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The Democrats have been pushing some of better worker regulations recently, between PPACA, the coming overtime rule change, talk of a minimum wage increase, campaigning on sick and parental leave, etc. Republicans have in turn (of course) been howling about job killing regulations. So instead of fighting that fight, why not just bypass the regulations argument entirely and restart the WPA, this time making it permanent and always open to hiring anyone? Basically, anyone who wants to can get a federal job for a living wage (let's call it $15 an hour at entry-level) with full benefits - medical, leave, training, etc - to anyone who wants it. These people could be put to work building roads, maintaining parks, refurbishing schools, running daycare, reducing class sizes - anything and everything that meets some public policy goal. Pretty much every credible study shows that investment in infrastructure, education - hell pretty much all public works - more than pays for itself over time. There's also the possibility of directly profitable industries that this new WPA can participate in, like drilling or mining on public land instead of leasing it to private entities. It would be hard to claim that such a project is anything but fiscally responsible - it is an investment in the nation that would improve the economy. At the same time, this would create a floor for employment standards that all other employers would need to meet. No one in their right mind would go flip burgers for $7.25 an hour and no benefits if they had a realistic alternative. A business would have to demonstrate the ability to generate enough value to meet or exceed the compensation provided by this new WPA, or provide some other benefits that workers would want, to have any chance at hiring and retaining labor. It would be a simple matter to drop all those "job-killing regulations" once and for all, and end that argument. It would also be impossible to make an argument about welfare queens and takers and whatnot - the program would be putting people to productive work. Why hasn't there been any serious suggestion of anything of this sort from the Democratic party? It seems like this would be right in their wheelhouse if their stated goal is helping workers. Instead, most Democratic spending proposals seem to be perfectly content to just funnel money through private contractors who will gladly skim their margins right off the top and pay the bare minimum market rate to whoever they hire - pretty much what happened with all of the infrastructure spending from the stimulus program. That, or they provide a subsidy to private companies by subsidizing the income of their underpaid workers, like food stamps or Medicaid. Other than the obvious answer that Democrats are just neoliberals, are there any obvious downsides to this sort of program that I'm overlooking? Even running it on a limited basis seems like an obvious win for everyone involved.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:27
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Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. An expanded public works program also opens up the possibility of massive corruption; I can easily imagine a senator trading votes on unrelated issues in return for unemployed (but voting) citizens in his state being paid to build a bridge to nowhere. It'll take our current culture of "gimme politics" to a whole new level. ---------------- Narciss fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 21:37
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Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them.  How is that different from lobbyists spreading money around politicians for contracts?
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Jul 21, 2015 21:40
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Klaus88 posted:
It's a matter of magnitude, and what you just mentioned is an issue I take seriously as well. That's why the possibility of institutionalizing graft to a greater degree concerns me. ----------------
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Jul 21, 2015 21:42
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Narciss posted:An expanded public works program also opens up the possibility of massive corruption; I can easily imagine a senator trading votes on unrelated issues in return for unemployed (but voting) citizens in his state being paid to build a bridge to nowhere. It'll take our current culture of "gimme politics" to a whole new level. This already happens, without a public works program. Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. You must be new here.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:45
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Building/ repairing roads and bridges require people with a specific skillset. Actually pretty much everything in the OP does. Basically sounds like you are just arguing for a Mincome, which is a much better way of achieving your ultimate goal. It's not like there's a lack of skilled bridge repairers or day-carers, it's just that the money isn't being diverted to that purpose.Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. Pretty much exactly what happened to Greece. tsa fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 22:36
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Pretty much every credible study shows that investment in infrastructure, education - hell pretty much all public works - more than pays for itself over time. There's also the possibility of directly profitable industries that this new WPA can participate in, like drilling or mining on public land instead of leasing it to private entities. It would be hard to claim that such a project is anything but fiscally responsible - it is an investment in the nation that would improve the economy. The problem is that nowadays building infrastructure, roads etc requires a lot of skilled labor, and engineers aren't really the one who need the minimum wage. You'd basically be hiring people who are unqualified to actually do infrastructure projects to do infrastructure projects, if they mess it up badly enough it might actually be more expensive than simply handing them the money in the form of a GMI. The other big thing is that you are assuming that a WPA job which might end up taking you to the middle of nowhere in Montana to build a mine mihgt not be as preferable to working at your local McDonald's for $7.50.
