Would this be a better way of getting people back to work?

Government direct hire programs are temporary stopgap measures although they could certainly improve the country’s crumbling infrastructure.

The first stimulus created as many jobs as they anticipated it would. They just didn’t anticipate as many layoffs that really happened. Without the stimulus we would be looking at the great depression as the “good old days.”

Either will work. I’ll support efforts for one or the other or both.

Frankly, I think that either one of them is a loosing proposition.

IMHO, the only way to get Americans to work is by promoting a climate in which small businesses thrive. Creating a bunch of government jobs does nothing towards this end, and in some cases directly competes with those who want to build private industry. Throwing money at the problem in the form of stimulus packages might provide a very short term shot in the arm, but is not a viable long term solution. What needs to be done is to relax governmental restrictions that act as a barrier to entry for smaller enterprises (before some of you go all apey, I am not talking about removing reasonable regulation that truly serves a purpose, but the myriad of regulations usually pushed through by larger interests for the unspoken but nefarious purpose of keeping the little guy out under the guise of being “for your safety”). Additionally, we need to remove the onerous tax burden on the small operator so they can put those dollars to work building their business rather than funding broken and bloated government programs.

@YoBob for President

@YoBob Would that tax burden on small business be eased if multinationals like GE paid taxes?

@YoBob ; Building infrastructure, including road, rail, power grid, high speed intranet, water delivery, first class schools, IS a way to support small businesses. Do you think America would have become the great nation that it is if; after the Great Depression we would have said, “Sorry. We can’t afford an interstate highway system. We can’t afford to build hydro electric dams, we can’t afford to invest in our infrastructure so our children will have a foundation to build prosperous lives on.
You can bet your butt that China is investing in THEIR infrastructure right now. Do you really want to slip to second best? This is AMERICA!

@jerv – I would like to use our tax and tariff system to make it more advantageous for multinationals like GE to hire American workers and less advantageous to outsource jobs that were formerly done by Americans.

The government can direct hire or hire out for new long-term projects. Either provides people with the funds to recover from debt and losses and accumulate wealth. In turn as people accumulate wealth there is greater consumer confidence and greater predictable spending. However both require the government to spend very large sums of money consistently and commit to it over several years.

That predictable spending is the biggest problem. Companies will not seriously spend if they are not confident in their ROI forecasts.

As to taxes, you can cut taxes all you want, but if companies don’t see a predictable positive market, they will simply sit on their now untaxed or low taxed revenue and profits. In this case you can actually consider carefully increased taxes on profit to incentivize companies to invest in themselves rather than sit – in other words force them to spend it or lose it.

Regarding stimulus, that’s pretty much a no go unless we start talking about really big numbers. It’s a shot in the arm but doesn’t address peoples long term problems of unemployment, lower wages relative to costs, and debt.

@Judi Actually, your argument holds no real water. You are correct however, that China is building infrastructre at record paces since 2008 according to a report by Time Magazine. Here’s the thing, China has such a large surplus of treasure funds that they can afford it. America does not however, they build on credit. So far you are basing your argument on assumption. I believe @YoBob was spot on with his ideas. If only those ideas in the American house and senate would get pushed through quickly. Also a flat tax system would be much better than the complicated one America has now. Close all the loopholes and make it flat across the board, and it would be inescapable and simple.

@Judi just to point out, China is investing heavily in infrastructure, roads for example, but they are also accumulating debt in doing so (1). They can not continue the pace responsibly without better balance and acknowledge as much.

@IsshoNi a progressive tax scale without loopholes based on a center of median income would do just as well as a flat tax without having to make income based exceptions.

I support stimulus programs like CCC projects and infrastructure improvements. Direct grants to private companies is the least efficient way get people back to work.

You have to understand it isn’t having money available that makes companies produce, it is demand. If you stimulate demand, private companies will automatically increase production and eventually hire more workers. I have been in business for almost 40 years and no company I owned or worked for hired people and expanded if there was no market for their product. If doesn’t matter how much money the company has sitting in its treasury or how many tax breaks or subsidies the government gives.

Government money is much better spent in infrastructure improvements and R&D than in subsidizing jobs. The only companies that I have seen that invent projects because government money is involved are military contractors. The are also instrumental in fermenting wars and military actions because it is good for business.

