[Callmenorm]

One part that seems weird is:

>If we truly want to help people who are coming out of prison or to keep people from going to prison, then we need a public-sector expansion with real jobs that pay a living wage, not the contingent kind that pay a minimum wage.

What kind of jobs would these be? Construction, administration, or what? It's not clear how the public sector creates hundreds of thousands of meaningful jobs. I don't count the TSA as meaningful, BTW.

[falcolas]

We have a lot of public infrastructure which needs love (i.e. construction); but of course the money to do this isn't there in the first place.

[jacobush]

No, that money is already spent bombing other peoples' infrastructure. And war on drugs. And F22s. Bank bailouts. Take your pick.

[virmundi]

I know we do, but most of it is transient. A road job constructing the expansion of I-69 north of Indianapolis takes 6 years. That's great. People can be employed 6 years on that job, maybe (seems to go in spurts, don't know if they get paid for the downtime). At the end of that 6 years, construction moves on. Money goes to another state, or another part of the state outside of a commute. What do you do then?

If properly constructed, that 6 year road project won't need more than minor maintenance for years. Sure 6-ish guys keep a job in the area, but the several hundred lose theirs. This pattern of popup work repeats across the country.

Federal expansion programs are not sustainable. They can help, but ultimately you need the private sector to create jobs by selling goods and services.

[falcolas]

I agree with every point. But while they are employed, they have money to spend both in the economy, and potentially to save for learning new skills.

It's not a cure in-and-of itself, but it is something which can help jumpstart everything else (and it frankly needs to be done regardless of the side benefits of providing employment).

[EdHominem]

> Federal expansion programs are not sustainable.

Is the federal government sustainable? How many employees is enough? Have we already passed that?

Would it be better if we privatized the road crews?

> [Programs] ... They can help, but ultimately you need the private sector to create jobs by selling goods and services.

Well, you do need to create value as opposed to just shuffling it around. But creating roads is enabling much of that private sector earning.

Couldn't we imagine this with a minimalist government and a network of private toll-roads that collected the same or greater "tax" on the local businesses? How does the private aspect help?

> At the end of that 6 years, construction moves on. Money goes to another state, or another part of the state outside of a commute. What do you do then?

I imagine they'd total up the road length across the state, divide by maximum lifespan, and hire enough people to fix every mile by the time it would fall apart.

Yes, in a big state you're unlikely to circulate the same people from corner to corner, but thankfully roads tend to be found in close proximity to people, so I imagine the road crews could all be kept busy (for the most part) around where they each live.

We already do this - my city employs full-time construction people forever. The only decision would be to hire more, and how many is too many.

But if we aren't fixing each bit of road by the time it falls apart (and we are not) then we know we don't have enough.

[funnyfacts365]

Of course the money isn't there, you guys spent it all on war during the last 3 decades. 14trillion dollars! Imperial trillions, of course, but even so... Let that number sink in.