The Military-Job Complex

“America’s biggest—and only major—jobs program is the U.S. military.” Robert Reich says we need a jobs program for public goods like light-rail and renewable energy, not outmoded weapons. “Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed. It creates jobs we don’t need but we keep anyway because there’s no honest alternative. We don’t have an overt jobs program based on what’s really needed. … Wouldn’t it be better to have a jobs program that created things we really need—like light-rail trains, better school facilities, public parks, water and sewer systems, and non-carbon energy sources—than things we don’t, like obsolete weapons systems?”