I’d definitely fund hiring/not-laying off teachers, cops and firefighters that states need. That was the jobs bill ROadblock Republicans blocked in the senate with a filibuster, because it was paid for by raising taxes slightly on the top 0.2% of taxpayers, who have taxable income over $1,000,000 a year. And the higher rate didn’t even apply to the first million, just every dollar they earned after the first million.

I wouldn’t reinstitute the federal work programs like the CCC and WPA, because at some point thise must end and we then have to figure out how to transition everyone working in them into other jobs. I’d fund repair of our crumbling bridges, roads, schools and public buildings. With the housing crisis, there are millions of skilled construction wqorkers out of jobs, and our infrastructure crumbles around us while Roadblock Republicans insist we do NOTHING. They want to make the economy as bad as possible because they think they can get away with blaming Obama. They still think Americans are that stupid. I dearly hope this time they have miscalculated. The fervor of the OWS movement and broad public support for it and for a fairer tax system gives me heart. Maybe we’ve awakened.

I don’t get it. We’ve racked up $15 trillion in debt and we’re trying to figure out how to spend more money. We seem to all hate bailouts but seem very selective in what we dislike. The Banks received bailouts in the form of loans which they paid back with interest. We hate them for that. We bailed out Freddie and Fannie with much bigger bailouts, not to mention AIG, and none of them has paid it back. We don’t seem to hate them. We bailed out the auto companies and we still own most of them but we don’t seem to hate them either. We bailed out the states with money for teachers and police. That worked so well that we want to do it again. We sunk $billions into infrastructure and even Obama has said that didn’t pan out. It’s almost amusing that the only good investment from the first stimulus was to the banks and they are the ones taking the brunt of our ire.

We’ve sunk billions into green energy companies and still need to subsidize the sales. We are incensed that GE paid zero taxes so we feel we should raise the tax rate. Huh? If spending was the answer to growth, after $15 trillion in debt we should be growing like crazy. Instead we’re just crazy. And even crazier if we try it a second time.

We have 18 bills passed by the House that are currently stuck in the Senate. Harry Reid refuses to let any action be taken, whether vote or amendment. It would seem the Democrats are the ones that want to do nothing.

@Jaxk At a glance, it would appear that those 18 bills are of the type that brought us where we are in the first place. I will have to do some due diligence before I can be sure, but if you think that trying something that failed the first time again is crazy then how can you justify more of the same?

It seems to me that neither side really wants to do anything productive, so don’t blame the Democrats for being politicians; blame everybody in Congress.

@Jaxk Since I own a share of that debt, I too would like to see it reduced. But even when the vast majority of Americans now realize that the top 1% have been getting all the tax breaks and have doubled their share of the nation’s wealth over the past 30 years—when even the top 1% and when the majority of Republicans favor closing the loopholes for millionaires and taxing them at least as much as we tax the middle class; Repuboicans refuse to even look at revenue as a way of retiring that debt.

Let’s put it in corporate terms. If you made a product which every wage earner in America had to have, and which they could only get from you, but your corporation was sliding deeper into debt; wouldn’t you consider raising prices?

If we start drastically cutting spending with a fragile economy, we will trigger a whole new wave of layoffs with the attendant foreclosures, bank failures and business failures putting us back on the dwindling spiral George W. Bush left us on. Government spending goes to the private sector. If they suddenly quit ordering things, and stop repairing infrastructure to save money, orders get cancelled. The people that would have been employed doing those things get the ax. They can’t pay the mortgage or go shopping with no job. Instead, they start collecting unemployment from the Government.

This 18 items on Eric Cantor’s wish list Acts are all designed to do exactly waht got us into the mess in 2007. Deregulate and let Wall Street Banksters do anything they think will make them profit and amend the tax and entitlement structure to speed up the transfer of wealth to the top 1% that started with Reagan’s failed “trickle down” theory. You will NEVER solve a demand side crisis by applying supply side fixes. And while you may not get that, the vast majority of the public now does.

@jerv

“if you think that trying something that failed the first time again is crazy then how can you justify more of the same?”

