A Simple Plan To Fix The Jobs Emergency -- And The Economy, too

By Dave Johnson

Created 06/05/2011 - 1:11pm

We have a jobs emergency. We have a stagnant economy. We are falling behind in economic competitiveness. We have developed a terrible concentration of income and wealth. We can address all of these at once.

Robert Kuttner, writing in The Economic Relapse [1] at the American Prospect,

For starters, we need a large-scale program of public investment to improve our infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers puts the basic price tag for deferred maintenance at $2.2 trillion. That refers to collapsing water and sewer systems, roads, bridges, public buildings -- it doesn't even include 21st century infrastructure like smart-grid power systems, green energy, universal broadband and green energy.

But beside providing for basic maintenance needs, what the economy needs to fully recover is a massive -- and I mean massive -- infrastructure and jobs program financed by surtaxes on wealthy individuals and on windfall financial-sector profits, including taxes on profits from short-term financial trades. We could also get upwards of $200 billion a year from tax enforcement, mainly on trans-national evasion used by America's wealthiest. Some of the funds for this program could also come from winding down the gratuitous wars we're currently engaged in. And some could even come from a modest increase in short-term deficits.