Jobs Fix Deficits

June 2nd, 2011 by Dave Johnson

But DC is not only not talking about jobs, they are talking about austerity — cutting the very things that create jobs. History and the experience of other countries as they struggle to crawl out of the economic collapse has shown again and again that government investment in infrastructure and education and scientific research and manufacturing are the path to recovery. England, Greece and others trying austerity are falling back into recession. Meanwhile China is investing hundreds of billion in high-speed rail and other infrastructure. Germany is investing in manufacturing. Others are investing billions more in infrastructure. All are pursuing green energy sources.

Mired in austerity ideology we are doing none of these. For example, on a PBS NewsHour discussion of the House vote rejecting a “clean” debt-ceiling bill Tuesday, Rep. Peter Roskam said,

…any raising of the debt ceiling has to be preconditioned upon cuts that drive towards a real economic recovery and long-term growth and prosperity and job creation.

Rep. Roskam actually claimed that cutting the things that have proven to drive growth and job creation will drive growth and job creation.

Austerity Can’t Cut Deficits

The other day I wrote about calculations that shows that cutting budgets does not cut deficits. From See WHY Austerity Can’t Reduce The Deficit, (click through to see the calculations that prove austerity can’t reduce deficits),

Austerity — cutting government benefits and services — is not the path to fixing deficits. In fact, economists warn that trying to fix a sluggish economy by cutting government spending will just make things worse. Worse yet, this approach can have damaging effects that last into the future. This can be easily shown with simple calculations.

Jobs First In Democracy

In a democracy jobs would be the first topic of discussion and the only toipic until plenty of good-paying jobs are available. But in a plutocracy — government by the wealthy — jobs for regular people would be of little concern. Which are we seeing here?

The American Majority clearly, absolutely, firmly and primarily want jobs as government’s — our — first priority (click through to see the polling), while our leaders are talking about doing things that cut jobs and cut the thing that We, the People do for each other.

The solution to the huge post-collapse jump in deficits is to restore the jobs. Restoring good-paying jobs starts to restore the tax base and stops the emergency spending on the unemployed. The increased demand as people find work and paychecks revives retail and manufacturing. Housing recovery, for example, depends on more jobs. With more jobs and better pay. Unemployment is high and wages are low, so many people just can’t afford to buy — or keep — a house.

Just cutting people out of the economy doesn’t fix the problem, it shifts the problem and eventually will kill the economy.

Jobs First In Election

One thing is for sure: jobs will be the first concern of voters in the coming 2012 elections. And Republicans understand that making things worse now helps Republicans later. The question is why aren’t Democrats and the President focusing on making things better now to help themselves and all of us later?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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