Lautenberg Introduces 21st Century WPA Job Creation Legislation (September)

[ProSense]

Lautenberg Introduces 21st Century WPA Job Creation Legislation

Job Creation Must be Top Priority for Economic Recovery

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced legislation to establish a national job creation program modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s highly successful Works Progress Administration (WPA). Lautenberg’s bill would create a 21st century WPA to train and hire unemployed Americans to build infrastructure and enhance public safety throughout the country.

“Our economy will not recover and our nation will not move forward until we put jobs first. Establishing a 21st Century Works Progress Administration would immediately put Americans to work rebuilding our nation and strengthening our communities,” Lautenberg said. “Across the country, we continue to benefit from projects completed under President Roosevelt’s WPA, which employed more than three million Americans during a time of great need. A 21st Century WPA would tackle our nation’s job crisis head-on and accelerate our economic recovery.”

Lautenberg’s “21st Century WPA Act” would:

• award funding to economically-beneficial job creation project proposals;
  
• provide businesses unable to locate a worker with suitable skills with a WPA fellow, who would receive on-the-job training from the business and be paid by the WPA;
  
• provide funding to communities to improve public safety by hiring unemployed Americans as firefighters and police officers;
  
• be fully paid for through a surtax on income exceeding $1 million ($2 million for joint filers); and
  •
• provide $250 billion for job creation over the next two years and reduce the deficit by approximately $133 billion over 10 years.

Projects awarded funding by the 21st Century WPA would have to generate a high number of jobs per dollar of total cost, contribute to economic growth after completion, and rapidly recruit needed workers from among the ranks of the unemployed. Examples of programs that could be funded by the WPA include residential and commercial building weatherization; transportation infrastructure repair and maintenance; school, library and firehouse construction; and National Park and trail maintenance. In order to be eligible to participate, an individual would have to be unemployed for at least 60 days.

U.S. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are original co-sponsors of the bill.

A copy of the legislation can be found here.

This certainly didn't get a lot of press.

At minimum, Congress should pass the President's bill in its entirety. The legislation above would build upon the President's proposal.

[Old Codger]

1. Nope

Ain't gonna happen, they will finish destroying our economy/country in order to defeat anything that would make Obama look like he was doing a good job... The rethug attitude is Iv;e got mine f##k you.(on edit) even the ones that don't have anything are brainwashed into that mindset.

[karynnj]

2. This makes me incredibly proud of my Senior Senator

One of the two times I have seen him speak to a group, he spoke of what issues got him into politics. It was at a picnic for Morris County Democrats in fall 2006. One couple speaking to him mentioned that their grandparents came from the same area of Patterson that his family did. As more people moved to hear, he spoke of his father and other relatives coming their as immigrants to work in the Patterson silk mills that existed then. He told of how his father described the air in the factory as loaded with fibers visible to the naked eye. Most people who worked their, including his dad, died young.

His father encouraged him to study as a child and wanted him to have the education to avoid ever having to work there. Lautenberg served in WWII, went to college on the GI bill and had a successful career culminating in being CEO of ADP, making him a multi millionaire when he sold the company and entered politics.

He spoke of how it was unions and the government that created the OSHA rules that make workplaces safer.

I am not surprised that a liberal Senator, especially of his generation, would write this type of legislation. I don't think it could pass - any more than Sanders' single payer bill could, but it is important that bills like this be written and set as the mark that should be made - even knowing that it will fail.

[limpyhobbler]

3. Petition to revive WPA to create jobs

Sign this petition to the government to revive the WPA .

At least get them to start talking about it.

There is a petition on the Whitehouse petition site.
shortlink - http://wh.gov/jja

long link - https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/crea...

If a petition on there gets 25 thousand signatures in 30 days, the Whitehouse will have to respond.