No massive WPA-like jobs programs,...

[SHRED]

...no public option,extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, filling the Cabinet with Wall St'ers, compromising as a first choice, escalation of Afghanistan debacle, starting a fight in Libya, Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid laid out on the table, and buying into the "trickle-down" cut government rhetoric.

You tell me...what is there to support?
:shrug:

[elocs]

1. You know, I actually expected when Obama took office that he would propose WPA type programs,

something to quickly put millions of Americans back to work. Instead the money went to banks and big business.

[SHRED]

2. and crafting a corporate friendly "health" bill

[BNJMN]

14. Behind closed doors, despite campaign promise to round table it with the insurance big wigs. Yep.

But you know, Hobson's Choice, blah blah blah...sometimes I do wonder though...
Then I look at Maine and Canada, and run back under the skirt of Big Mama DNC.

[EFerrari]

10. Because he said he would:

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-22/politics/obama.economy_1_job-creation-economic-recovery-plan-jobs-next-year?_s=PM:POLITICS

[Chimichurri]

3. Meet the new boss...same as the old boss. How different would a Romney presidency

be? Not much.

[SoCalDem]

4. Probably would not work that well now anyway.. think about it

WPA hired millions of men (mostly men worked back then), and sent them "out there" to build things.

These days, feasibility studies would have to be drawn, handicapped access rules would be in play, lawyers, architects, etc.. and what happens when these projects clashed with local workers who might have liked to have those jobs @ more pay..

we are now a consumer-economy...no longer a manufacturing economy.

What worked then will no longer work.

There ARE things that need doing, but there is no shortage of people to do them. The stumbling block is that most of these jobs/occupations are the purview of the PRIVATE corporate side of things these days,..

"Back in the day", infrastructure projects were OWNED by the communities/states/cities where they were built, so government work-projects were an in-house sort of thing.

Big corporations would LOVE to have "WPA" people being paid by government working for them for nothing (or next to nothing from them)., but then the local people who would have had a shot at those jobs would certainly have something to say about things.

The world that was, during the WPA era, no longer exists.

edited to add:

also, how does WPA help people like laid off teachers, cops, office workers etc? these people are used to specific jobs. WPA (old timey) jobs mostly were laborer. brawny jobs (I know that artists participated too, :)..) Shovel-ready coonstruction jobs won;t do much for a 55 yr old laid off IT guy or a teacher or a secretary

[Better Believe It]

5. They would be organized as direct government infrastructure/public works jobs.

But this administration is opposed to spending money for such projects.

[PSPS]

6. I don't agree

The only WPA projects "out there" were like the Hoover Dam, where an adjoining city (Boulder City) was built to house the imported workers and, sometimes, their families.

Today, there are plenty of infrastructure projects that should be done in such a program and, of course, they would hire local labor to do the work. And such projects are still the purview of the government -- highways, schools, bridges, waterworks, etc. And even if some of the work is contracted out to private companies (it was in the WPA too,) then they would do the hiring.

In short, there is no reason that a WPA-style jobs program would not work just fine today. The only real impediment is that the top 1% has "captured" the entirety of the government.

[SoCalDem]

7. you are assuming that there would be no push-back from companies

who are right now bidding on road projects etc, and have employees who need to keep their jobs too?

The (old) WPA came along at a time when many places all over the country were still quite rural and or backwards. Many people did not even have a phone or indoor toilet or electricity back then.

We have evolved a LOT since then, and worker competition for the scarce jobs is a problem we have now. The companies who do the sorts of things a WPA would address, are already in place and could beef up their workforce at the drop of a hat..if they wanted to or their financial advisors told them there was money to be made in it.

The value of the available jobs is the issue here.. Most jobs are pretty automated these days, and most do not require much brawn. Many don't require much "brain: either, so with a bazillion "qualified" people "out there" willing to work at almost any job, it;s only the proce of their labor, and how low they are willing to go, that is the defining issue.

[PufPuf23]

8. You are wrong in your assumptions..

For example: The TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) required engineers, managers, and scientists as well as laborers.

