GUEST EDITORIAL

Jobs agenda, anyone?

8/16/2011

In what can only be described as a triumph of bad policy and craven politics, Congress and the Obama Administration have spent the year focused on budget cuts, as the economy has faltered and unemployment has worsened.

Official unemployment is 9.1 percent, but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work. For the past 2 1/2 years, there have been more than four unemployed workers for every job opening -- a record high. In a healthy market, the ratio would be about 1:1.

By a large margin, Americans have told pollsters that job creation is more important than budget cuts. Yet Republican leaders are wedded to austerity and appear to think that high unemployment will hurt President Obama politically more than it will hurt them. So they will likely resist efforts to create jobs, no matter how great the need.

Without more jobs, both the economy and the budget will deteriorate further. It is past time for Mr. Obama to send a jobs plan to Congress that has popular appeal, one that he can use to try to shame Republicans. He will need cooperation from the Senate, which should bring one jobs-related bill after another to the floor, forcing its members to approve jobs initiatives or go on record to show that they just don't care.

Mr. Obama has begun to talk more about jobs, but his agenda is thin. Its main components -- extending federal unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut beyond their expiration at the end of this year -- are vitally important, but their extension will only maintain the status quo.

The President's idea for an infrastructure bank to finance large-scale building projects is also good, but would take time and not address the immediate need for jobs. Ditto his push for patent reform and trade agreements.

Other ideas are worth fighting for. Public school buildings in the United States are on average more than 40 years old and need an estimated $500 billion in repairs and upgrades. A House proposal to be introduced this fall would create a $50 billion school renovation program.

It would employ 500,000 workers (1.5 million construction workers are unemployed) and could be easily scaled up. The money could be disbursed through existing federal formulas to all 16,000 public school districts. The initial cost could be largely offset over 10 years by ending tax breaks for fossil fuels, as called for in Mr. Obama's 2012 budget.

Other provisions in the bill could employ 1 million young people for projects in federal parks, at community centers, and on college campuses, as well as 350,000 laid-off teachers, police officers, firefighters, and health-care providers.

Washington, in thrall to austerity, has abandoned one of the most immediate and powerful tools for supporting growth and jobs: borrowing at today's low rates to provide direct fiscal aid to states. But Mr. Obama should make the case for targeted new jobs today, to be paid for over time by closing tax loopholes.

Republicans are sure to howl that new programs will undo the debt-ceiling deal. But it is surely possible over a 10-year period to tackle near-term action on jobs and long-term action on deficit reduction. The alternative is even slower growth and higher unemployment.