There are many problems with a federal jobs guarantee. One killer problem, though, gets too little attention: We all hate each other too much to agree on what sort of jobs would be done on Uncle Sam’s dime.
When my brother John interviewed his Brooklyn neighbors on what jobs should be funded by a jobs guarantee, he got these answers:
“[P]roviding legal assistance to accused criminals, making use of the skills of unemployed attorneys. Helping ‘undocumented aliens’ navigate through the U.S. immigration system. Advising clients on how to keep government benefits that an administrator has denied them. Providing safety for women seeking abortions.”
Yeah, that’s not exactly something a lot of people are going to go along with.
My brother’s other ideas, as I summarized it at the time, were that a jobs guarantee could perhaps:
“[B]uild hunting blinds or coach baseball for home school collectives. Could federally funded workers be put to work weeding the infield at my Catholic parish’s school baseball field? How about helping at a crisis pregnancy center that actually helps mothers who choose not to abort their babies? What about cantoring at Mass? Would the Department of Labor have to approve the hymns?”
It’s hard to create a federal workforce to advance the common good when the things one third of this country believes to be the common good, another third of this country believes to be evil.
