Can government create jobs?

The conservatives on the radio say no and evidently a lot of people believe them. Reality is a lot different. 'Government' as such doesn't build factories and it doesn't deal in production and distribution, but it has a profound effect in job creation by stimulating demand for private industry to produce and distribute, and that production and distribution entails the need for workers. The National Defense Highway System under Eisenhower is my favorite example. Taxes were collected, mostly gas taxes, but there were other taxes as well. Private firms were hired and cash money was distributed. The Army Corp of Engineers drew up specifics. Private contractors went to work moving dirt. Tens of thousands of people were hired. Every tax dollar 'spent' was re-spent at least seven times. People miles removed from actual road construction were employed to keep track of materials. Lawyers, bankers, stock brokers and accountants went to work. Factories built heavy equipment....sub contractors, 'small business', were hired by 'big business'. Concrete was produced and shipped via newly invigorated trucking companies. Rail cars were built and manned. New trucks were ordered. Workers bought work clothes and steel toed shoes. Steel produced and delivered. Electrical equipment was manufactured and installed. Trash was hauled. Rivers were bridged. Towns sprang up. Business opened. All of the tax money that began this chain of events became salaries, savings, profits, investment capital and finally taxes. Anyone who says this didn't happen exactly that way is kidding you. Government takes little bits of cash, consolidates it into a massive pile of cash and transforms that into a power house economic activity. 'Government' ordered a massive number of computers right out of the gate...that industry is still with us because of this economic kick in the pants. Consolidating cash and spending it. Pretty much that's all government does, but it's a major part of the economy. Government money...the bits and pieces of dollars and cents that we call taxes gets spent, but it doesn't vanish into thin air, though without this influx of capital except for local economies the overall economy would disappear. The Space Program.....still going, though now as much private industry and money as government input. Even Homeland Security as redundant as it is spends billions buying, from private contractors...and ALL of that money gets re-spent time after time. 'Government workers', currently shat on by the right wing commentators spend their paychecks on the local economy. Currently we need more government spending...a massive 'Stimulus'...such as building up a solar and wind economy and building up a 21st century high speed freight and passenger service....not to mention replacing much of our 50 to 100 year old infrastructure. Government tax money...private contractors. I'm sure some of the responders will totally misunderstand this....that's the power of bad information. Still....|||No, government doesn't create jobs. It merely seizes and redistributes private resources.





By your logic, we should bring back slavery because it would essentially eliminate African-American unemployment.|||Government creates expenditure of dollars. It is called Cost. In order to


sustain prolonged periods of Cost. You need Profit to take over the


driving mechanism. Without Profit, I don't care who is creating dollars


eventually that service or function will cease to exist, There is more to


economy then just creating dollars.|||Infrastructure Spending Stimulates the Entire Economy


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article鈥?/a>|||Yes, by opening contracts for infrastructure, increasing emergency services branches, drafting armed services and training and employing government health care workers.|||During the Eisenhower Administration there was a lot less corruption than now. Everywhere I drive there is road construction. Seems like every freeway is torn up being reconstructed. Your tax dollars at work. How's the economy doing? The problem with your theory is that while infrastructure is necessary, it doesn't actually produce anything.





Farmers produce food. Miners produce metal. Ranchers produce food and leather. Geeks produce intellectual property. Government produces nothing. Every dollar government sucks out of the economy is one dollar less that the private sector has to work with.





Let's take the example of credit, upon which our monetary system and entire economy is based. With the Federal government sucking up nearly all available credit, there is not much left for the private sector. It's like the gov is sucking up all the air in the room.





If I didn't have to send the various governments thousands of dollars each year, those dollars would have gone into the real economy, where as you point out, they would have been respent many times.





So where is the advantage of having government confiscate my money?|||One way the U.S. government could create a lot of jobs that can't be exported to other countries is to pass the Open Fuel Standard Act now in the House. It would make each car a platform upon which fuels could compete with each other. It wouldn't cost taxpayers a cent.





Right now most cars only burn one fuel: Petroleum. They can't burn anything else. So when OPEC limits its production to raise the world price of oil, we have no choice but to pay for it because we must drive and our cars only burn gas.





But the Open Fuel Standard Act would make it a law that all cars sold in the U.S. must be capable of burning ethanol and methanol as well as gasoline. This would open up the fuels market, generating lots of jobs making fuel. And then, instead of our money going to Saudi princes and helping them repress their people, that money would be going to Americans who are making more environmentally friendly fuel.





And as a bonus, because of the way normal business operates, American fuel-makers will get better at making the fuel, which will bring the price down, which will force oil companies to either lower their price or lose the business. Everyone wins.