And you’re promoting Stimulus part 2? Whether you agree or disagree with those bills, the Senate should at least vote. Maybe amend them. Maybe counter with thier own version. Instead they are tabled. Where the hell is our budget? The super committee is supposed to cut proposed spending but with no budget, what the hell is proposed? It’s been 2½ years now with no budget. The democrats won’t pass anything, hell, they won’t even take a stand on anything. At least the Republicans are willing to vote no, if they don’t like it.

Obama has been talking about his Free Trade Agreements virtually since he took office. Two and half years into his presidency, he finally sent them to congress and they passed easily. He has no problem passing legislation through Republicans when there is agreement. Maybe he should try getting agreement instead of his divisive politics.

@ETpro

A lot of rhetoric with very little substance. You screamed about Reagan’s failed policies that brought in twenty years of prosperity. And simultaneously declare the Great Recession as a success story. I can’t help but wonder about the credibility of such arguments.

@Jaxk I agree that they should just vote up-or-down instead of tabling stuff, but it’s a game that you seem to vehemently deny that the GOP has ever, ever played. The Super Committee is basically Senate Junior; you have six people that cannot agree on anything or reach a compromise instead of 100. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me like it’s the same bullshit in a smaller bag.

The GOP has a history of obstruction that you conveniently overlook, so your attempt to turn that table damages your credibility. In fact, I am having a hard time typing this because you make me laugh so hard. Ask my wife; she is looking at me funny, wondering what all the chuckling is about! If you wonder why I am standing up for the Dems most of the time I talk to you, it has nothing to do with actually liking them and more as a counter-balance to you. By the way, what do you think happened with the whole debt ceiling thing a few months ago?

I agree that we should try getting agreement instead of divisive politics, but it’s hard when the GOP has been overrun by people so far to the Right that they see Reagan as a Socialist. Just as discussions between you and I require me to go farther to the Left than I naturally am merely in order to keep things even remotely close to the center, the Dems are having to do the same thing.

The difference is that disagreements between you and I have no effect on our economy, and really have no effect on anyone’s lives period whereas when Congress does what you and I do on a regular basis, people get hurt and our nation suffers. The scary part is that you and I squabble here in our spare time pretty much to relieve boredom (we are both too stubborn to change each others mind, and I think we both know that) whereas they not only do it as a full-time job, but they earn a lot of money doing it; taxpayer money!

Back on track though, I am unsure if stimulus would work, largely because I doubt we are capable of spending effectively or efficiently. Spending cuts are a bit tricky if for no reason other than certain policy decisions made in the past have pretty much forced us to either increase spending in certain areas or let people die. As for tax rates… well, you and I both agree that reform is needed, but I don’t think that declaring tax hikes absolutely, positively, 150% should not even be thought of being considered under any circumstances as the Republicans think.

As an aside, how do you define “prosperity”? More specifically, which figures do you ignore? See, I have heard the argument that we are actually more prosperous than ever before, what with corporate profits up and all, and that the unemployment and poverty rates are less than irrelevant. So I just want to know where you are on that one.

@Jaxk Thank you very much. That is GOP speak for I can’t dispute a word you said, so I will just switch to the old trusty ad hominem.

Your whole argument relies on the Big Lie that the stimulus created 0 jobs. If that were true, which it is not, then your darling tax cuts don’t create jobs, because $289.5 billion of the $787 billion was tax cuts and tax credits.

I;m with @jerv. Please, tell us another one. This is so funny and predictable.

@jerv

I agree with you on the Super Committee, it is a microcosm of the congress. No one wants to move forward where we have agreement but rather push thier agenda where we disagree. The only purpose of the committee is to cut $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. That’s $120 billion per year from the 10 year projected $9.5 trillion increase in spending. Not a single penny of real cuts. That shouldn’t be very tough.

Your question about prosperity is probably our significant difference. I’m not sure where you got the idea that anyone thinks unemployment or poverty are not an issue since it’s the focal point of most of our and everyone’s discussion. Nor do I know where you get the impression that I ignore anything. As for the prosperity level, that is a very subjective measure. When I look at prosperity it is only relative to myself. If I have enough to live comfortably, I’m prosperous. My prosperity is not affected by anyone else. If Bill Gates has $50 billion that doesn’t affect me. If his wealth grows to $100 billion, that doesn’t affect me either. If he goes bankrupt and loses it all, that doesn’t affect me either. On the other side, if you invent some new milling process that earns you a billion dollars by selling the patent, that doesn’t affect me either. Nor will I begrudge you your success.

