Bob MacNeal: Are one-time tax rebates the only way to cure our sputtering economy?

Instead of lottery tickets and beer, how about a WPA-style program to modernize government and infrastructure?

By BOB MACNEAL

Last update: January 25, 2008 - 6:20 PM

Are one-time tax rebates the only way to cure our sputtering economy?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have pushed for a rebate given to most of us who, if you believe the naysayers, would spend it on lottery tickets and beer. President Bush, House Republican Leader John Boehner and others in their party have sought more handouts for their elite-class cronies and tax breaks for corporations -- which, if you again believe the naysayers, would widen the gap between the rich and the rest of us. (On Thursday, Congress and the White House reached a tentative compromise.)

Most Americans, rich or poor, don't care about silly, ineffective tax cuts and paltry rebates. What Americans want, and what the U.S. economy sorely needs, are jobs. We need living-wage and decent-paying jobs. What if these jobs had the unifying goal of rebuilding our country?

Let's use the $150 billion currently proposed for rebates and corporate welfare to instead fund an 18-month infrastructure and government-efficiency initiative. This initiative -- call it IGE -- would be a contemporary version of the indisputably successful WPA program launched in 1935 by presidential order to cure economic depression.

Employment by IGE would target underfunded infrastructure and thwart government inefficiencies. Roughly 75 percent of WPA employment and expenditures went toward highways, streets, public buildings, airports, utilities, small dams, sewers, parks, city halls, public libraries and recreational fields.

Some 70 years following the WPA, isn't it time we inspected our gusset plates and streamlined government processes? Let's apportion the $150 billion to infrastructure upgrades and to federal, state and local government streamlining. If $150 billion is not enough, perhaps we should divert some of the black-hole money that fuels the continuing catastrophic failures perpetrated by U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

The old way of addressing government inefficiencies was budget-cutting that led, ultimately, to limited or poor taxpayer service. The new way is to use up-to-date business practices. IGE employment aimed at thwarting government inefficiencies could be implemented by hiring the country's best business analysts, consultants and home-grown programmers. These folks could institute contemporary business practices, upgrade hardware, and provide software automation and systems integration through all levels of government.

Americans are capable. WPA workers built 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, 125,000 buildings and 700 miles of airport runways.

Some of us would like to buy more lottery tickets and beer, but given half a chance, we would also like to backfill and repair the economic crater left by middle-class job exports, unregulated predatory lending practices and corporate welfare.

Bob MacNeal, St. Paul, is a software consultant.

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