Jobs. It's the jobs, stupid.
No, it's not the economy, as it was
when James Carville coined the phrase, it's jobs.
Both parties are telling voters how
they are the better party to put unemployed back to work. What I
have not heard from either party is how exactly they intend
to create the atmosphere necessary to create enough of the right kind of jobs.
The Republicans fall back on their
assertion that if we guarantee that the wealthy individuals and the
corporations sitting on huge cash reserves get to be even more
wealthy and retain ever higher profits without the annoyance of
paying reasonable taxes on those financial resources, then they will
create jobs. What they do not answer is why, when they are presently
vastly wealthy and flush with cash NOW, they are not creating these
jobs NOW. Why is it that they are holding the jobs hostage until
they get even more?
The Democrats have failed to get support for their incremental vision.
They are promoters of reasonable increases in a depleted level of
public sector employment, which has been devastated by tax cuts and
budgetary polarization. And through the American Jobs Act they have
put some proposals out there that look to the future. But through an
inadequate effort to gain the support of the American people, and
resistance from Republicans, the American Jobs Act was split up and
has had mixed results in its implementation.
As someone who tries to look at the big
picture in the long term, I would like to put the question not on
the supply side, but on the demand side.
We have the opportunity during low
employment to guide the market for re-employment. So, what is it
that we need?
By that I mean, what goods and services do we as a country, and a planet, need? I believe we need to take a
long hard look at where we want to be as a society in the future and
what our needs will be, and take that as a set of goals used to
formulate a plan for what types of jobs we need to create to achieve
those goals.
While the Democrats have put forth some
goals relating to sustainable energy production and the jobs it
creates, we need a greater breadth of visualization of the future and
a more integrated plan for transitioning from the unemployment of the
present to an employment of the future, not a plan to return to the
employment of the past.
An example of this visualization of the
future is the housing market. I believe that our culture has led to
a an unsustainable view of what housing should be. In a country
where family size has thankfully diminished, over the last half
century, our housing production has concentrated on larger and larger
homes. These homes are excessively wasteful and as our energy needs
rise, unsustainable. So, to look to the housing market as an engine
to boost the economy by building more and more large homes, is as
counterproductive to the future we need as drill baby drill is to our
energy future.
My proposal regarding this example is
to re-train construction workers, especially local independent
contractors, to become energy efficiency contractors to update the
energy efficiency of our housing infrastructure. We need to come to
grips with the fact that our existing housing stock, which it is
unrealistic to replace, is inefficient and should be retrofitted for
maximal energy efficiency. This effort, when enacted in a widespread
national manner, would put many people back to work. The fact that
these efficiency efforts pay for themselves over time, unarguably
classifies them as investments. Policies should be promoted that allow homeowners to
update their homes without having to come up with the initial cost,
but rather shares the benefits of the energy savings over time with
investors who finance the updates. That investor pool could be
public, private, or both.
So my point, merely exemplified by the housing proposal above, is that the jobs issue
which is so central to the upcoming elections, is one that should be
an issue framed by a progressive demand side vision,
as opposed to a regressive supply side trickle down formula.
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