeah, why doesn't the government just become the direct employer and provide infrastructure repair or social service jobs or whatever work that needs getting done? Like what the government did with the WPA during the Great Depression: "The Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency, which especially benefited rural and Western populations. Expenditures from 1936 to 1939 totaled nearly $7 billion." Wikipedia.
Sounds too "socialist"? Cost too much? Really? What would it cost? Okay, here are the numbers, according to the August 3rd DailyFinance.com: "[S]traightforward suggestions that can actually help put the country's record long-term unemployed back to work tend to get far less glory. And one such far-more-levelheaded recommendation comes from Yale economist Robert Shiller: The U.S. government should simply hire workers directly for public services, much as it did during the Great Depression… Bringing aid to those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid -- where job losses have done the most damage -- would hardly break the budget, either. The $30 billion it would cost to hire a million people at $30,000 a pop, for example, would amount to 0.2% of national debt and 4% of the entire stimulus package spending package, Shiller points out.
"Hiring a million people at home would cost roughly the same as what Congress set aside last month to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan despite an avalanche of recent criticism about the U.S. strategy there. For the estimated $1 million a year it costs to station one U.S. solider in Afghanistan beyond salary and equipment, the country could provide jobs for 33 workers at home.
"Much as the vast majority of the American public has suspected, stimulus measures so far have been ineffective at creating jobs. To illustrate this point, Shiller uses the anecdote of a road-construction site funded by stimulus dollars that's packed with steamrollers and heavy equipment but light on workers… 'Like many such stimulus projects, it could be justified if you accept the idea that gross domestic product, not jobs, is central – a misconception rooted in economic theory, or at least in the way Keynesian economic theory has evolved,' he wrote." Sometimes, the obvious is… well… the obvious solution.
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