One tiny issue with such a program. Repairing infrastructure generally requires considerable heavy equipment. Where is that going to come from and who is going to buy and maintain it? And what happens when the troops all come home? Will they get jobs too? Better yet, let the troops manning engineering divisions, administer the work. And, let thh government use the heavy equipment our military has sitting around polished up. Not only do they have the equipment, but the ability to mobilize and implement projects and we are paying them already. Would it not be better to continue paying them for a job that does not threaten their lives daily and enhances simultaneously enhances the economy and feeling of self worth for a lot of people? Ultimately, this whole thing becomes a joke because everywhere along the way someone will object to one thing or another. The solution is not in establishing a new administration and more government bureaucracy, but finding ways to actually make use of what we have idling away hours of boredom or non use.
Rockdoc Franz wrote: One tiny issue with such a program. Repairing infrastructure generally requires considerable heavy equipment. Where is that going to come from and who is going to buy and maintain it? And what happens when the troops all come home? Will they get jobs too? Better yet, let the troops manning engineering divisions, administer the work. And, let thh government use the heavy equipment our military has sitting around polished up. Not only do they have the equipment, but the ability to mobilize and implement projects and we are paying them already. Would it not be better to continue paying them for a job that does not threaten their lives daily and enhances simultaneously enhances the economy and feeling of self worth for a lot of people? Ultimately, this whole thing becomes a joke because everywhere along the way someone will object to one thing or another. The solution is not in establishing a new administration and more government bureaucracy, but finding ways to actually make use of what we have idling away hours of boredom or non use.
The return of the soldiers from WWII was one of the big factors that brought us out of the Great Depression, NOT FDR and his policies.
archer wrote: Lots of details for a program like this, and start up costs for administration would probably kill it before is even gets off the ground. Would Republicans really OK money for a program to help people, even if it saves money in the long run?
Why would it need to cost any more money than we are already overspending? Think of how many local, state and federal workers could be replaced with part time workers currently on the welfare roles. The folks on federal charity are already receiving money, SNAPS, health care, housing subsidies - all at taxpayer expense, so that cost wouldn't go up. The money freed up by replacing full time government public union workers and their benefits with part time charity recipients is where the money comes from to purchase the supplies necessary for the infrastructure projects. The federal government alone has what, a little over 2 million civilian employees? At an average salary of $65K plus another $40K in benefits, we could get close to $200 Billion for materials, and probably half again as much as that when you figure that a healthy portion of the state and local employees could also be replaced with part time workers from the charity roles. Heck, the entire federal DoT budget was only around $70 Billion in 2009 - we could at least double that by replacing a healthy portion of full time government workers with part time charity recipients. We've got 15 million unemployed, about 7x the number of federal civilian workers, so everyone on public charity would only need to work one day out of the week which would leave them 4 days to look for private employment.
Sounds like a heck of a deal to me, and I'd be willing to bet the Republicans would support something like that since it wouldn't be adding costs currently and would actually reduce the future costs for underfunded public union pension plans and health care. Save money now and in the future, what's not to like?
PrintSmith wrote: Why would it need to cost any more money than we are already overspending? Think of how many local, state and federal workers could be replaced with part time workers currently on the welfare roles.
Sorry, I couldn't read past this statement.....you want to lay off state workers, thus adding to the unemployment rolls, and possibly the welfare rolls, so we can give work to welfare people? That makes absolutely no sense.
I'll try to read the rest of your post later, that just seemed so "out there".
You've said it yourself archer - solving the problems we have is going to involve a little short term pain. Yes, such a solution would temporarily add to the unemployment roles, but at least it would get workfare implemented and start addressing the unfunded liability of the public sector pensions so that at least our grandchildren's grandchildren didn't have to bear the financial costs of paying for the benefits received by this generation.