Under Nixon, CETA that was direct federal, state, and local hiring of workers to stimulate the economy was a successful program that required managers as well as laborers and led to careers in the public and private sector.

I was hired myself age 16 1969 under YOC and worked 16 years for the Feds before 9 years in corporate, four years in academics, and then entrepreneur.

My Dad went to 8th grade. I have a BS and MBA from Cal and am a PhD dropout when I was employed as a university lecturer/RA and left because of my family to return my home State in my late 40s. I have testified before Congress committees as a consultant to my home State and and more local agencies.

My BIL was a initially a CETA employee under Nixon and ended up being Chief of Police of the 2nd largest city in my home county for 30 years.

Use your imagination. I can. I see all sorts of local niche demand and resources and people but just not the system to foster startup and continuity.

etc etc etc You are wrong but so are the Neoliberals and GOP and I am ashamed for my own hopelessness.

[SoCalDem]

11. as a broad "solution" for MASSES of people it will not work

for SOME people in SOME cases (mirror-you) things always "work" to some degree, but on a large enough scale to make a difference in the current economy, I am pessimistic.

What WOULD have worked would have been a debt-forgiveness/mortgage adjustment plan for people under a specified adjusted gross income, and perhaps a cash grant to others of lower incomes.

Like it or not, we have put ourselves smackdab in the middle of a service(lowering wages) economy with devaluation of wages on a massive scale.

Unionbusting + wacky corporate giveaways + even crazier foreign trade policies have led us all to a pretty bad place.

[PufPuf23]

12. We agree in part and the sum is greater than our parts.

You are correct and a plus here:

"What WOULD have worked would have been a debt-forgiveness/mortgage adjustment plan for people under a specified adjusted gross income, and perhaps a cash grant to others of lower incomes."

Pump $ into the bottom of the economy for an upwards multipier and mark to market over valued assets for homeowners and small business. The same $ under TARP would have best used to trickle upward and a haircut to the financial intitutions that screwed up would have been more effecive, fair, and realistic.

Another important aspect is to get fair trade instead of extremely inefficient and non-sustainable in aggregate free trade agreements. Make more domestic high quality consumer goods. Have tax and other policy that leads to investment rather than salvage infrastructure or jobs for export.

Globalism just like neoliberal economic policy is fately flawed because of the emphasis on short term cash flow over value and sustainability. Ecology, while aggregate, is local and economics is foolish to be viewed as no more than a subset of ecology.

I bet I could come up within a day of a feasible plan for 4 million productive and reasonable jobs in the next two years.

However, likely not politically viable as we are so often reminded at DU. Alas.

The neoliberals and GOP are too bound by ideology, empire, class, race, greed, tribalism, sexism, religion, and the like. Again alas.

[SoCalDem]

13. Even our solution fails longterm, since the money into the hands of the "lowers"

only ends up in the bank accounts of the golbalists, whose foreign slaves still make the stuff we bought, and continue to buy..

it's a cruel vortex we are in:(

[PufPuf23]

15. Thats why fair trade versus free trade.

Americans can still make higher quality products domestically in many sectors and regions worth higher wages and higher prices but cannot because of flawed free trade (that is dependent on fossil fuels for transportation) and financial, distribution, marketing, etc. structures that favor volume over niche and value and local ecology for short term return. This feed into the quite similar neoconservative and neoliberal economic and foreign policies.

We are in a cruel downward spiral. Much could be fixed by a balanced domestic spiral up and down but institutions and special interests have bought and corrupted the system of economic justice and freedom. I am not that optimistic for my remaining lifetime.

Alas again. I waver from anger to despair to escapism.

[mzmolly]

9. Tax cuts end in 2013. The public option is available at the state level.

Afghanistan was always a stated priority of the President. He said so when he ran for office. SS/Medicare and Medicaid were on what "table" and, according to whom? Obama also said he would tackle the deficit.

Support a Democratic House and Senate so that Obama doesn't have to compromise with the devil going forward.