About 80 people attended the Rebuild the American Dream rally at the DeKalb Square on the corner of 4th and Lincoln Hwy. Most in attendance were likely Democrat voters but there was a call for all political factions to come together to get the message to legislators that the priority should be placed on jobs over budget cuts.
Mingled among signs calling for jobs not cuts were those that suggested dumping the Tea Party into the Kish, among other non-flattering ideas. Across the street, Ted McCarron stood alone with a sign that said cut taxes.
Somehow I can’t imagine the extremes from either side of the political equation coming together for anything other than a rhetoric pillow fight.
I do agree with Dan Kenney’s premise that its time for ordinary folks to take the lead and start meeting in the town square again to debate and decide solutions together for problems right here in our own communities.
But it’s early in the 2012 election season. It’s important to scrutinize political motivations and to recognize partisan mobilization. Otherwise good ideas get relegated to marketing slogans for political operatives bought and paid to win. Post election follow through is not a priority.
It is that corruption, legal though it may be, that has Washington DC deadlocked while facing the greatest challenge of this generation: the rise or fall of a nation. We can’t solve the crisis corruption has created by using the same techniques that got us here.
And frankly, we don’t need to protect the middle class jobs we have. We need to create more opportunities for those living below the poverty line to get into the middle class.
Click Here To Submit A News Tip Or Story
8 Comments
There’s not much disagreement to your comment, Kerry. Not from this private entrepreneur with a rather modest lifestyle. Especially to your main points re: bureaucracy and productivity versus entitlement.
If entitlement surpasses productivity this nation will join the ranks of the great civilizations in the past. In the past. If that form of bureaucracy is allowed to globalize the human race might take its place among the dinosaurs.
Disagreement. The WPA was a non-career government effort that created the opportunity for the disenfranchised to be productive, patriotic and to provide for their families. The projects were and still are infrastructure the private sector cannot address (except through taxation). Many of those projects are in dire need of repair and replacement after 70-or-so years of use. Failure in some of those projects could result in catastrophic losses.
We are in a transition period of economic complexity that has left large numbers in specialized professional occupations without a place. Our youth, who forever tend to see things with short term view, see no future.
No civilization can survive large classes of unemployed for long periods of time. Even our best citizens will become distorted and demoralized by accepting support from the public purse and/or private charity. To modernize our nation’s infrastructure to today’s technology would raise our civilization to a an unprecedented level.
The combination of reinvigorating those who have lost their place and the rebuilding and modernization of public infrastructure will boost consumer and private entrepreneur confidence like never before because it once again elevates productivity over entitlement.
We can pay for it by eliminating government corruption. We must have the will to do that or entitlement wins over productivity. There are some who actually believe we should accept a certain level of corruption and even budget for it.
Alas, we must still raise taxes in some form. Not for a WPA-like program. Because meanwhile, back at the ranch, we’re still embroiled in a more than decade old war and that debt is due. Even if we pulled all of our troops out of the war zones the past debt is due and that war would not end. Our rules of engagement are quite different than on the other side.
Violence and war is fed by the disenfranchised and exploited by the greedy. Fitting for a rally called Rebuild the American Dream, I hope we can remain a beacon of hope for those who only wish to be productive and to provide for their families. That dream should know no sovereign national boundaries.
Kerry, you are as wrong about this as you were about the expectation of inflation.
In 2008, I too predicted the onset of inflation, but when it didn’t happen I set out to discover why. Not that I’ve become any sort of expert on macroeconomics; but I do understand the basics of the liquidity trap, and most importantly have found economists to read who have predicted everything that’s come to pass: the market crashes, the unemployment, the inadequacy of the stimulus, the lack of inflation, everything. Now, these same economists are saying that only the government can get things moving again (or we will have a Lost Decade like Japan) and I believe this to be true.
The biggest problem — besides people’s ideologies getting in the way of facts — are all of the false either/or choices we are being given. Do we want a balanced budget or not. Do we want government help or not. Here’s what I say: government should do what we need it to do. When times are good, balance that budget and get out of the way. When times are bad, spend to provide a safety net and to get people working again.
(Don’t get excited, City of DeKalb! I am talking strictly about the feds!)
We have the potential for $900 billion per year in added GDP, and it’s going to waste while we continue to argue about problems that are eminently solvable.
I know I’m wasting my breath saying these things. What’s actually going to happen is nothing. We will have to put up with high unemployment, lower standards of living, and collapsing bridges for the foreseeable future, until we re-learn the economic lessons of depressions.
Lynn, I’d like to address your views, especially regarding the liquidity trap, but can you first point me to where you saw my remarks on inflation? Also, could you expound a bit on the potential $900 billion in added GDP? Where from and how? Thanks.
