There is a growing unemployment crisis in the United States
that the bogus 6.7% unemployment rate touted by the Obama administration
purposely obscures. A smaller percentage of Americans are in the work force
today than any time since 1978, coincidently, the last time a big government
Democrat was in the Oval Office. Only 62.8% of Americans are in the work force.
The rest rely on government assistance and/or retirement savings in order to
survive.
The current argument between Democrats and Republicans is
whether to extend recently expired unemployment benefits to the long-term
unemployed. The Democrats of course, want to extend them in the belief that we
must help the poor and that the best way to do it is to offer them charity. On
the other hand, the Republicans want to cut the overall unemployment benefit
budget by half, essentially gutting most assistance to the less fortunate and
apparently deciding they can fend for themselves. The problem is, they can’t.
Paying people for years to not work is bad policy and even
worse budgeting, but leaving millions of citizens destitute and starving is not
only horrible, it’s probably cause for violent revolution. You’d think with
Congress currently housing its biggest share of millionaires ever, we’d have
plenty of financial geniuses in office that are capable of fixing these sorts
of things. Laughable, I know. Our current Congress is easily one of the worst
in our nation’s history. They’re lazy, corrupt, inept, and in more cases than
most of us would care to imagine, many seem to be downright stupid.
Given this lack of leadership and ability to propose ideas
that might actually find compromise between the two parties, let me offer three
that I believe could make a huge difference in our economy. None of them is
truly new, but expansions on ideas I’ve posted in the past and/or read about
from others.
The Border Wall – While both parties agree that it should be
easier for immigrants to obtain work visas and citizenship, Republicans want to
tighten border control first. I side with Republicans on this one. Making
better rules for how to enter and stay in our country legally is nearly useless
if it’s easy to break those rules. The majority of long term unemployed workers
are in the west and south and have backgrounds in manufacturing and
construction. Anyone else seeing a 1+1 here? A giant public/private venture to
build a wall across the entire border with Mexico could generate tens of
thousands of jobs over the next decade in a variety of fields including those
manufacturing the wall components and those then building it. Cities along the
border such as San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso would need to build additional
housing, open new schools, restaurants, shops, and health facilities. Plants
would need to purchase more ore and hire more workers to create the necessary
steel and other materials. Once built, the wall’s gates would need additional
border patrol officers. So how would all of this be paid for? The federal
government would chip in any money saved from cutting benefits as well as any
profits gained by the sale of the bank and automobile assets it purchased
during the 2008 bailout. Border states would be required to pay their share
based on the increased tax revenues these new jobs would bring into their
coffers. And finally, private firms should be partnered with in terms of
advertising space on the wall in the more heavily populated areas.
The Keystone Pipeline – Another political hot potato and
potential giant project is the Keystone Pipeline that would transport crude oil
from Canada and the northern United States all the way across the country to
the Gulf of Mexico. Like a Border Wall, this has the potential to create
thousands of blue-collar jobs. It would also be one more step toward reducing
energy dependence on the Middle East. The Republicans in favor of this project
will need to make some environmental concessions with Democrats if it’s going
to get approved in Congress, but the result could be a huge boon to the western
U.S. job market.
Fracking – Yet another energy-related industry that rankles
many in environmental circles, but this new form of underground drilling has
created a booming industry and helped turn the U.S. into one of the largest oil
producing countries in the world. Why isn’t the government funding training
programs in these states instead of handing out welfare checks? Why not help
fund housing near these drill sites to encourage more of the workers to bring
their families and boost the local economies? If countries like Saudi Arabia
can teach us anything, it’s that oil export can make a nation rich. Our
government should be doing more to encourage this industry while also improving
safety where possible.
These are just a few ideas, but there are many others. In short,
our government should start prioritizing American job creation instead of encouraging
welfare dependence. It should stop supporting off-shoring, automating, and
fattening Wall Street and executive wallets while the middle class suffers. It
should also stop spending billions of dollars propping up religious factions in
the Middle East. Instead, it should start spending that money at home where it
could do more good. This seems like a reminder to our elected officials that
ought to be unnecessary, but where the preamble to our Constitution states “We
the People”, it’s referring to us, not to the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Iraq, or any other foreign nation. America needs jobs and if our government
officials refuse to spend their time and effort creating and supporting them,
then those officials have failed us and need to be replaced.
