December 4, 2009--Jobs Report From the Road

On the day of President Obama’s Jobs Summit, on route to Florida, meandering a bit, we drove from Abingdon, Virginia to Warm Springs, Georgia. The day before we had driven from Reston, Virginia, and the day prior to that to Reston from New York City. About 1,000 in all and most of it on interstates—I-95, I-85, I-81, I-75, and I-40. A bit boring but since the weather was overcast and rainy we stayed off the blue highways.

To help keep us alert while listening in on the Summit via CNN radio, in addition to counting license plates from as many states as possible, we kept a running count of the number or men and women working on highway projects that might have been funded by the stimulus package passed last winter by Congress and signed into law with much fanfare by the president. Thinking, since we at the time heard about the many shovel-ready projects around the country that were just waiting for funding so that contractors could hire workers and put a small army of them to work, thinking that we would see a lot of action, especially near Baltimore and Atlanta where massive projects appear to be under way, keeping count of those hard at work would keep us quite busy.

Distressing to say, after these thousand or so miles and having passed through at least half a dozen major job sites, we still have not in total counted 100 workers. True, we may have passed by while the men were on a break or using the Port-O-Sans, but this lack of visible evidence of taxpayer dollars at work is pathetic. We should have seen thousands toiling. No wonder the public is furious with governments—local as well as federal.

During the last economic cataclysm, the Depression, via the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA, millions were put back to work and some of our most remarkable public works were completed. The massive Hover Dam, for example, employed thousands and was completed two years ahead of schedule in 1936. The magnificent Blue Ridge Parkway, which we drove on a couple of days ago, was a CCC project. And in the private sector, the elegant Empire State Building was designed and completed in 1931 by 3,400 workers in only 18 months.

So what’s going on now?

Ask Joe Biden. He was put in charge of overseeing the implementation of the stimulus bill. One project of which is along I-95 in his home state of Delaware. We saw a total of a dozen workers there. Joe Biden, who I like, never employed more than a dozen staffers while he was a senator. Therefore, what does he know about running massive projects? Donald Trump, who I don’t at all like, would have been a better choice to ask to take two years off from his commercial development work to oversee this. How many do you think we would have seen on the job if he had been asked to assume this assignment?

It took New York City more than six years and $12 million to try to fix the cooling system at the Central Park ice skating rink. And they never got it to work. Frustrated and seeing an opportunity to boost his public image, Trump volunteered to do it at his cost and got the work done in less than six months at a cost of only $750,000. And the ice there has been fine ever since. (The rink is now named for him.)

During the Second World War we needed to construct a fleet of freighters, Liberty Ships to supply our troops in Europe and the Pacific. Roosevelt didn’t ask his vice president to take on this critical assignment. Instead he engaged industrialist Henry Kaiser who figured out how to mass-produce them. At one time his shipyard was able to build a ship in just four days!

This is the sort of thing I was hoping to hear at the end of yesterday’s Job Summit, but instead all there was were more expressions of concern, promises, and platitudes.

But we still have at least 500 miles of driving. So maybe in Alabama and Florida we’ll see some action. That is, if either of these states accepted any stimulus money.