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Jul 21, 2015 22:40
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Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. Beyond the fact that many roads and bridges are damaged well past the point of needing maintenance already, new infrastructure definitely pays for itself. Facilitating the movement of goods and people increases economic activity. Infrastructure can also refer to electrical generation and transport, which has obvious secondary benefits. It can mean installing and upgrading data networks, which boosts economic activity by connecting people. As far as the education part of it, this invests people rather than money. People who can provide more after-school programs, mentoring, reduced class sizes leading to more personal attention - exactly the sort of stuff that can overcome what you're talking about. And their parents would now have gainful jobs that would allow them to better provide for and pay attention to their children rather than leaving them at home to work double shifts for minimum wage. Narciss posted:An expanded public works program also opens up the possibility of massive corruption; I can easily imagine a senator trading votes on unrelated issues in return for unemployed (but voting) citizens in his state being paid to build a bridge to nowhere. It'll take our current culture of "gimme politics" to a whole new level. How would it be a new level? It already happens, it just comes with a bunch of contractor skimming. If anything, you would get more valuable projects as a result of this sort of corruption because you would eliminate the part where contractors are pushing for nonsense projects because they stand to profit off them.
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Jul 21, 2015 22:44
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Typo posted:The problem is that nowadays building infrastructure, roads etc requires a lot of skilled labor, and engineers aren't really the one who need the minimum wage. So train them. Engineers are one thing, but most of the labor involved in infrastructure is still a matter of using machinery on site. What's wrong with spending a few months to get someone trained on a paver or backhoe?
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Jul 21, 2015 22:47
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And who's going to pay for it, OP? You?
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Jul 21, 2015 22:51
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Yes the OP is personally going to pay for everything mentioned, thanks for your great contribution a_house_republican_01.
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Jul 21, 2015 22:59
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-Troika- posted:And who's going to pay for it, OP? You? We could have it paid for by the American taxpayer or we could capture a leprechaun and force him to tell us where his treasure is.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:00
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If skills are a problem we could always use more granny grapplers over in the UK. Carers here are woefully underfunded and unqualified because we don't pay them anything.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:00
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-Troika- posted:And who's going to pay for it, OP? You? Conveniently enough, the federal government is able to borrow at barely above the rate of inflation. Any investment done by the program needs only marginal returns to be profitable. Fiscal responsibility!
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Jul 21, 2015 23:07
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:So train them. Engineers are one thing, but most of the labor involved in infrastructure is still a matter of using machinery on site. What's wrong with spending a few months to get someone trained on a paver or backhoe? Because if there are already enough people who knows how to operate construction machinery then it would make more sense to hire them rather than training new people and dumping them back in the labor market after your infrastructure project is finished.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:13
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I'd gladly pay more than the 15% or so effective tax rate to for a giant public works program. Hell, I'd pay up to 25% for that!
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Jul 21, 2015 23:14
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Typo posted:Because if there are already enough people who knows how to operate construction machinery then it would make more sense to hire them rather than training new people and dumping them back in the labor market after your infrastructure project is finished. Totally makes more sense to not do the project at all. No jobs for anyone!
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Jul 21, 2015 23:20
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WPA stadiums were dumps. Real stadiums are capitalist marvels, like MetLife Stadium.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:28
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Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. Everyone's quoting this guy to tell him he's dumb in other ways, but missing this false and racist point I've bolded. Inner city schools are often not well funded; let's clear that up. Next, the idea that poor kids (especially poor kids of color) just don't have the right ~~culture~~ completely ignores the multiple systemic factors completely undermining their education and opportunity. Poverty and inequality produce hunger and crime, both of which are crippling to children. Inequality and poverty also increase the divorce rate, and violence and the mass criminalization and imprisonment of black men is another way single parent households are created. On top of hunger and violence causing children immense amounts of stress, stress itself has an extremely detrimental effect on learning (and health, and a number of other things). This doesn't even begin to address the systemic racism present in cities for people of color and the opportunities that are denied to them. A good, high quality jobs program not only could be used to directly employ people in poverty (high unemployment being a major factor in poverty), helping lift them out of the dire straights they're in, it could then employ those people to address problems like hunger, health, and education, as well as improve infrastructure to decrease the cost of living (mass transit, good housing, insulation upgrades, etc.). The idea that a jobs program somehow wouldn't help poor people is utterly ludicrous.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:29
