The Unemployment Conundrum

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.