This post reiterates a contention that's been mentioned repeatedly by one of the authors, i.e. that we should be crafting a jobs bill with all possible haste. The original article adumbrates the argument for doing so, based on the incredibly favorable interest rates, so I'll just address the political calculus.
Congressional Dems should offer a comprehensive infrastructure-oriented jobs bill, appealing to the legacy of FDR and reminding the people that his Alphabet Soup policies were a major part of ending the Great Depression. I could wax ad nauseam about my frustrations with the Dems, but among the most inscrutable of their flaws is their continued inability to market anything. They allowed GOP strategists to completely control the healthcare conversation, and they were held hostage to the Republicans again on this most recent budget fiasco.
If they were to draft a jobs bill aimed at addressing the nation's woefully under-appreciated infrastructure inadequacies, they could market it easily. Heck, just show The History Channel's special: America's Crumbling Infrastructure on the floor of the Senate and encourage Americans to watch. Then plaster the report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers all over the major networks and insist that the public pay attention. The Report Card from the most recent year, 2009, is as follows:
2009 Grades
Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
America’s Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
($2.2 trillion, incidentally, is the amount of money that the non-partisan CBO estimates that the United States would bring in if it eliminated the Bush Tax Cuts for couples making over $250,000 a year.)
The marketing of this is twofold:
1) Putting people back to work and reducing the number of people who have to make use of welfare services, e.g. unemployment, food stamps, Medicaid.
2) Addressing staggering deficiencies in our nation's ability to recover from this economic downturn. (Good luck shipping corn from Iowa, cars from Alabama, and new pharmaceuticals from North Carolina over bridges that fall apart and through tunnels that have to be closed due to structural fatigue.)
Explain that, interest rates being what they currently are, this would actually SAVE the United States money, and let the Republicans argue against it. Articulate how difficult it will be for that nebulous deus-ex-machina of "private industry" the GOP constantly invokes to create jobs if they can't ship goods across state borders.
If it's accompanied by a proper delineation of the math surrounding the Bush Tax Cuts, and Obama promises he will renew them for all those making less than $250,000/yr, how could this possibly fail to win popular support? If the Dems would stop lying on the mat and complaining to the ref that their counterparts used an unfair move, they could get up, take a more aggressive posture, and control the match. Force the GOP either to collaborate on a bill that really ought to have bipartisan support, or to try and explain to the voters why they wouldn't.
