For starters, we think the government could put its new federal employees to work in health care, education and infrastructure. The country still needs a coordinated effort to test, trace and track the coronavirus and revivify our public health network. Schools will need to reinvent how they teach and where students are taught. More schools should be built and more teachers should be hired. And we have to attend to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. That will involve rebuilding highways, ports, railways, levees, airports and public transportation, while broadening access to clean water and broadband service.
There’s no reason why those projects can’t launch today. It’s been done before. Just think about the alphabet soup of jobs programs and public infrastructure spending, from the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps to the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority, that helped the New Deal blunt the impact of the Great Depression.
The fallout from Covid-19 offers a historic opportunity to tackle the country’s biggest problems and put the U.S. economy on a more stable, productive and equitable footing. McConnell, Pelosi, Mnuchin and their fellow policy makers need to go well beyond their current thinking and seize the moment.
This article was provided by Bloomberg.