Stimulate This!

Yesterday was president's big jobs summit and today comes with good news. Unemployment is down for the time being and it appears that there have been fewer lay-offs over the last month. The economy is moving again. Before we get out the confetti and noisemakers, remember that this is the time of year when a lot of people are hired for the holidays by companies like Amazon.com.

Why are we having a jobs summit now? Shouldn't we have had one ten months ago when Obama first took office? Better yet, why didn't the Bush administration show such interest in boosting the economy and helping American workers? The Republicans were in control of this country for almost a decade and didn't show a shred of interest in helping the American economy, and now here we are today with another Democratic president left to pick up the pieces of our shattered economy.

There is a solid blueprint available for putting Americans back to work and restoring this country to prosperity. In the 1930s the Roosevelt administration put thousands of people to work modernizing infrastructure around the country. Approximately 70 years later, much of that infrastructure remains unimproved and poorly maintained. A 21st century New Deal is necessary to not only restore Americans to the labor force, but also to restore our national pride.

As for unemployment posting its largest decline since the beginning of December, I think that's great. Obama and his economic team deserve all the credit for getting us out of the George W. Bush recession. But there is sparse evidence that the jobs we're adding right now are the kind that will stick around. And it is very cold outside.