Posted on 11/15/2018 5:24:18 AM PST by reaganaut1
Forget for a moment about “Medicare for All.” A proposal is gaining steam on the left that would overhaul the U.S. economy in a far more radical way. Known as a federal job guarantee, the plan would require the government to provide work on demand to any American at a minimum of about $12 an hour plus full benefits.
Three senators and rumored 2020 presidential candidates, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders, have publicly supported the idea. Their visions for the program vary, but the fundamentals of a job guarantee were fleshed out most fully in a proposal released in March by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. I sized up that plan in a critical study last month, which had two major findings: The sky-high cost alone makes the job guarantee a bad idea, and the changes it would force on the labor market are an even greater danger.
The plan’s authors estimate an annual price tag of about $543 billion. Defense is the only discretionary federal expense comparable in size, at about $639 billion last year. Some funding for the job program would be offset by cuts to other government programs. But there’s good reason to believe the authors significantly underestimate the number of participants it would draw, a major component of its cost.
The proposal estimates that about 11 million people would opt into the job guarantee. That would already be several times as large as the world’s next largest employers, such as Walmart and the U.S. and Chinese militaries. But it could get a lot bigger. The authors assume virtually nobody currently employed would leave his job and join the program. That seems unlikely, given that 41 million workers currently earn less than the program’s $11.83 minimum wage.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”
Welfare by another name.
“Jobs guarantee” is just another way of saying that the government will be the sole employer, as is the case under communism, which is the end goal, without its name ever being pronounced.
Hmmm... I wonder if you have to show up for work? If “yes”, how often? And for how long?
Not only that, but a centralized way to ensure 11 million or more people will vote to keep such programs alive...in perpetuity. Talk about an indoctrination camp.
We tried this in the 30s with the New Deal. It didn’t work then and won’t work now.
I seem to remember the Soviets and Chicoms had/have a similar ‘guarantee’.
‘Course, the jobs often amounted to little more than slavery, but what’s a little semantic quibble amongst totalitarian overlords, ehh ?
I guess they think they can just print the money to give away.
What a bunch of mental midgets.
Gee, maybe this time it will work because the "right people" are there to implement it......
What a load of horses**t.
If work fare completely replaced welfare it would be a big improvement.
But it won’t and it wont be.
I nominate Mr. Madoff to head up this program......
That's a heck of a lot of money to pay some body to pick cotton.... Communism really sucks, yes..? :)
Since leftards are considering absurd fantasies,if everyone did their job more slowly and less efficiently wherever possible, so that output per worker is less, then private companies could get more work done and more output by hiring more people. To make it affordable, the government could create money out of thin air and give it to the businesses.
I love this idea! At 62-1/4 I’m showing up for my guaranteed Federal job so I can retire with full Federal benefits at 62-1/2. Awesome!
Jobs guarantee is slavery. Or socialism. Whatever you want to call it.
Folks pretend to work as the govt pretends to pay them.
You seem to have a full understanding of leftist thought processes, you could probably win the Dem nomination for president if you tried. Can you manage not to laugh out loud when you say those things though?
I would like to read your version of a speech to be delivered by Alexandra Occasional Cortex or whatever her name is.
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