St. Paul Bridge

There are 63,000 bridges in this country that need structural repair. There are also a myriad of roads that need repair. There are also sewer lines and water lines that are needing to be replaced in nearly all of our cities, both in Iowa and throughout the country.

There is the need to get off the the drug of oil and move as quickly as possible to the future energy sources that don’t pollute. That would be sun, wind, geothermal and moving water. There may be others, but let’s start with those. There is also the need to discover a medium to store electricity that is generated in the clean manner mentioned above. I mention this because basic research has always been part of the charge of our universities.

What caused this little outburst on my behalf is that once again I heard a Tea Party candidate say with a straight face during their debate last week that “government does not create jobs.” Probably one of the most bogus statements that the Tea Party has ever loosed on the world. It was not the brain child of the guy who said it. The Tea Party members are seldom so quick witted. They hire people like Frank Luntz to put these words of so-called wisdom in their mouths. As one should expect, this bit of truthiness stands up no better than any of their other little bon mots of truthiness over the years.

So when Mark Jacobs uttered these words, my very first thought was “ask the people in Iowa City, Ames or Des Moines whether governments create jobs.” But this deserves a more thoughtful response. Tea Party contention, as the think tanks structured this talking point, is that “private enterprise” creates jobs. Both sides are wrong.

Neither governments nor private enterprise create jobs. Jobs come from a demand for a product or service. Many circumstances come into play on who should respond to that demand. This country has a demand for roads to connect cities and towns. Does it make sense for a pool of money held in common by an elected government to route and build those roads or would it be better for private enterprise to do so? I would hope most of you would say government in this instance. What about schools or hospitals? There may be some overlap here, but there is no doubt that people acting in common through elected representatives have a demand best filled by their government.

We can go on down the line with industry after industry debating whether the demand is one in common or one from a few or a small sector that would be best handle by private industry.

So, Mr. Jacobs, we as a people with a common purpose, be it education, health, sanitation, defense, exploration, research, communications or energy do create jobs with a demand best handled with a common focus and a common pool of money. We also create jobs in overseeing private enterprise when they delve into projects that are in the common interest. When projects are supposed to serve the populace, the commons have a major interest in making sure that things are done right. We also have a common interest to have ongoing inspections to avoid tragedies, like that bridge in St. Paul that fell into the Mississippi a few years back.

Right now we have a myriad of needs for the commons, Mr. Jacobs. We have a demand. We have a HUGE demand. It has built up over the past three and a half decades while you and your party has starved government and given the treasury to the richest among us. Now, like our forefathers from the Revolution through World War II we want to bring America back to where it belongs and prepare it for the future and for our children. When we do that there will be jobs created. Good paying, meaningful jobs. Can you understand that simple concept, Mr. Jacobs? One of the most critical needs at this moment is to curtail climate change. This is assuredly in the common interest!

Private enterprise won’t do this. They seldom see beyond the next quarterly statement.