In other words my prosperity is not dependent on yours. I have no problem with Peyton Manning signing his contract for $90 million even though the center that hikes the ball only makes $250K. Peyton is simply more valuable and brings in the crowds that allow the center to be paid $250K. I guess I just don’t understand how your prosperity is diminished by mine. Nor how restricting mine will somehow increase yours.

I’ve worked for a lot of CEOs in my time. Some very good, some very bad. It was never the salary they got that created a problem but rather the performance. The good ones were worth thier weight in gold, the bad ones needed to be let go, not paid less.

@ETpro

No it means I’m not interested in the inflammatory arguments nor the personal attacks. If you ever want to address the issues, I have no problem. The ‘Your mother wears combat boots’ arguments don’t interest me.

@Jaxk I have yet to see many people worth 1,000 times a regular worker or more, and definitely not some of the people we have in that stratosphere.

More importantly, I fervently believe that a healthy economy relies on money circulating. Us normal folks make that happen a bit better since much of what we spend winds up trickling back up through all levels of the economy anyways whereas much of the money the rich get pretty much gets shuffled from financial institution to financial institution.

There was a time (back when executives only earned 50 time what the average worker did) when much of the money the rich had trickled down in the form of expansion (gotta pay construction workers to build the new facility) and job creation, but that doesn’t happen so much any more. There used to be a time when increased profits for a company likewise led to wage increases at all levels to reward workers for helping the company grow; that no longer happens either.

And that is where I take issue. A few people are getting rewarded greatly for failure, making profits as their companies take losses, while others are reaping all of the rewards and not sharing them with the others who made it all possible. Meanwhile, we have millions of people who cannot support themselves because their jobs disappeared in the name of reducing costs.

See, I look at it from more of a big picture viewpoint. Somebody has to pay for people to live, and if employers aren’t paying for it then the government (and therefore those of us who pay taxes) get stuck with that bill. Increased government spending has it’s own issues, not the least of which is the need for more revenue, which means that the fact that a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats but rather leaves those at the bottom to drown while a few people in their yachts yell, “Don’t tax me, bro!” does affect me; guess who winds up paying more taxes? In other words, I look at not just my own prosperity, but the prosperity of those around me, knowing full well that their fate may well affect mine.

I should mention that I have no issues with company founders getting rewarded greatly. I mean, Apple was originally three scruffy guys in a garage yet now has more cash reserves than the US government; I have no problem with Steve Jobs having made a few billion from his blood,sweat, and tears. Ditto for Bill Gates and Microsoft. Hell, the company I work for was also started as three guys in a garage!

But I believe that the fate of those who run a company should be tied to that company too. Building a company from scratch into a multi-billion dollar corporation is a big rise and therefore the founder should likewise have a meteoric rise in personal prosperity. If you take over a company and it winds up tanking, you do not deserve a Golden Parachute; you deserve the same fate as all the others who are now broke and looking for work.

I also believe that the fate of the company should also affect workers in both directions. When a company tanks, workers get laid off, but when a company posts record profits, the average worker’s wages don’t increase beyond inflation (if even that) and they don’t get huge bonuses either; a stark contrast to executives. And unlike the company I work for, many don’t really put much into increasing headcount either.

@jerv

I’ll try to explain why I disagree. Most of the huge paycheck are in fact ‘Stock Options’. When you talk about ‘Golden Parachutes’ those are stock options. Stock options have created massive wealth from the janitor to the CEO of companies like Ebay, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. When you attack the stock options you attack a lot of other people as well. And what you’re attacking is their retirement.

I don’t want to get into a debate about government workers pensions but compare what a person working for the government gets at retirement. If they do well they can receive a triple digit retirement. If you are in the private sector that becomes much more difficult for the average guy. Say you want to retire with the same triple digit income. Interest rates play an big role that but let’s use 5% as an average return from your nest egg. In order to get $100K you would need $2 million in the bank. So you plough every cent you can afford into your 401K and with a little luck it grows to $2 million over your lifetime. When you pull it out you pay the tax which adds up to somewhere between 35% and 50% depending on the state you live in, earning the year you retired, etc. Suddenly your retirement is half what you wanted (or maybe ⅔s). If you bought a small business you fare a little better since you only pay capital gains. For the average guy however, your forcing him to save $3—$4 million to make it.

