“Here’s a Rooseveltian way to address unemployment now at 1930s levels: Let’s create a National Infrastructure Corps to make urgently-needed repairs to roads and bridges, and put to work the disproportionately blue-collar army of unemployed,” writes David Goldman — perhaps unexpectedly to some — in The Publicly Employed and the Under-Employed , today’s second “On the Square” feature. This proposal would have the added benefit, he writes, of challenging those who’ve benefitted from public spending:
Of course, the Democrats will never propose something like this, because the purpose of the Obama administration’s deficit is to keep public employee unions happy, along with their overly generous and underfunded pension plans. Most of the $700 billion “stimulus” plan simply bailed out state and local governments. Unionized labor building public infrastructure earns well over $40 an hour, and doesn’t want competition from the modern version of a Civilian Conservation Corps.
Competition, he argues, would be good for them and better for the country.
