--July 25, 2012--
Ask Jackie is a series of highlights from Congresswoman Jackie Speier's telephone town halls. Town halls are opportunities for constituents of California's 12th Congressional District to keep in touch with Jackie and ask her any question or raise any concern.
TRANSCRIPT:
Would it be practical in today’s environment for the formation of a WPA-style organization that would promote infrastructure improvements and repairs.
Congresswoman Speier:
I have been promoting that concept for years now. You know when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President, he became President in March, and then the first three months of his tenure as president he created, I believe, three million jobs. He created them by creating the WPA, the CCC, the Tennessee Valley Authority. We have been trying for easily two years now to try and develop more infrastructure work so that we could do a similar program for people who are unemployed in many job categories. We need bridges to be built that are in poor shape, we have roads that need to be resurfaced, there is much work to be done. Now we did if you recall have that stimulus right after the crash, which went for infrastructure projects in communities – so, construction projects at schools, local public works departments. There is some talk by Chairman Bernanke of the Fed of encouraging a second stimulus to get the economy rolling again. The other thing we are starting to focus on is creating incentives for companies that have off-shored their jobs to bring their jobs back home because a lot of the studies that have been done very recently have shown that it is not as attractive to off-shore jobs as it once was. It actually makes more sense to do the manufacturing here in the US so I’m hoping that all of us will take the time to look at labels and do our very best to buy American because when we do we give our next-door neighbor a better chance of getting a job or keeping a job.
I have been promoting that concept for years now. You know when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President, he became President in March, and then the first three months of his tenure as president he created, I believe, three million jobs. He created them by creating the WPA, the CCC, the Tennessee Valley Authority. We have been trying for easily two years now to try and develop more infrastructure work so that we could do a similar program for people who are unemployed in many job categories. We need bridges to be built that are in poor shape, we have roads that need to be resurfaced, there is much work to be done. Now we did if you recall have that stimulus right after the crash, which went for infrastructure projects in communities – so, construction projects at schools, local public works departments. There is some talk by Chairman Bernanke of the Fed of encouraging a second stimulus to get the economy rolling again. The other thing we are starting to focus on is creating incentives for companies that have off-shored their jobs to bring their jobs back home because a lot of the studies that have been done very recently have shown that it is not as attractive to off-shore jobs as it once was. It actually makes more sense to do the manufacturing here in the US so I’m hoping that all of us will take the time to look at labels and do our very best to buy American because when we do we give our next-door neighbor a better chance of getting a job or keeping a job.
"Ask Jackie: Could we form a WPA-style organization to promote infrastructure improvements?" by RepSpeier is licensed under a Creative Commons License
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