The Legal Duty to Create Jobs -- Lost in the Debt Ceiling Debate

http://counterpunch.org/mirer08112011.html

The debate about the debt ceiling should have been a conversation about how to create jobs. It is time for progressives to remind the government that it has a legal duty to create jobs, and must act immediately – if not through Congress, then through the Federal Reserve.

With official unemployment reaching over 9%, the unofficial rate in double digits, and the unemployment rate for people of color more than double that of whites, it is nerve wracking to hear right wing political pundits say the government cannot create jobs. Do people really believe this canard? On "Real Time with Bill Maher" a few weeks ago, Chris Hayes of The Nation stated that the government should create and has in the past created jobs, but he was put down by that intellectual giant Ann Coulter who said, "but they (WPA jobs) were only temporary jobs." No one challenged her.

Most of the jobs created under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - and there were millions of them - lasted for many years, or until those employed found other gainful employment. They provided a high enough income to allow the worker's family to meet basic needs, and they created demand for goods in an economy that was suffering, like today's economy, from lack of demand. The WPA program succeeded in sustaining and creating many more jobs in the private sector due to the demand for goods that more people with incomes generated.

The most galling thing about pundits stating with such certainty that the government cannot create jobs is the implication that the government has no business employing people. In actuality, however, the law requires the government, in particular the President and the Federal Reserve, to create jobs. This legal duty comes from three sources: (1) full employment legislation including the Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978, (2) the 1977 Federal Reserve Act, and (3) the global consensus based on customary international law that all people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration to provide an adequate standard of living.

More at the link --

pissed mightily on these three niceties regarding employment that included two of our own laws and a global consensus: but such is what we got with virtually every right-wing law heretofore passed, i.e., pissed on mightily. :patriot:

considering it also requires:

1. No trade deficits
2. A balanced budget

The flaw of Humphrey–Hawkins is that it has possibly conflicting goals - some will argue that in fact Humphrey–Hawkins was passed to tone down the full employment emphasis of the 1946 legislation.

It is classic Keynesian economic theory - is that what you want to fully embrace?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey%E2%80%93Hawkins_Full_Employment_Act