January 7, 2015

Senator Bernie Sanders To Introduce Roads And Jobs Bill

Senator Bernie Sanders To Introduce Roads And Jobs Bill

"While Republicans have dragged their feet and stalled any attempts to do anything to help our economy over the last 6 years, they don’t have any excuses now that they control both the House and the Senate. The legislation that Sen. Bernie Sanders will be putting before Congress would be a welcome stimulation to our economy for a couple of reasons, and here’s why.

First, it would tilt the job market back in favor of workers. As I said previously, employers aren’t willing to pay anything more than the absolute minimum they have to in order to retain employees. Wall Street is doing great, corporations are making big profits, but the promised “trickledown” has yet to happen. Corporations will only pay people more if they have to do so to keep workers from going elsewhere, and the possibility of hundreds of thousands of well-paying construction jobs would certainly create some competition and incentive for employers to raise wages. Second, these jobs wouldn’t be a short-term boost to the economy. Fixing over 100,000 bridges and hundreds of thousands of miles of roads isn’t something done in a short amount of time. The money paid to these workers won’t be sat on like corporations are doing with their profits either."