That is but a first step. One easy way to generate jobs is revenue sharing with the states, first championed by President Richard Nixon. Providing the states with money to rehire laid-off teachers and cops would make sense for our children and our economy. In addition, the federal government should pay for direct jobs programs in targeted areas. Obama has called for a jobs corps for veterans.
Congress should sensibly expand that to create an urban corps and a green corps that would hire young people under 25 and put them to work. There is no greater threat to this country than the mass unemployment of young people at the start of their working lives. To pay for these programs, we could sensibly end the top end Bush tax cuts for earners making more than $250,000 a year, and pass a bank speculation tax to limit computer-driven bank speculation that is about gambling, not investment.
The Financial Times is not a liberal paper. Yet, its advice falls on deaf ears among the right-wing Republicans. Conservative governors like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and New Jersey’s Chris Christie are scuttling infrastructure projects, not championing them. House Republicans blocked virtually all of the jobs agenda that President Obama called for last fall. Their budget would require even deeper cuts in education, child nutrition, aid to the states, Medicaid and more. They obstruct action on the economy, and then blame Obama for not doing anything. They seem intent on blocking anything that might improve the economy before the November election.
In a time of national crisis, cynical partisanship is getting in the way of action.
Article first appeared in:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/12972484-452/put-us-jobs-above-dc-partisanship.html
This Article Appeared n The Black Truth News Volume 3 Issue 7 July