ABC’s Jobs Solution: ‘Spend and Build,’ a ‘Stimulus Program as Big as the One That Was Launched in World War II’
In the midst of the failure of President Obama’s $800 billion or more “stimulus spending” program, ABC on Friday night asserted the solution to the devastating report, of zero jobs created in August, is...more stimulus spending. Since “the debt, say most economists, is only a long-term concern and the U.S. can borrow money right now at practically no interest,” reporter Jim Avila contended the federal government “should launch a stimulus program as big as the one that was launched in World War II.”
Avila insisted “the non-political, overwhelming answer from a dominant majority of economists” as to what the government should do “is spend and build. Roads, bridges, schools. A $200 billion a year investment would produce two million jobs and lower unemployment by a point.”
Fill-in World News anchor Josh Elliott, fresh from ESPN, chimed in with agreement: “Yeah, that’s a historic problem demanding an equally historic solution.”
Such amazing certainty as to producing “two million jobs.” For Avila’s “dominant majority of economists” his story only cited two, both, of course liberals: Ross Eisenberry, a Clinton administration political appointee at the Labor Department who is now VP of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, and Gary Burtless of the left-of-center Brookings Institution.
From the Friday, September 2 World News with Diane Sawyer:
JOSH ELLIOTT: And now, to Wall Street, where stocks took a nose dive. The Dow Industrial Average dropping by more than 250 points, all the gains from the week wiped out in a single day. So, what triggered the sell off? Well, a brutal jobs report. We learned today that in the month of August, hiring flat lined. Not a single job was added. Zero job growth for the first time in nearly a year. And the nation's unemployment rate, stubbornly stuck at 9.1 percent. So, we asked ABC's Jim Avila to talk to the best and the brightest about just what can be done to jump start hiring and where the jobs are now.
JIM AVILA: It is not totally hopeless. There are jobs out there. Look at this sign. A San Antonio, Texas boss, hiring living wage, full benefit workers.
MAN: They’re full time and we start them at $11.
AVILA: Benefits?
MAN: Absolutely.
AVILA: So, what can you do to get a job like this now? Get trained. The good news is that it doesn't take a college degree. What it takes is trade school. And willingness to dirty your hands.
MAN: Manufacturing has a bad image. Everyone thinks it's dirty, dull, dead-end work.
AVILA: But manufacturing is a growth industry, hiring in America. So is health care. Computers, too. I.T. personnel in demand. Still, across the board, not enough companies are hiring to bring down the unemployment rate. So, what can government do? The non-political, overwhelming answer from a dominant majority of economists is spend and build. Roads, bridges, schools. A $200 billion a year investment would produce two million jobs and lower unemployment by a point.
ROSS EISENBREY, VP, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: That's the worst jobs crisis that we've had since the Great Depression. And the government needs to step in. No one else is going to do it.
AVILA: What else? Pay businesses to hire. A $10,000 tax incentive on each new worker is projected to mean six million jobs.
GARY BURTLESS, ECONOMIST, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Persuading people and rewarding people who add to their payrolls.Story Continues Below Ad ↓AVILA: Finally, what can businesses do? Right now, the corporate world is sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash. But no one believes corporations are going to start hiring until they see growing demand for their products.
BURTLESS: The private sector, on its own, is not growing fast enough to motivate businesses to add to their payrolls or make big new investments.
AVILA: And that is why there is such pressure for something big from government. The debt, say most economists, is only a long-term concern and the U.S. can borrow money right now at practically no interest, so they should launch a stimulus program as big as the one that was launched in World War II. Josh.
ELLIOTT: Yeah, that’s a historic problem demanding an equally historic solution. Thank you, Jim.
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Comments
get your shovel
Submitted by kata on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:12pm.
they are going to start piling it high to forward new spending.
Incredible!
Submitted by Blonde on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:15pm.
Not really. The fact that ABC would use the old "vast majority" thing, makes me want to scream *GACK*.
Avila insisted “the non-political, overwhelming answer from a dominant majority of economists” as to what the government should do “is spend and build. Roads, bridges, schools. A $200 billion a year investment would produce two million jobs and lower unemployment by a point.”
For once, I'd like to see them name names. And tell the REAL story of this pervasive unemployment, rather than finger point at those evil corporations who are sitting on that pile of $2 trillion, unwilling to hire workers.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
program as big as the one that was launched in World War II
Submitted by donabernathy on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:23pm.
Well we better git to kill'n a lot more people and blow'n up a lot more crap...to justify that one..... sport..... chit... we ain't even dropped our first nuclear bomb yet.
roflmao
Is not the definition of
Submitted by ForeverOnTheRight on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:35pm.
Is not the definition of insanity trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Look at history, the reason the Great Depression was as long and deep as it was was because of government intervention. They want to repeat that? INSANE! Liberals must have short memories and can't learn from history. They have forgotten 9/11 and remember PC. They don't know or forget the lessons of the Great Depression and want to repeat them. November 2012 is not coming soon enough! Vote the bum out!
