"Green Grow the Lilacs" - The Works Projects Administration

On Friday, the Majority Report played an excerpt of Mike Stark's phone call to Rush Limbaugh's show where he asks Rush how he can defend Republican fiscal policy of cutting taxes.

Among other things, Limbaugh insisted that the government can't create jobs, and he said it like it was a monumental truth that had been discussed and proven true and only a fool could believe otherwise.

Which is patently insane. Not only can the government create jobs, the government does create jobs. In the 30s, during the Great Depression, The Works Projects Administration was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration and employed millions of Americans. Americans built roads and bridges, theaters, parks, and electrical infrastructure, firehouses and airports. Women with families were employed to sew sheets for hospitals and clothing for orphanages; artists, musicians, and writers produced murals and guidebooks, symphonies and plays, sculptures and paintings. Other public works projects were in sanitation, agriculture, and conservation.  Beneficiaries included men, women, African Americans and teenagers. It was a tremendous success and Republicans hated it as they do everything that lifts the status of everyday Americans.

"Almost every community in American has a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency." -- 


How can the government create jobs? By employing people to build roads and a bridges, to renovate existing roads and bridges and public buildings (which we sorely need). It can invest in new business, in ideas that are good but not yet profitable, like green technology or new sources of energy. It can invest in existing businesses that want to extend in other areas, like robots or artificial intelligence. It can fund the arts. It can build more schools and community health clinics. It can invest in rural infrastructure -  electricity, telephone lines, cable and Wi-Fi (yes, there are still places in the United States that don't have reliable electricity, telephone service, cable or the internet). There are a million ways the United States government can create jobs. And it is the only institution in this country that would create jobs without a promise of profit or tax breaks.

Or it can create an entire new agency. The Department of Homeland Security was created during the Bush Administration and at the time cost 8 billion dollars. It costs a lot more now.