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.

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) 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.

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.

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.