I’m ALL in favor of creating private sector jobs! NO More Pubic sector jobs unless the Federal, state and local government can get its act together and create the jobs without the taxpayer paying pension costs and insurance costs of the public sector employees. Yes we need need a business friendly environment to stimulate PRIVATE sector job growth
Mirabile dictu
I totally agree with Lynn and doesn’t that make the point about the possibility of consensus politics.
Herb
I think it’s not a good idea to talk about other states unless we truly know what’s going on there. Yes, Texas’ unemployment rate is better than Illinois’, but it’s not anywhere near a miracle (unless you think 8.2% is a miracle). What Texas primarily has going for it is a) a big energy industry, which is somewhat recession proof; and b) relatively cheap housing, so people put up with lower wages.
As for the public sector workers we so love to scapegoat today, government jobs — at least at the federal level — have not even kept pace with population growth. The rise in spending is mostly due to safety net programs, a result of high unemployment plus the Baby Boomers hitting retirement.
At any rate, no matter where you live, there were corporate layoffs last quarter and manufacturing slowed again for the same time period. You can’t get businesses to expand — and therefore create jobs — when there is no demand; and there is lack of demand basically due to two factors: high household debt, and high unemployment caused by the market crashes. Also, stimulus spending has greatly slowed. The private sector can’t fix those things.
The bottom line is: we need jobs AND it’s only the federal government that can provide them, create the demand and get the economy moving again. Lots of people find this unpalatable, I get that, but after much study of the Great Depression and the Long Depression and liquidity traps and so forth over the past several years, I have come to this conclusion. Jobs will help the household debt picture and the federal budget deficit and a lot of stuff in between, and FOR NOW it does not matter who the employer is.
Although I agree that there needs to be job creation; I don’t agree we should be looking for government to create jobs. unless your asking government to get out of the way. Illinois is losing jobs and it is a direct result of Illinois government and their policies. Perhaps we should look at States that have rapid growth in the private sector. Like Texas. They are not expanding the public sector jobs, which create a higher tax burden. Illinois needs a business friendly environment and the jobs will come back. We can’t afford more public sector workers and their bloated pensions.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
No Demand? There is enormous pent-up demand ready to be released once the smoke clears on just how this country (and the world) will be run. Right now, no one wants to stick their neck out any further than absolutely necessary for fear they will be caught short by some foolish government intervention or even natural event (tsunami for example). Take cars for instance. Mine has over 200,000 miles on it. Lots of people want to buy a new car, but have been putting it off for quite some time. Home repair or upgrade is another area of pent-up demand. Does anyone want to spend on the house until the market turns around? But at some point, the work must be done. And speaking of work, how about the huge amount of medical care that’s been put off for years now? Dental, glasses, hearing, regular checkups, even more serious procedures all of which need to happen, but people are putting them off because they’re afraid if they lose their job in these uncertain times, they’ll need that money they would have spent on those medical concerns. I’m sure others could provide more examples of demand waiting in the wings. There is no shortage of demand, but it is being strangled by government created uncertainty.
Uncertainty in the marketplace terrorizes citizens who for all their life never previously had to worry about whether they would have a job to go to in the morning. Fear has paralyzed their buying habits. Probably the largest single factor driving all this is globalization of commerce allowing those with funds (= jobs) to invest elsewhere in the world at a higher profit and lower risk as compared to the U.S. But globalization is a two edged sword. New markets mean potentially much higher demand, although that comes at an awful price to the U.S. when the playing field is kept uneven by major differences in government interference from country to country. There is no truly free market anywhere and presently no entity that can enforce rules to create a level economic playing field worldwide.
And yes it does matter where the jobs come from and what sort they are. Government jobs are borne on the shoulders of taxpayers, which as pointed out, already have problems with high household debt and lack of secure income to carry that debt. WPA-like or other government program jobs will only increase national and household debt problems by not spreading the load to larger volumes of people. Under the current strategy and administration, there is no one other than the U.S. taxpayer to pay for government programs. Government jobs are a bootstrap illusion in the long run offering cake to the few and crumbs to the many.
Ultimately, what it boils down to is we need to entice ourselves and others overseas to work harder and produce more value per person and draw more workers into the game, many of whom sit on the sidelines now. This can best occur in the private sector where there is no government interference. If there is something that excites you, you will work harder to gain it. You don’t need the government to deflate your dreams. Money, jobs, material possessions…its really all about exchange of effort from one person to another. And right now the emerging nations are working harder than we are willing or encouraged to. They have a lot to gain. We already have (had) it. Unless someone can unravel globalization, or until we collectively settle for a less extravagant lifestyle, we are in for a wild ride. Eventually (a long time from now), standard of living equalization will occur. That new level of lifestyle will be determined by either government, or individuals in private enterprise. Who would you rather have set your standard of living? A government bureaucrat or a private entrepreneur?