Now this is something that should be considered on the use of the rest of the stimulus money that hasn't been frittered away yet. We already know how the stimulus was a dismal failure simply because it was targeted at the wrong areas:
Shierholz says policymakers should begin thinking about a second stimulus package focused on a jobs program. "If we passed a $200 billion jobs bill, that could create roughly 4 million jobs paying between $40,000 and $50,000," she says. "Four million temporary public sector jobs, for a year or two in duration, would bridge the employment gap while the economy recovers." Voting against the $787 billion measure, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, "There are so many things in the package completely unrelated to creating a job in the next 18 months." Only 11% of stimulus money was targeted toward infrastructure, and less than 10% of the jobs created have been public sector jobs.
Hell, we still have more than $200 billion left in the stimulus so they could scrap whatever that money will be wasted on and just create a 21st century version of the WPA. An injection of 4 million public sector jobs paid for by the government would be just what we need to get out of the recession. Couple this with a payroll tax holiday for a year or two and we would have that unemployment back to 4% in no time.
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