Now since we’re so pissed at the millionaires and billionaires, we want to raise the rate to 40% + state and local. You got the rich guys with that but you also got yourself and a lot of others. We also want to raise the Cap Gains. Again you got the rich guys but you also got the small businessmen.

And as a side note, if you don’t get a raise or bonus when the company is doing well, you’re working for the wrong company. I always fared well when the company did well and not so much when they didn’t. That includes when I was a grunt and when I was an executive.

@Jaxk Last I checked, stock options were not very common. In those places where they are, the workers do quite well; not as well as the CEOs, but Microsoft made many people into millionaires. Also note that my retirement is also under attack.

Why do you think many people wind up working until they are either infirm or dead? Retirement is a luxury, right up there with Mercedes and second homes.

Who says Capital Gains must remain flat-rate? Tier it properly and you can leave the little guy alone.

Finally, we do get semi-annual bonuses, but a lot of the “extra” money goes into expansion. Look at how much it costs to build a foundry capable of casting titanium and you will see where much of the company’s revenue over the last couple of years has gone; a third facility. Also consider that they have never laid anyone off in the 25 years since their founding, that counts for a bit. Boeing goes through cycles, as do many other shops (including the one I worked for before where I am now), and I would rather be underpaid both now and in five years than paid well now and unemployed next year. I guess it all depends on priorities; I value security over income.

@jerv

I’m not sure where we disagree at this point. But if you believe that $200K-$250K is rich, as this president does, it won’t solve the retirement problem.

@Jaxk I consider that “well off”. Granted, that is more than 90% of Americans earn, but they are paupers compared to those who are on the top 1%, and even that small group is sharply divided between those that can buy and sell major corporations with their own personal wealth and those that are mere millionaires.

As for the retirement problem, remember that most people are not very financially savvy. I mean, many don’t even know what compound interest is. They are not stupid (well, not all of them) but it takes a certain degree of savvy to have any involvement in your own investments, and also enough income that you can invest in the first place.

That first point means that letting people handle their own retirement will end in tears, though I feel that those who have demonstrated a certain level of ability should be able to opt out, provided they prove that they really don’t need help. In other words, someone who just wants Uncle Sam to stop deducting from his pay so that he can have an extra $50/week should be stuck with it, but someone who already has a million in the bank by age 25 really doesn’t need Social Security in order to be able to live for a couple of decades at approximately the current median income.

The second point… well, I am used to a household income of ~$40k, so to maintain my current standard of living, let us scale down your example above and stipulate that my wife and I could retire comfortably after saving only $2M. Well, between the two of us, we have not even earned $1M in the last 20 years (our entire adult lives), and much of that has gone away in the form of rent, food, and other mandatory expenses. What are the odds that we will ever be able to retire, barring a major change in life that increases our income by an order of magnitude? Well, they are a lot better than those who earn less than us :D

Note that our income is still more than over one-third of households. That means that many millions of people will never be able to retire on more than a pittance.

They can’t pay for themselves, but we can’t have any sort of government program for them either because (according to some quite vocal people) that is Socialism, robbery, un-American, and possibly even heretical. Somehow, I get the feeling that I will be long-dead (probably having worked to the grave) before we figure out how to handle retirement.

@jerv

I think you’re mixing apples and oranges here. I’m not talking about social security (although god knows that needs work), I’m talking about 401K and/or personal retirement funds.Unfortunately, this is getting way off topic so I’ll save it for another thread. But if you saved 10% of your income for forty years (20 to 60) you would amass over $500K in your retirement fund and pay taxes on it just like the uber wealthy. I have a problem with that.

@Jaxk As am I. Thing is, many people can’t save 10% of their income starting at that early age, and the way compound interest works, by the time they are in that position, its a bit late and not always possible to catch up. Last time I ran the numbers, I would need to put away at least 40% of my gross income to stay where I am at, assuming SS benefits don’t get reduced. Considering how many people are worse off than me, I find that disturbing.

I also have a problem with the way taxes are handled on retirement accounts, but that is a while seperate conversation.