Shovel Ready Jobs Do Exist, Shovel Ready Bureaucrats Don’t
20th September 2011
Jonah Goldberg is always worth reading.
But it’s worth noting that when we say there’s no such thing as shovel ready jobs it’s not like saying there’s no such thing as the bogeyman or unicorns or good flan. Those things don’t exist, period. But shovel ready jobs do exist. Drive by your local Home Depot and hire some day laborers. Take them to your back yard and say “I’ll give you $50 to dig a hole.” Guess what? They’ll dig a hole.
What we don’t have is shovel ready government. The only impediment to shoveling is, simply, government. It is government that requires employers to jump through hoops for months to get the right paperwork. It is government that imposes costs on hiring and working. Some of those costs may be warranted, even if the delays are not. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are countless shovel ready jobs, shovel ready workers, and shovel ready shovels. What we don’t have are shovel ready bureaucrats. And that is something Obama could change if he wanted. He is perfectly placed to pursue shovel ready government if he wanted to. But he doesn’t, for political and ideological reasons, as well as a more basic failure of imagination.