It is insanity to
Submitted by Bill The Bold on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 7:35pm.
try, and even try with more intensity, something over and over that doesn't work. So what is it that isn't working? Further, what is it that they keep trying with ever more intensity and fervor?
We know that the economy tanked before Obama so it cannot be argued that his policies caused it. It can be argued that his policies are prolonging it or making it worse. But what are those policies? The ones that led to it and the ones that have been pursued with equal fervor by Obama thus prolonging the recession?
The common thread has been weak regulations and a blind fealty to low taxes at all costs. Think about it. The Obama stimulus was mostly in the form of tax cuts. The actual money spent on projects was small and did have a temporary and positive effect on the economy. The tax cuts have had a long term and ongoing negative effect. Bush basically let the free markets rule and we saw the result. Obama has put in place a few very modest regulations, but they have mostly been rendered toothless by the blue-dogs and the repubs who are all on the payrolls of industry. The common thread in all this is that-very low taxes, very limited regulation, are the underlying philosophies driving policy government policy. So why do you think that we need even more of that? That seems insane to me.
Bill proves his boldness by stating that---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 9:09pm.
"The tax cuts have had a long term and ongoing negative effect."
John Maynard who?
"Bush basically let the free markets rule and we saw the result."
What are you talking about?
"Obama has put in place a few very modest regulations---."
Not for lack of trying to "put in place" far more. Good thing we have all those 'blue-dogs and repubs who are all on the payrolls of industry'.
"The common thread in all this is that very low taxes, very limited regulation, are the underlying philosophies driving policy (sic?) government policy."
Not Obama's government policies, they're not.
Hard to determine, there, Bill the Lib-Dim Shill, if you are truly impressed with your blathering because you actually believe it; or if you are truly that dense.
MD
let's see 200 billion we
Submitted by east tennessee john on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:33pm.
let's see 200 billion we don't have will increase jobs by 2 million yet 862 billion led to higher actual unemployment. That's "progressive" math. Yet, they won't do a damn thing for the private sector whose taxes pay for the whole thing. Stupid is too kind a criticism.
Exactly
Submitted by Blonde on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:41pm.
I can't stand people who constantly shag their own blogs, but I made a pretty little graph of the actual unemployment rate(s), post-stimulus, compared to what the "estimates" (by a vast majority of economists if ABC were to report it, ahem)....and it is truly a shocker.
My graph is so simple even a liberal media idiot can understand it.
And there's even a bonus Keyser special....a photo of the Keynes Institute of Stupidity.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Blonde: It always amuses me
Submitted by BD on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 10:13am.
Blonde:
It always amuses me to hear liberals claim that it was US spending during WWII that brought us out of the great depression. This is not the case.
What brought us out of the great depression was the fact that startingin 1938 US industry cornered the market on virtually EVERYTHING for the allies. We in essence sold tanks, trucks, wheat, oil, even milk overseas to other countries who could not produce enough. Often these pruchases were made on credit and never paid back, but most were.
THAT is what brought us out of the depression.
From the sublime to the ridiculous.
Submitted by Bourbeau on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:39pm.
Here's a flash for Jim Avila and his inciteful idea. Okay, you have your infrastructure play; lets go along with it - we'll do it. Just a couple of questions. First and foremost, whose going to be the workers and where are they coming from, and I mean the real trained workers to do the projects? Second, what projects are you talking about? Way back when, there were no roads and bridges where the investment was planned; there were no EPA and State authorities dictating how every piece of plan needs to be done, approved, and by whom? And Thirdly Jim, do you remember the infamous quote of just a few weeks ago: "I guess shovel ready wasn't as shovel ready as we thought? Do you know said that and why that was the case Jim? Very simple, just read one and two above - the President's idea that there are these huge projects just hammering to be done, is a smoke screen. Sure, is there a school in Mudsville, USA to be built? Absolutely; but what's the lead time? Probably 24 months - that's 2013 Jim. Multiply that across the country and your massive infrastructure plan will be on desks for two to five years before a stone is turned over. Not to mention, we've become a society adverse to labor intensive jobs; we'd be hiring foreign workers to do the heavy lifting, just like the The problem with todays media is that they see themselves as part of the solution. When in truth, they're part of the problem; downplaying the complexity of the crisis at hand, and thinking they have the solution in a 40 minute story no body watched.
So what was the definition of insanity?
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 12:48pm.
I think it's something like "Doing the same thing again but expecting a different outcome".
ABC News: Obama's Ministry of Enlightenment
Submitted by Scottyb4292 on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 1:00pm.
ABC News is America's own Al Jazeera television station. It's sad that there are Americans who actually go there to get news and facts and competent reporting. It's nothing more than a Democratic Party propaganda outlet. George Stephanopolous is Goebbels.
Almost
Submitted by jon_torlin on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 1:42pm.
Not quite, but that honor really belongs to any news channel that has a full time Muslim commentator, like bashir and zakaria. Or their sympathizers.
You know, the ones that tell us that we're ignorant, that the Constitution is outdated, basically anti-American sentiments.
-Jon
If we got rid of the...
