The Jobs Guarantee is a Lie
The jobs guarantee being pushed by politicians; like U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), is a lie.
To explain, the jobs guarantee premise is the government will give everybody a “high-paying job with benefits;” if the market cannot supply “full employment.” That is a lie because the jobs will be nothing but government handouts.
In reality, the guarantee jobs are nothing but welfare disguised as employment. The idea is to market the welfare state to people uncomfortable with the concept of welfare.
If it were implemented, the jobs guarantee would require government to lie its’ recipients, taxpayers, and voters. Recipients will be told they have a “job,” politicians will tell taxpayers and voters “it’s a job not welfare.”
The Jobs Guarantee is Fundamentally Corrupt and Unethical
Since the jobs guarantee is a lie, it is corrupt and unethical.
Notably, the Ninth Commandment states: “Thou shall not lie.” Therefore, the jobs guarantee will violate basic Christian, Moslem, and Jewish values.
Moreover, the jobs guarantee is a return to old-fashioned political corruption of the variety practiced by Tammany Hall. To clarify, Tammany Hall was a corrupt political machine that ruled New York City in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tammany bought votes by giving its supporters government jobs. Booker plans to buy votes for the Democratic Party with his jobs guarantee.
Disturbingly, the jobs guarantee is also reminiscent of Communism. For instance, the bloodthirsty Soviet dictatorship survived for 74 years because it provided most Russians with “guaranteed jobs.”
The problem with the guaranteed jobs in the Soviet Union was that many of them were meaningless. For instance, they hired several people as clerks in a store when there was only enough work for one person.
The Corruption of a Jobs Guarantee
I imagine an American jobs guarantee will work the same way. For example, it could force your public library to hire several people to shelve books. When they shelve all the books, the guarantee workers will sit around the library reading or playing games on the computers.
Furthermore, your city hall will have to hire more administrative workers under the guarantee. The guarantee workers will spend their days doing things like making copies, delivering mail, making coffee, filing paperwork, or playing League of Legends on a government computer.
I imagine that many government agencies will set up something like the New York Public Schools’ notorious rubber rooms for guarantee workers. To clarify, union rules make it virtually impossible for New York City to fire teachers.
In response, the city set up reassignment rooms; or rubber rooms, where incompetent teachers sat around all day doing nothing. They paid the teachers to sit and do nothing. The purpose of the rubber rooms was to keep bad teachers away from the kids.
Therefore, governments will set up rubber rooms for guarantee workers to keep them from interfering in government business. For example, a city government could set up a special “work detail” for guarantee workers picking up trash by hand.
How the Jobs Guarantee will Corrupt Local Government
Rubber rooms will be inevitable because many of the jobs guarantee workers will be the unemployable. The guarantee workers will probably include the mentally ill, ex-convicts, felons, sexual predators, the lazy, drug addicts, the illiterate, and alcoholics.
Booker’s plan will lead to rubber rooms because he wants to force local governments to hire the unemployed. Booker’s jobs guarantee will corrupt because it is wrong to waste resources on meaningless jobs.
Worst of all, Booker’s jobs guarantee will corrupt local governments by forcing them to create guarantee jobs. Bureaucrats will have a strong incentive to create meaningless jobs in order to get federal funds for the guarantee.
The worst nightmare will be a return to 19th Century style corruption in which people had to pay bribes to officials to get government jobs. For instance, the official in charge of a jobs guarantee program could force the mother of a sick child to pay $100 or $500 a month to keep a “job” with health insurance.
Such extortion is not farfetched. In the 19th Century, politicians routinely forced government employees to make large cash contributions to keep their jobs.
The Greatest Danger from the Jobs Guarantee Lie
Therefore, the greatest danger from the Jobs guarantee lie is that it will open the door to more corrupt behavior.
For example, jobs guarantee workers could be “rented out” as laborers to local business. Thus, jobs guarantee “labor” could include mowing the county commissioner’s lawn, working at a city council member’s business, or washing the mayor’s car.
An obvious danger from the guarantee is the creation of a class of jobs guarantee serfs. The jobs guarantee will force recipients go along out of fear of losing their income and health insurance.
The worst-case scenario is people forced to take a guarantee job to stay out of jail. America will return to the bad old days of the early 20th Century when the unemployed were forced onto the chain gang.
Why Basic Income is More Ethical than a Jobs Guarantee
In the final analysis, a basic income is more ethical than a jobs guarantee.
The basic income is not a lie because they tell nobody he or she is working. Instead, government hands out money which will be more efficient.
Importantly, a basic income will not waste money on administration. A jobs guarantee will cause bureaucrats to hire workers and oversee the jobs.
A jobs guarantee is fundamentally wasteful it will force because vast numbers of people to perform meaningless labor. Under basic income, people will have the time to do things like start businesses, look for real jobs, take freelance gigs, or engage in artistic pursuits.
The Jobs Guarantee will Corrupt America
In contrast, most of the labor performed by guarantee workers will be a complete waste of time. For example, they could pay people to file paperwork nobody will use, because the same documents are easily accessible online.
Therefore, taxpayers will get ripped off and lied to at the same time under a jobs guarantee. Politicians will lie about job creation and spend taxpayers’ money to create the illusion of “jobs.”
We must say “no” to Cory Booker; and his jobs guarantee, because it will corrupt America. If you accept the simple premise that lying is wrong you must oppose the jobs guarantee.
