About the new WPA, what about some SOCIAL projects?

[Jackpine Radical]

One of the major problems with the programs so far announced is that they tend to be male-heavy, concrete-pouring jobs.

What about fully staffing preschool and early grade school programs with teacher aides, etc.?
What about outreach programs to help single moms raise healthier kids?
Fully staffing nursing homes with aides?
Providing counseling and psychotherapy programs for jail inmates to give them the mental stability they need to live productive lives?
Expanding and staffing homeless shelters, community kitchens, "thrift" clothing shops, etc.?
Funding adequate daycare so single parents can get educations & hold jobs?
Setting up micro-loan programs to help poor people get on their feet (perhaps after drug/alcohol treatment)?
Providing in-home care to elderly and disabled people?

The human needs in this country are tremendous. Right now is the best opportunity we will see in our lifetimes to start taking care of them.

[nosillies]

1. AMEN n/t

[csziggy]

2. Today on NPR they were talking about an Artists Corp for schools

But that is a little superficial - adding more personnel in schools (no matter what the title for the positions) would be a big step. All the rest of your suggestions are great. Are those things that Job Corps do already, maybe?

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I don't care what mechanism they use; obviously not enough is being done.

[csziggy]

6. Well, we know the guys currently pretending to run things don't care about social programs

So we're just going to have to wait until January 20, 2009 to see what President Obama will do. I sincerely expect and hope that he will do a much better job of getting Americans to actively help each other.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. I'm just trying to float a few ideas around,

get people thinking outside the concrete box as it were...

[csziggy]

9. Your ideas are good - I was just trying to say that Obama seems to have

Some ideas of how to start in with social programs. I think the infrastructure improvements will get moving faster, though and that is what is needed immediately. The social program improvements you listed are great and are greatly needed as soon as possible, but will take more convincing and are more complicated to implement.

[madrchsod]

4. yes-immediate impact on the economy

[economicgeography]

5. re:

For what it's worth, one constraint of fiscal policy is its time lag.

I think the effects would be more immediate if aggregate demand for service-market jobs (like teaching, nursing home aides, etc.) as compared to manufacturing jobs (due to lags for capital formation, impact, etc.)

But service-sector jobs don't seem very popular on here so I don't know what your opinions are.

[Pab Sungenis]

8. How about reviving the Federal Writers Project?

And the other parts of Federal One: The Art, Theater, Music, and Historical programs?

[CreekDog]

10. The Construction industry which fuels much of the economy through well paying jobs

is suffering like probably no other industry.

Also Obama is favoring "shovel ready" programs for the stimulus, programs already in place to build infrastructure because that is the quickest way to create jobs and build infrastructure. For instance, building water treatment plants through an existing program EPA runs and funding road and highway projects through the Department of Transportation are examples of existing programs that money can be put into and work started more quickly than dreaming up a new idea and pouring money into that.

Further, construction jobs stimulate multiple other jobs in the short term.

Obama's doing the right thing, has more ideas beyond this short term stimulus, but the point of the short term stimulus is quick action, big scale and rebuilding infrastructure in the process of creating jobs.

Obama's got this exactly right.