New Deal 0.0
14th May 2010
Megan McArdle cuts through the fog.
Meyerson identifies a lot of the procedural barriers that I frequently talk about–the bidding and environmental safeguards that make federal projects very slow to get off the ground. But perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t really explore a huge barrier to a WPA-type jobs program: public sector unions. They are not going to let you hire a bunch of cheap workers and run crews without civil service protections.
Just as generals famously prepare to fight the last war, governments prepare to handle the last crisis.