no one
uses a shovel anymore.
Many of
us here in the winter wonderland scratch our heads
as we watch homeowners clear an inch-and-a-half
overnight dusting off a 40-foot development sidewalk
with a gasoline-engine powered snow blower. Where
the heck is Al Gore when you really need him to
measure carbon footprints in the snow?
The fact
is, anyone who would ever be willing to earn a
living shoveling anything is already
gainfully employed doing so. A good number of those
who shovel stuff, of course, are our elected
officials.
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|
Shovel-ready projects are what made the
USSR's economy so robust. |
Therefore, when agents of the troika
government-in-training speak of "shovel-ready
projects" what they're actually talking about are
bull dozer-ready projects, crane-ready projects and
pile driver-ready projects. For the most part, the
operators of those kinds of "shovels" are already in
pretty high demand and are gainfully employed
earning very taxable middle class wages.
On the
other hand, most of those qualified for little more
than wielding a shovel at a "shovel-ready" project
are likely too old, too lazy, too out of shape or
too over-qualified to be employed at such labor.
What
work, for instance, could an unemployed auto
assembly line worker be quickly trained to do at
something like a bridge refurbishment jobsite? And
what will the construction workers' unions say about
bringing in non-union trainees?
More
importantly, even you we put the laid-off auto
assembler to work sorting and assembling bridge
cable fasteners or, for that matter, wielding a
shovel, how can we afford to pay him anywhere near
the wage he needs to keep making his mortgage
payments?
All of
us are qualified to provide the obvious answer to
simple questions like that one: More "stimulus"
money, of course.
Please
put down your glass of Kool-Aid for a moment and
think about an answer to another plain, simple
question: What will the administration call the
next ramped-up socialist spending program once the
term "stimulus" has run its course?
Will
they ever call a spade a spade or will the next
program and each subsequent one be just as
"shovel-ready"
"Shovel-ready
was not as shovel-ready
as we expected."