Bob Herbert in today's NY Times throws up a large warning piece about the tremendous job loss going down in the U.S. (and elsewhere). But he pulls no punches, calls it as bad as it is and makes a powerful suggestion. A wholesale mincing of realities is going on now: heard a former health insurance exec on Bill Moyer's Journal yesterday claiming the health industry is scared beyond words that a public plan would hurt their profits and so the plan is to scare the people with slogans about 'rationing, government takeover.' The point is that the insurance outfits have been rationing, pricing people out of its market, denying coverage, etc. for years....And people losing jobs are losing coverage, in spades.

But Herbert's idea on the job scene reminds us of the WPA and other programs FDR put in place in the 1930s, which put people to work on infrastructure, etc. You got to think this kind of thing is doable if enough political will is exerted, and the naysayers are shut up and sent packing. Onward! BP

Anyone who believes that the Obama stimulus package will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded. It was too small, too weakened by tax cuts and not nearly focused enough on creating jobs. It’s like trying to turn a battleship around with a canoe. Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession.

I’d like to see the president go on television and, in a dramatic demonstration of real leadership, announce a plan geared toward increasing employment that is both big and visionary — something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, or the interstate highway program or the Apollo spaceflight initiative.

My choice would be a “Rebuild America” campaign that would put men and women to work repairing, maintaining, designing and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure in the broadest sense — everything from roads and schools and the electrical power grid to innovative environmental initiatives and a sparkling new mass transportation network, including high-speed rail systems.

One of the ways of financing such an effort would be through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, which would provide federal investment capital for approved projects and use that money to leverage additional private investment.

There was a time when Americans could think on such a scale and get it done. We used to be better than any other nation on the planet at getting things done. It would be tragic if the 21st century turns out to be the time when that extraordinary can-do spirit disappears and we’re left with nothing more meaningful and exciting than lusting after tax cuts and trying to pay off credit card debt.

The joblessness the nation is experiencing is crushing any hope of a real economic recovery. With so many Americans maxed out on their credit cards and with the value of their homes deep in the tank, the only money available to spend in most cases is from paychecks. The best and the brightest in Washington may have a theory about how to get the economy booming without dealing with the employment crisis, but I’d like to see that theory work in the real world.

Bob Herbert
The Human Equation
NY Times June 11, 2009