Paul Ryan Quotes
I'd say is stimulus infrastructure spending is not instant jobs. I think the real reason the president [Donald Trump] wants to do this is because we have a crumbling infrastructure problem and you need a good modern infrastructure for economic growth to occur.
Ryan, Paul. Interview with Charlie Rose. CBS This Morning, CBS, 1 Feb. 2017.
It is actually true that public works do create indirect jobs, however the efficiency of indirect job creation is not very good. If the government spends $100 on a public works project half might go to construction materials and the rest pays the salary of construction workers. Part of the materials purchase pay the salaries of workers in the supply chain. And most of the salary gets spent on goods and services which helps to pay other workers and thus jobs are created when there is a public works construction project. However the reason FDR did not want this fact to be publicized is because the economic relationships to indirect jobs is counterintuitive. Many people hearing that public works construction also produces jobs say “Well then let us fund many more government public works programs and create even more jobs—keep spending on projects until there is no more unemployment.” However that is not a sustainable strategy. There is enough benefit in the direct jobs and the use of the public improvement, that it was, in FDR’s view, sufficient without “selling” the indirect job creation picture.
Although Madison vetoed the Federal bill to improve the national infrastructure, he was very much for the improvements and he said so in this veto message. He, however, did not see the Constitutional authority for the Federal government to appropriate moneys to be spent in the States for infrastructure improvement. He was for a Constitutional Amendment to do so or to make the improvements using State money as New York did building the Erie Canal. Alexander Hamilton, and many of the Congressmen who voted for the bill disagreed (many of whom were also in the Constitutional Convention) and did not see the Constitutional limitation that Madison did. See Hamilton’s Quote 644278. He was particularly concerned that small and less affluent states could not possibly have the skill to design these or the finances to build them. Later President’s and Congresses sided with Hamilton. It would be hard to envision America today of Madison’s view had prevailed.
Paul Davis Ryan is the 54th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
