It’s been a lousy week for America. As I write this on Super Bowl Sunday, it occurs to me that on just one of those days, we lost more jobs than the number of people it takes to fill a football stadium – and then some.
At this rate of job loss, we’re careening right towards the bread lines, soup kitchens, and maybe worse. These days my e-mail inbox is full, not with complaints but from desperate people looking for work. And behind every one of those requests is a story – retirements deferred, marriages in trouble, kids starting out in life who are suddenly sidetracked, aged parents without living arrangements, looming bankruptcy and important health care decisions deferred.
The stimulus bill, HR1, was supposed to get us working again; it was supposed to save or create more than 4 million jobs. It was supposed to fix some of those stories crowding my inbox, supposed to restore dreams, avert bankruptcies and put paychecks in the pockets of Americans.
Does it? I’m not so sure. First, the bill as passed by the House doesn’t create the kinds of jobs that average Americans need – it seems more geared for bureaucrats and government program managers – and many of the programs themselves have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. According to reliably reported estimates, it will take President Obama 18 months to spend 75 percent of the money! Try telling that to the millions of Americans standing in unemployment lines. Cold comfort.
The only thing goods in this bill are the jobs to rebuild infrastructure. I’ve noted in this space before that we live in a “shabby” America. Take a train or drive the streets in my home town of Cleveland, Ohio, and crumbling is all around you: Broken windows, once beautiful buildings that look like bombed-out ruins, and even monuments to our greatest war heroes are unclean, black from air pollution and neglect.
Congress ought to know one thing: The American people will not understand. Instead, we need to take that huge pot of gold and put a pickax and a paintbrush in the hands of our unemployed. Let’s get some pride back in out cities, railways, airports and transportation hubs. Let’s make Main Street sparkle. The game is simple, and FDR understood it well: Every dime for infrastructure. Added to this should be creating jobs around renewable energy, fiber and cable networking, and high-speed public transportation.
We also need another version of CETA – the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. This was enacted in 1973 and extended well into the Carter era. It was designed to train workers for public service. I was running an outpatient treatment center at the time and we had three CETA slots. Some of the people are still at the center 30 years later as paid and productive employees. CETA also put low-income students to work in the summer and it allowed nonprofits to be creative without the long hand of government running the show.
What needs to happen now is some combination of infrastructure jobs, and CETA-type jobs that don’t line the pockets of mega corporations and mega government. It should allow the small, green companies, local companies and nonprofits to get a piece of the stimulus pie.
Nonprofits are hurting, their donor base is shrinking and some lost millions in the Madoff scheme. HR 1 makes some great strides, but it needs to be fixed. It needs to be more targeted, and it needs to make sure that money gets out faster than 18 months.
The slide we are seeing in the economy is gaining speed. And unless we do something to slow or stop it, sooner or later, all of us will dwell in a dumpster –figuratively or literally.
The buried secret of the U.S. Senate
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