Launching the Economy out of the Great Recession Orbit

To Launch the Economy out of the Great Recession Orbit, Billions must be Invested in Small Business, Infrastructure, and Education

By Professor Peter Mathews

December 9, 2013

To fully escape the devastating aftermath of the Great Recession, over 9 million new jobs have to be created. Only then will the labor market fully recover its health. The reduction in official unemployment from 10% to 7% was primarily due to many people having dropped out of the labor force. Many of the new jobs that were created were lower paying jobs.² Well paying jobs are important because they help stimulate demand in the economy, and will help with the economic recovery.

In order to accomplish these goals, leadership is needed in the public, in Congress, in the mass media, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, many politicians, Republican and Democrat, have been largely serving the special interests of their large campaign donors, not the American public who elected them. For leaders independent from corporate control to emerge, we need nationwide Clean Money Elections as pioneered by the state of Maine.¹

We need a massive economic stimulus, paid for by closing unproductive corporate tax loopholes, and spending the hundreds of billions of dollars on loans to small business, rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure, expanding and strengthening education, and re-hiring middle class workers such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers. According to the Economic Policy Institute², for a real economic recovery from the Great Recession, and to create and maintain full employment, the U.S. government must invest $650 billion in the private and public sectors in 2013, and between $1.5 trillion and $2.2 trillion in the following three years.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this need for stimulating demand in the economy by creating the New Deal and rescuing us from the Great Depression. We need a 21st Century New Deal today that would create good jobs by investing in small business, rebuilding our infrastructure, fully funding public education (Kindergarten through University, including technical and trade schools), scientific research and development of new technology products, and government support for this industrial policy. ♦

¹ From the Kennebec Journal, Opinion-Columnists section, December 12, 2013. Article: "FROM THE STATE HOUSE: Entire country should adopt Maine-style Clean Elections", by Rep. Thomas R.W. Longstaff, D-Waterville, November 16, 2013. Longstaff represents District 77 in the Maine House of Representatives. He serves on the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee.

² Economic Policy Institute’s study of the stagnant "recovery" from the Great Recession. Article: "Slow economic recovery reflected in stagnant income and poverty data", by Doug Hall and Alyssa Davis, September 20, 2013.