The time has come for a modern day revamp of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1935 Works Progress Administration (WPA), a public works program enacted during the Great Depression.

 

At a total cost of $10.5 billion - the equivalent of $130.9 billion today - the WPA rescued a nation from the Great Depression and saved 8.6 million Americans from the pangs of poverty and destitution.

 

We did it once. Let's do it now!

Tell the White House and Congress to enact a 21st century WPA immediately.

TELL CONGRESS DRUG TEST FOR UNEMPLOYED ARE WRONG, EXTEND BENEFITS

Millions of jobless Americans are - yet, again - slated to lose their unemployment benefits if Congress fails to extend benefits before February 29, 2012.

But GOP lawmakers say they won’t agree to pass an extension unless the bill includes provisions that require jobless applicants have a GED and undergo a drug test before receiving benefits. Republicans also want to cap the maximum number of weeks of benefits at 63-73 weeks.

The GOP's unrelenting, ruthless attacks on people - jobless through no fault of their own - have got to end. Tell Congress to stop trying to punish the unemployed and extend unemployment benefits today!

Congress is threatening to withhold funding for the US Export-Import Bank. At stake is a deal for $3.4 billion in loan guarantees that will allow Air India to finance the purchase of 27 U.S.-built Boeing 787s.

The Invest in American Jobs Act of 2011 (H.R. 3533) strengthens Buy America requirements for investments in U.S. transportation and infrastructure projects. The bill ensures that the steel, iron, and manufactured goods used to construct projects financed by U.S. taxpayers are produced in the United States.  Democrats are calling on Republicans to include the stronger Buy America requirements in a long-term surface transportation reauthorization currently being crafted.

If Congress fails to act, DoD will be forced to take a meat-axe to procurement, health care, pensions and personnel costs. Already, deficit hawks in Washington are pressing for 301 fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, terminating the Littoral Combat Ship, stopping production of 16 planned DDG-51 destroyers, cutting 236,000 civilian personnel, and increasing premiums for TRICARE, the department’s health care system.

Policymakers must focus on creating jobs, hiring workers and investing in our industrial base - not chipping away at the very programs that have made this nation so great.

The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) calls for drastic changes to the Administrative Procedure Act, a cornerstone of the U.S. legal system that has served Americans well for more than 60 years. The bill acts as a kind of "super-mandate," overriding decades of labor, health, safety, and environmental laws by putting corporate bottom lines ahead of public and worker safety.

Without immediate legislative action, the U.S. job market will continue to spiral, as will our country's economic sustainability. JOBS Now! is a comprehensive strategy for creating jobs - immediately - through the passage of a national jobs package focused on the U.S. manufacturing and transportation sectors.

Hire US, America demands policies that discourage the outsourcing of American jobs, creates a national industrial policy, creates a Works Progress Administration-style jobs program, extends unemployment insurance benefits, uses discretionary funds to create emergency job creation programs in communities with the highest levels of unemployment and builds a revitalized, green economy by investing in green jobs.

President Obama's American Jobs Act includes proposals to prohibit employers from discriminating against the unemployed, revive U.S. infrastructure by putting construction workers back to work, and extend unemployment insurance benefits. Relief for the economic pains that trouble the jobless is long overdue.

The Mica-Shuster "Competition for Intercity Passenger Rail in America Act", would not only privatize the Northeast Corridor. It also would encourage private operators to replace Amtrak on long distance and state supported services. It would also foster contracting out of existing Amtrak services, like ticketing and on-board dining. It would result in the elimination of most, if not all, medium and long distance routes, since there would be no funding if the new operator couldn't run the service cheaply.

The end of America's Space Shuttle shouldn't mean unemployment for the dedicated space program workers. America needs a fully-funded successor to the Shuttle program that keeps America a leader in space.

The American Jobs Act includes payroll tax cuts, tax credits and tax relief for businesses. Meant to increase consumer demand next yar,. these $253 billion proposals don't affect the unemployed. That $253 billion would be better spent hiring unemployed Americans in a modern day version of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) or Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Ask your Representative and Senators to sponsor a joint resolution creating new rights for all Americans -- a right to a job, a right to earn a living, a right to a decent home, a right to a secure retirement and a right to a good education. Let's start to make FDR's Second Bill of Rights a reality.