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Beyond the fact that many roads and bridges are damaged well past the point of needing maintenance already, new infrastructure definitely pays for itself. Facilitating the movement of goods and people increases economic activity. Practically zero economic activity is hindered in the US because of a lack of roads. Some of them are not in great shape, but you can get drat near anywhere with any vehicle. Building roads is just going to mean widening the interstates even more, which will make sprawl even worse. Building passenger rail would be awesome from the perspective of freeing people from mandatory car ownership, but I'm not sure that it would be massive economic benefits. quote:Infrastructure can also refer to electrical generation and transport, which has obvious secondary benefits. It can mean installing and upgrading data networks, which boosts economic activity by connecting people. quote:
Projects of this scale would absolutely require a skilled workforce. You might be able to train people to be machine operators or laborers with fairly minimal training. You do not want a crew of people whose selection criteria was "whoever the gently caress showed up", and now only have a couple months experience working on transmission lines with 100s of kV of potential, or doing the installation at the plants themselves etc.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:39
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ChipNDip posted:Practically zero economic activity is hindered in the US because of a lack of roads. Some of them are not in great shape, but you can get drat near anywhere with any vehicle. Building roads is just going to mean widening the interstates even more, which will make sprawl even worse. Building passenger rail would be awesome from the perspective of freeing people from mandatory car ownership, but I'm not sure that it would be massive economic benefits. quote:Projects of this scale would absolutely require a skilled workforce. You might be able to train people to be machine operators or laborers with fairly minimal training. You do not want a crew of people whose selection criteria was "whoever the gently caress showed up", and now only have a couple months experience working on transmission lines with 100s of kV of potential, or doing the installation at the plants themselves etc. Well we could start by eliminating prison labor and making all of those jobs fall under the new work program and then work up to more complicated stuff from there.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:51
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snyprmag posted:Well we could start by eliminating prison labor and making all of those jobs fall under the new work program and then work up to more complicated stuff from there. I eagerly await making license plates for minimum wage (actually the new thing right now is customer service jobs).
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Jul 22, 2015 01:40
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I don't understand how the idea that traditional WPA jobs are no longer viable has taken hold. WPA took on all sorts of complicated projects, and found / trained the engineers they needed to do that. That capability still exists.
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Jul 22, 2015 02:28
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Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. This is basically my response, but as a case for a 21st century WPA
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Jul 22, 2015 02:31
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Kaal posted:I don't understand how the idea that traditional WPA jobs are no longer viable has taken hold. WPA took on all sorts of complicated projects, and found / trained the engineers they needed to do that. That capability still exists. In the 21st century, where the bad guys have won the cold war, teaching children in a professional capacity to carry our future is valued equivalent or less than playing videogames for the internet. Check those dude's patreons. Weep later for the idea that income is remotely correlated with productivity (it died a long time ago). That's where the idea that the WPA is no longer viable comes from. It comes from there and takes root in reality.
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Jul 22, 2015 02:39
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:So train them. Engineers are one thing, but most of the labor involved in infrastructure is still a matter of using machinery on site. What's wrong with spending a few months to get someone trained on a paver or backhoe? There's not an infinite amount of machinery available either.
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Jul 22, 2015 02:47
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Why the gently caress would I or anyone work for $15/hr if I could make the same kind of dosh not exploding into racial slurs while recording myself playing videogames? Hell, I could clear $60/hr consciously exploding into invective while recording myself playing videogames.
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Jul 22, 2015 02:48
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Hrm, yes, I could work for $15/hr sweating in the *shudder* out-of-doors (or, best case scenario working as an engineer on a government project) or, I could 1. Sell weed. 2. Play videogames for the internet 3. Package series' of debt obligations into tranches which are sold as securities whose value invariably defaults with even the most fiscally conservative blocs of the government picking up the difference instead of myself Yeah the votes are in and: gently caress THE WPA \ 
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Jul 22, 2015 02:58
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Why should people have to work to survive, when all reasonable human needs can be met with a fraction of human labor-time, if the fruits were distributed fairly
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Jul 22, 2015 03:08
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The idea that all infrastructure is worthwhile is a falsehood pushed by engineering lobbyists. Lots of infrastructure is marginal and does not create more tax revenue than it costs to build. Many areas are basically so overburdened with so much worthless infrastructure they are in a slow moving bankruptcy.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:14
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-Troika- posted:And who's going to pay for it, OP? You? Everyone, but rich people will pay more, a LOT more because they sinned to get rich.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:16
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Spazzle posted:The idea that all infrastructure is worthwhile is a falsehood pushed by engineering lobbyists. Lots of infrastructure is marginal and does not create more tax revenue than it costs to build. Many areas are basically so overburdened with so much worthless infrastructure they are in a slow moving bankruptcy. Generally we need more better infrastructure. It's pretty simple.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:18
