President Obama Can Create Millions of Infrastructure/Public Works Jobs by Executive Order!

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Mon Nov-08-10 02:36 PM
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President Obama Can Create Millions of Infrastructure/Public Works Jobs by Executive Order!

Obama: Create Jobs by Executive Order
by Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn
Jeanne Mirer, who practices labor and employment law in New York, is president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
November 8, 2010

On May 6, 1935, with the country in the midst of the Great Depression, and with indirect efforts to create jobs having not moved the needle of unemployment rates, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 and appropriated $4.8 billion for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA put millions of Americans to work constructing buildings, painting murals to decorate them, and performing plays for audiences that had never before seen a dramatic production. In the process, many were saved from poverty and starvation and the economy began to revive.

Although Congress, as part of the New Deal, had appropriated money specifically for relief, FDR decided to use the money for a direct jobs program by issuing a Presidential executive order. This Executive Order described the agencies to be involved in the program, its structure and procedure for application and allocation of jobs.

The WPA was quickly implemented. By March 1936, 3.4 million people were employed and an average of 2.3 million people worked monthly until the program ended in June 1943. During its existence the WPA employed more than 8,500,000 different persons on 1,410,000 individual projects, and spent about $11 billion. The average yearly salary was $1,100, a living wage at the time. During its 8-year history, the WPA built 651,087 miles of highways, roads, and streets. It constructed, repaired, or improved 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, and 853 airport landing fields.

But, in light of the election results, is such a program possible? Can the President directly create jobs by executive order? The answer is a resounding yes. Remember when the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which created the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was passed, one of the purposes was to preserve homeownership, and promote jobs and economic growth.

Much of the TARP money has been repaid and the administration refers to the profit on the payments. If one assumes an average cost of one job is $50,000, 6 million jobs could be immediately created for $300 billion. 12 million jobs could be created for $600 billion. Because this is already appropriated money, Congressional Republicans could not block it.

This direct job creation would be bold. It would also be highly stimulative. It would not add to the deficit because it is already appropriated money. Furthermore, one third of it would come back immediately in taxes, and more importantly, the growth in demand from this number of added jobs would expand private sector job growth and grow the overall economy.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/08#comment-1661583

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The TARP money could be used to implement the United States Conference of Mayors "Economic Recovery Jobs and Infrastructure Projects" plan which alone would create 2 million important jobs and begin Congressman James Oberstar's transporatation and infrastructure proposal that would create 6 million living wage jobs.

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U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, addressed these huge needs by introducing the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009. Oberstar proposes spending $500 billion over the next six years to transform our antiquated system into the reliable, sophisticated network we need to safely and efficiently move people and goods.

The legislation would provide approximately:

�$337 billion for highway construction, including at least $100 billion to begin long-awaited repairs to our national highway system and bridges.

�$100 billion for mass transit, including $12 billion for repairs.

�$50 billion to fund 11 high-speed rail corridors linking major metropolitan areas.

The total investment would create or sustain about 6 million family-wage jobs, many here in the Midwest as our region continues to grow in importance as a transportation hub.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8736605