[matt_wulfeck]

> During the recession, the stimulus bill authorized $1.3 billion for subsidized employment programs in 39 states.

I'm reminded about how much we've wasted bombing and rebuilding the infrastructure in foreign lands. Think of what we could have built if we invested the deficit here.

> Subsidized employment programs “really help get money into the pockets of some of the hardest-hit families,”

It gets tricky here because even most liberal or conservative ideologies agree that working is good, and government-created demand for work is fine. It gets hairy when we start to spitball exactly how that demand should come.

What may work for both sides? Find out how to create the most demand with the least amount of long-term dependance. Let's start talking about avoiding the second part while encouraging the first.

[minikites]

The right certainly demonizes those who don't/can't work more than the left so I'm not sure your equivalency tells the whole story.

Also, working is good now but what happens when jobs become increasingly automated? I don't think it's too far fetched to predict that automation could take the place of most of the jobs on this chart: http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2014/occupations/images/chart_0... in the next 50-150 years. What happens to our opinion of work when many people can't work?

[justinlardinois]

> The right certainly demonizes those who don't/can't work more than the left so I'm not sure your equivalency tells the whole story.

Well yes, but how is that relevant to what he said: "even most liberal or conservative ideologies agree that working is good"?

The point was that work and willingness to work are almost universally seen as good in American politics.

[minikites]

Like I said, it puts them on the same level which doesn't tell the whole story. Right and left agree that working is good, but if you can't/don't work, one side will hold you up as an example of a moral failing of character to be stigmatized and one side won't.