Check this out; seems to me Robert Reich's beloved Obama could do at least as good as Wright Patman:
This on-line book available for downloading for free may be of interest:
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015081304209;seq=10;view=1up
This is the hearing on the original Full Employment Act of 1945 which includes the actual act.
Wright Patman
John William Wright Patman was a U.S. Congressman from Texas in Texas's 1st congressional district and chair of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency.
Born: August 6, 1893, Hughes Springs
Died: March 7, 1976, Bethesda
Party: Democratic Party
How come all you Obama supporters aren't pushing this legislation today?
"Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" but what happened to the idea that the United States government is responsible for maintaining "full employment?"
This is from the Wall Street Journal:
"Prospects for a stronger upturn, at least in the first half of 2013, remain slim. Many economists worry about losing even more ground, especially as lawmakers launch a potentially risky political battle this winter over raising the federal debt ceiling. The U.S. economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.6% from 1950 through 1999 but has since slowed to less than 2% ... Since the recession ended 3½ years ago, economists have been divided over long-run growth prospects after the downturn pushed millions of Americans out of the labor force. Looking forward five to 10 years, the argument goes, annual U.S. growth may reach a ceiling of 3% and unemployment could settle at a rate above the 5.7% annual average recorded during the last half of the 20th century."
--Wall Street Journal, Jan 4, 2013
Without the United States government becoming responsible for "full employment" in this country where does this leave working people? In poverty.
Robert Reich is wrong; our goal must be to get the United States government to assume its responsibility to the American people for maintaining a "full employment economy" just like United States Congressman from Texas, Wright Patman proposed.
Why Jobs Must Be Our Goal Now
By Robert Reich
blog
January 3, 2013
http://robertreich.org/post/39656182596
The news today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
is that the U.S. job market is treading water. The
number of new jobs created in December (155,000),
and percent unemployment (7.8), were the same as
the revised numbers for November.
Also, about the same number of people are looking
for work (12.2 million), with additional millions too
discouraged even to look.
Put simply, we're a very long way from the job
growth we need to get out of the gravitational pull of
the Great Recession. That would be at least 300,000
new jobs per month.
All of which means job growth and wage growth
should be the central focus of economic policy, not
deficit reduction.
Yet all we're hearing from Washington -- and all
we're likely to hear as Republicans and Democrats
negotiate over raising the debt ceiling -- is how to
cut the deficit.
The typical American worker's paycheck will drop
this week because his or her Social Security tax will
rise, from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent. That's
nonsensical.
We need to put more money into the pockets of
average workers, not less. The first $25,000 of
income should be exempt from Social Security taxes
altogether, and we should make up the difference by
eliminating the ceiling on income subject to Social
Security taxes.
__________
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley,
was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration.