L. Randall Wray is an economics professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, whose ideas for job growth I've previously written about. An excerpt from his latest:
L. Randall Wray
There is no economic policy more important than job creation. The private sector plays an invaluable and dynamic role in providing employment, but it cannot ensure enough jobs to keep up with population growth or speed economic recovery—much less achieve the social goal of full employment for all Americans. Thankfully, there is an alternative: a job guarantee through a government-provided “employer of last resort” program offering a job to anyone who is ready and willing to work at the federal minimum wage plus legislated benefits.
In recent decades full employment has been wrongly dismissed as not only impossible but economically counterproductive. Though the Employment Act of 1946 committed the government to the goal of high employment (it was amended by the 1978 Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which targeted a measured unemployment rate of 3 percent), we act as if full employment would ruin us, destroying the value of our currency through inflation and depreciation, and weakening the labor discipline that high unemployment maintains through enforced destitution. Through the thick and thin of the business cycle, we leave tens of millions of Americans idle in the belief that this makes political, economic and social sense.
It doesn’t. The benefits of full employment include production of goods, services and income; on-the-job training and skill development; poverty alleviation; community building and social networking; social, political and economic stability; and social multipliers (positive feedbacks and reinforcing dynamics that create a virtuous cycle of socioeconomic benefits). An “employer of last resort” program would restore the government’s lost commitment to full employment in recognition of the fact that the total impact would exceed the sum of the benefits.
The program has no time limits or restrictions based on income, gender, education or experience. It operates like a buffer stock: in a boom, employers will recruit workers out of the program; in a slump the safety net will allow those who lost their jobs to preserve good habits, keeping them work-ready. It will also help those unable to obtain work outside the program enhance their employability through training. Work records will be kept for all participants and made available to potential employers. Unemployment offices will be converted to employment offices, to match workers with jobs that suit them and to help employers recruit staff.
All state and local governments and registered nonprofit organizations can propose projects; proposals will be submitted to a newly created office within the Labor Department for final approval and funding. The office will maintain a website providing details on all pending, approved and ongoing projects, and final reports will be published after projects are complete. ...
It was a good idea when he first proposed it, and it's a good idea now. The Democratic congressional leadership should work with the administration to hone it and turn it into legislation. That is so even though Republicans (and a few Democratic enablers) will shoot down anything of this nature put before them. But presenting a proposal that could actually take the slack out of the job market, unlike anything the foes of such a proposal have put forth, will give those Democrats who actually care something tangible to hang their hats on in the coming election year. It's far from the only reform the economy needs, but it's a necessary one with widespread benefits.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:
In response to today's landmark Supreme Court decision granting habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees, Lindsey Graham has decided he wants to amend the United State Constitution to strip it of any pesky kinds of civil rights protections that have existed since the Magna Carta.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed Thursday to do everything in his power to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying that "if necessary," he would push for a constitutional amendment to modify the decision.
Graham blasted the decision as "irresponsible and outrageous," echoing the sentiments of many congressional Republicans and President Bush.
...
Every member of the Congress that approved the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act, now correctly reversed by the Court, will have the moral stain of having been a party to it besmirching their careers and their legacies forever. History will be only slightly less unforgiving to the Congress which allowed the grave abuses of the Constitution by the Bush administration than it will be to Bush himself. So no member of the Senate should be quick to follow Graham further down that path to complete ignominy.