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What specifically should the Gov't spend money on to create jobs?
Posted by volleypc • 10/11/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bike trails, biking, government spending
I was about to start my 2178 mile hike from Georgia to Maine when the stimulus plan was being finalized. I wanted to print it out and take it with me to see if I could reach Maine before the economy started turning around, but the weight made it impossible. I always felt that they were not focusing on creating jobs. I would like to know what the rest of you think they govt should spend money on to create jobs?
One thing I would like to see money spent on is the addition of bike lanes/trails. In the 30s we spent money building infrastructure and national parks, etc. Now that we have parks, etc, I would like to see money dedicated to creating alternatives to having to drive your car to work, on errands, etc. The benefits are simple, 1. Economic Method of transportation, 2. Healthy alternative for people who already struggle finding time to workout, 3. Trails through parks and nature settings would be a great way to get kids outdoors and away from the xbox.
I would like to know your thoughts.
User Comments
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Infrastructure like public transportation. Public transportation is hideously underfunded in most American cities. Public transportation reduces American dependence on foreign oil, is good for the environment, and creates jobs in construction. -
2. Healthy alternative for people who already struggle finding time to workout
what do you mean by that?
We should spend all the money on developing virtual reality software. I dont want to just see my games, I want to be in the games.
Or time machines -
Remember that just "creating jobs" standing alone is insufficient. If a significant portion of that money isn't spent on creating jobs that will be self-sustaining and/or have a domino effect in kick-starting other parts of the economy, the benefits will be short-lived and we'll just be right back where we were in a year or two except that we'll have spent a lot of money. -
Transportation and Utilities. Not only does it create jobs in the here and now, but it increases the productive capacities and resources available to America's cities, creating future production and demand to back the increased spending of today and encourage businesses to expand rather then merely survive. Further, I would challenge the assertion that education would do something similar on two grounds: 1) it wouldn't create that much new spending, unless you go porky and start building Taj Mahals that cost a lot and don't add much to the quality of education, and 2) we don't neccesarilly know how to spend the money to create results, nor is money necessarily what is needed here, whereas with transportation and utilities it probably is.
In fact, my guess is that the improvement in neighborhood quality accompanying good subway development would actually do more to improve Inner City schools, through the reduction in crime, more positive purpose, better ambiance due to higher quality of development and landscape (if you want to see what I mean, go to a ghetto, or even watch a Rap video) and increased resources of the families living there. Better neighborhoods means more respect and less small crime, less small crime means less big crime (as we found out in NYC in the 90's, and are finding out in LA right now), better jobs means more income for the family, better transportation means more business means more small business means more promise for the young.-
Amazing we are in agreement on this one. Infrastructure is the way to go.
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For different reasons though. And I'd also favor expanding the power and water grids.
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New jobs are made by cutting taxes and spending. Spending more money does not work. It just puts the country into more debt. We had the first stimulus and the unemployment is near 9% still.-
It depends upon what you get for that debt. If you get nothing but the need to pay it back and a bunch of destroyed automobiles and people paying too much for cars (Cash for Clunkers), then yeah, that does nothing but hurt in the long-run, and many businesses will see that and plan accordingly to your detriment. If you get freeways in congested cities, Subways in the inner-cities and new and efficient electric and water plants where they are needed, then that's all resources that businesses can grow off of and capitalize on, just like Eisenhower's Interstate Freeway back in the 50's which brought a horrible recession to a quick end.
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Actually the unemployment rate is now almost 10% nationwide. The money spent isn't making new jobs. More people are out of work now then before Obama took office.
www.bls.gov/cps/-
The actual unemployment rate is closer to 20%
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Some of that's because the businesses know they're the skeleton on the dinner table. The governments taxing their profits later to pay them now. Reaction: raise prices now, invest nothing, pay less taxes later.
@ST: Thanks for the correction. Sounds about right.
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We should more money on higher education. The returns are so much greater when people are educated.-
You should respond to my post. I make the argument against education in general which, when we note it is the quality of lower education that affects higher education, the rest follows.
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Look, stimulating the economy is what stimulates the economy, whether you do it with tax cuts or with increased spending. The value of increasing government spending is that the benefits are spread more widely faster. That is, I presume, what the Obama administration is trying to do. Another boom is coming, unless the preposterously unfair distribution of wealth in the U.S. acts to dissipate it.
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