In reply to RM, I would say that the jobs that would come from the kind of public works projects available to choose from today are a lot less physically demanding than building a railroad trestle over a deep valley in the middle of nowhere, as the timber was felled and milled for the job right on the spot. Those days of extreme physical labor are mostly gone, and training people to use the equipment that has made these kinds of jobs easier to perform will go a long way toward reducing joblessness after the project has been completed. I think there would be a fair number of young men and women who would see this as a great alternative to enlisting in the armed forces, getting shipped to some squalid foreign country, and getting their collective ass shot off.

SoTexGuy - Thanks for your comment. I’m afraid you’re correct regarding the job-creation potential of infrastructure jobs. Not only is the fix in with regard to contractors but when FDR’s programs were in place whole towns of workers would empty out with their shovels to build the roads, bridges, etc.. Today, with a few pieces of large equipment and a computer many of these projects won’t employ all that many people.

But you do raise THE ultra-consequential question: what sort of work will we all be doing in the future? What’s the new-new work? I’d sure like some of the commentators on this blog to talk about it.

We’ll never have another America Works program as back in the 30s.. The reasons are many, the primary one is that our politicians would never allow it.

Any work program would be done in the form of grants, loans, wage and benefit concessions and subsidies and more to existing corporations. New corporations along with good old standby’s like Halliburton would clamor to cash in on the deal. The results would be minimal in the short term..

Long term we would find out that the ‘new’ jobs created were actually the same jobs.. and the same employees. A paperwork shell game would be used to reduce direct employee costs of the corporations.. CEO pay would skyrocket, again.. and when and if these new subsidies dry up.. those same workers would find their old pay levels and benefits were gone forever.

Anyhow,  we as a nation no longer own enough land, dams, bridges and more for people to work on.. that was all sold off long ago to power the private business and investment bonanza of the latter half of the 20th century.

And also, government is already employing practically everyone, directly or indirectly. Schools, border walls, new facilities, armored vehicles for rural law enforcement, training, services.. pens and pencils and business cards.. it’s all, or mostly all driven by the redistribution of tax revenues to people working directly for government or contracted to provide something for the
government.. Hang out at most any kind of business.. from tire shops to sandwich shops.. The bills are paid by some government agency.

I don’t know what the answer is but unless someone has an idea for a totally new kind of work.. a government work program has no chance.

That’s my opinion anyway.

Adios!

the republicans want to destroy this country…Unfortunately the Democrats won’t be
able to stop them…

My Father built dams, bridges and railroad trestles in the middle of nowhere for the WPA and CCC, and he told me many times how that work saved this nation and our family. It put desperately unemployed men back to work building the infrastructure of this nation, the same one we’re still enjoying the use of today. Looking at our currently decaying highways and crucial waterways, I’d say it was past time to re-introduce this great institution, and put our unemployed and willing young men and women to work rebuilding our country. In addition to supplying work and creating dams, roads and national monuments, it also created a strong belief in our country and what it stands for. It brought about a significant and necessary pride in being an American, something sorely lacking today.

“But, Reich continues, congressional Republicans object, which means they either want to ride a ruined economy to election victory in 2012..” And there lies a major problem, liberals still try to keep this illusion going that the Dems are the good guys while the evil Republicans are the ones keeping Obama from birthing the New New Deal. Obama himself doesn’t believe in greater government intervention, read his damn books and speeches, he’s praised Reagan more than FDR. WAKE UP.

I forwarded Reich’s post to my “Internet sphere” and boy oh boy did my “conservative” friends have a fit. They HATE Reich and big government being involved in ANYTHING.

And let’s be honest, over 50% of Americans feel the same way about government. They’ve been successfully indoctrinated with the view that government is not the solution, but the source of all evil in our lives. Trying to have a conversation with my buddies is pointless…a total waste of time.

What do you all think? It seems that most people have picked their “Saviour”: “unfettered capitalism and the free market.”