Submitted by Rackie on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 1:13pm.
umteen thousand gov'mt regulators, the eco-terrorists, the aclu, the splc, the unions, the cbc, etc. the private sector would build those projects and have money left over.
Seriously, schools are becoming "holy sites". They haven't changed in 100 years. That's the problem. Bigger more elaborate schools are not the solution. That's like Henry Ford trying to figure out how to breed bigger, faster horses. We need to drive a stake through the heart of the teachers unions or we'll just get dumber. But maybe that's the goal. Fat, dumb and compliant.
Schools around here in
Submitted by BD on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 10:14am.
Schools around here in Southern Arizona are palaces. Instruction in them sucks.
Ummm......
Submitted by Hoosier Conservative on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 1:30pm.
WW2 was a state of total war that affected nearly every country on the planet. how are we supposed to fund anything that massive without starting another world war????
Avila can go straight to hell
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 2:56pm.
Avila can go straight to hell for all I care.
Obama should've use that in 2008
Submitted by Galvanic on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 3:57pm.
". . . and let me close by promising that when I am President, I will launch an economic stimulus as big as the one that was lunched in World War Two."
Think he would've gotten elected?
Yes.
Submitted by jon_torlin on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 5:06pm.
I hate to say it, but yes. Here's the reason why: If people knew their history, he wouldn't have gotten elected. Those same people would probably ......closer to definitely actually, not know their history of FDR just like they didn't know their history of how socialism/communism reared its ugly head during that time or Soetoro's statement of re-distribution of wealth with Joe the Plumber which many of us picked up on.
It's just that simple, if people knew their history, we wouldn't be where we are today. Instead, we are repeating it.
That's why my answer to your question is "yes."
-Jon
Well
Submitted by JustAl on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 7:12pm.
I wonder where we're going to park all of those bombers, tanks and howitzers? Do we have space in our harbors for that many new warships? Do these morons really think the surge in the US economy during WWII was some sort of "stimulus" program? It's called, "massive arms build up." So, what the hell, let's get 'er done. And while we're at it let's replace all those short range M4's with actual 7.62 battle rifles.
Journalists should dictate
Submitted by rbosque on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 4:58pm.
Journalists shouldn't dictate economic policy and I promise that I as an economist won't try to be a journalist.
And where did Jim Avila spend
Submitted by StreetDoc67 on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 5:23pm.
And where did Jim Avila spend most of his career before going national?
Chicago of course!
$Money$
Submitted by xraynova on Sat, 09/03/2011 - 7:51pm.
AVILA: "A $200 billion a year investment would produce two million jobs and lower unemployment by a point.”
Hmmm... $200B divided by 2M gives $100,000 per job.
Let's see... can I fly to Mexico, walk across the border, declare myself homeless and unemployed ?
"Free food stamps, free health care, and a hundred grand job to boot !! Damn.. I love this country !!
By the way, when those $100K stimulus jobs digging ditches, building bridges, etc are over, and the workers are again un-employed, you can expect the master of obanomics to require another Stimulus Package to help the unions.... err... the economy.
If by chance, half of those jobs require some level of skill, then there might be only 1 million filled instead of 2 million jobs available. That makes each job worth $200,000 per year. And if... etc...
So what we need
Submitted by Woodrowski on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 6:40am.
Is to get into another war? I thought we were already in 3. So if we get into another war it will turn the economy around. For those moron Libs who want us to believe FDR got us out of the depression with all his new deal crap are just trying to rewrite history. What got us out of the depression WAS WWII. So in a way FDR did get us out of the depression. So far these 3 wars we're in now aren't helping the economy one bit. Although we still could convert some of the closed GM plants to Bomb factories and build Daisy cutters and MOABs to finish the job in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Operation Linebacker III. Wouldn't it be glorious to see the sky filled with B52s dropping their loads on all those friendly Afgans and Pasistanis.
A Pessimistic Outlook
Submitted by IrateNate on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 6:55pm.
"A $10,000 tax incentive on each new worker is projected to mean six million jobs."
This is what we can expect from Obama's Really Big Speech next Thursday. It shows a complete lack of comprehension as to the true nature of our problem.
First, the American economy is experiencing a shift away from manufacturing. We cannot compete with counties who make a good or even better product at a third of the cost. Much blame is put upon politicians, but you can also thank our wonderful labor unions for this situation.
Second, if a company is growing and has a need to expand, it already has money. And if a company cannot sell its product, why on earth do these idiots believe a tax credit or a government bribe would influence them to produce more of the things it already cannot sell?
There is no easy fix, no tax credit, no loophole that the government can use to "save or create" private sector jobs - period. Deficit spending by our government cannot create demand - only debt. Were it possible to borrow and spend our way out of debt, we would have been back in the black halfway through the Bush administration.
Sorry, but the market needs to find it's own equilibrium, and these knuckleheads in Washington and at the Fed need to stop lying to America. They need to stop pretending that they can pull this lever, adjust that interest rate, turn that knob, add a hand full of cash here, and suddenly millions of new jobs will just appear our of thin air.