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Narciss posted:Unless a road/bridge is damaged to the point of it negatively impacting transportation, I'm not sure how 'infrastructure investment' is supposed to pay for itself. Same with education spending; inner city schools are very well funded, the problems is that the kids go home to single-parent households with no supervision and the culture just isn't there to encourage them to excel in school and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them. A big part of WPA programs is that the program itself ideally generates economic activity. Its the old Keynes example, if your economy is lovely enough you could actually be better off paying a group of guys to dig holes in the ground and bury gold and then encouraging people to go dig it up, because getting money into the hands of the unemployed means they can contribute to the economy which increases demand which... well you get the idea. Obviously the hole digging is hyperbole, we'd be better off spending the money actually building things of use if we're going to do this at all, but the basic idea itself is sound. Now its arguable with unemployment dropping we don't necessarily need it right now, but it is certainly one way to get the millions of people who've basically sat out of the economy since the recession to jump back in and produce something of value while driving demand. Edit: A good example of infrastructure that would pay for itself would be national fiber networks. Much of the US' internet infrastructure came from federal funds to private companies, and the US has frankly garbage internet by the standards of a lot of first world countries.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:19
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I think if you're going down this route, it's better to just give direct payments via negative income tax or whatever, there's too much inefficiency through these sorts of make work programs. Infrastructure shouldn't be tied to anything else that would get in the way of making the best infrastructure. And honestly, if you're doing that route, more net stimulus would be going in.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:32
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Caros posted:
No it isn't hyperbole, that's the point! That is the whole and entire point of Keynesian economics actually! If hedge fund quants and investors and managers dug holes and filled them back up for a living they would be creating far more of Actually Existing Economic Value than what their current occupations which is manufacturing the ultimately baseless impression of value in the form of ten-figure numbers on a balance sheet whose total is reached by pressing the equals key on a calculator a few thousand times a second with high frequency trades until the operator and algorithm feel better emotionally, which intersects with Actually Existing political policy in extremely counterproductive Actually Existing ways when the perception of economic value is much much higher than it Actually Is at present! Yes, the Keynesian ideal of actually building stuff what gets used is the best case under any coherent conception of capitalism, but the core point of the ditch-digging image is that literally anything whatsoever no matter how nonproductive or trivial is preferable to manufacturing a perception of value through arithmetic manipulation of financial markets.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:38
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Willie Tomg posted:No it isn't hyperbole, that's the point! That is the whole and entire point of Keynesian economics actually! If hedge fund quants and investors and managers dug holes and filled them back up for a living they would be creating far more of Actually Existing Economic Value than what their current occupations which is manufacturing the ultimately baseless impression of value in the form of ten-figure numbers on a balance sheet whose total is reached by pressing the equals key on a calculator a few thousand times a second with high frequency trades until the operator and algorithm feel better emotionally, which intersects with Actually Existing political policy in extremely counterproductive Actually Existing ways when the perception of economic value is much much higher than it Actually Is at present! This is idiotic.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:42
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asdf32 posted:This is idiotic. |_______M~I~R~R~O~R__________|
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Jul 22, 2015 03:46
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Willie Tomg posted:No it isn't hyperbole, that's the point! That is the whole and entire point of Keynesian economics actually! If hedge fund quants and investors and managers dug holes and filled them back up for a living they would be creating far more of Actually Existing Economic Value than what their current occupations which is manufacturing the ultimately baseless impression of value in the form of ten-figure numbers on a balance sheet whose total is reached by pressing the equals key on a calculator a few thousand times a second with high frequency trades until the operator and algorithm feel better emotionally, which intersects with Actually Existing political policy in extremely counterproductive Actually Existing ways when the perception of economic value is much much higher than it Actually Is at present! I can't tell if this is suppose to a parody or not
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Jul 22, 2015 03:52
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Kim Jong Il posted:I think if you're going down this route, it's better to just give direct payments via negative income tax or whatever, there's too much inefficiency through these sorts of make work programs. Infrastructure shouldn't be tied to anything else that would get in the way of making the best infrastructure. And honestly, if you're doing that route, more net stimulus would be going in. Sure negative income tax, but what you're talking about seems like all the more reason to fund a massive expansion of trade schools. After all, the fewer people doing make work the better. But at the same time, we should massively expand the number of job opportunities available to people, so that young people and veterans and people coming off of disability have the chance to build a resume. Put them to work on less critical aspects of infrastructure, installing handrails at the bus station. I don't think we're talking about having dropout general laborers doing underwater welding on a bridge, here.
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Jul 22, 2015 04:03
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Spazzle posted:The idea that all infrastructure is worthwhile is a falsehood pushed by engineering lobbyists. Lots of infrastructure is marginal and does not create more tax revenue than it costs to build. Many areas are basically so overburdened with so much worthless infrastructure they are in a slow moving bankruptcy.
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