By Vedran Vuk, Casey Research:

In his article, “The Jobs Imperative,” Paul Krugman has a new angle pushing for make-work programs. His logic is that many workers will essentially face career derailment from the recession by prolonged unemployment. Hence, we have to get Americans back to work immediately - whatever the job. And this has to be done particularly for recent college graduates.

Sure, the evaluation of the problem seems correct. Future human resources departments won’t be clamoring over applicants with years of unemployment and a college degree losing value each day out of class.

Krugman notes,

And the damage from sustained high unemployment will last much longer. The long-term unemployed can lose their skills, and even when the economy recovers they tend to have difficulty finding a job, because they’re regarded as poor risks by potential employers. Meanwhile, students who graduate into a poor labor market start their careers at a huge disadvantage - and pay a price in lower earnings for their whole working lives. Failure to act on unemployment isn’t just cruel, it’s short-sighted.

Krugman even crosses the usual left-wing view treating handouts as generosity. Now, to refuse giving them is cruelty! But don’t forget, he is, after all, quite long-sighted. He can see the inside of everyone else’s pockets from anywhere. Krugman continues with his “long-sighted” panacea,

One such measure would be another round of aid to beleaguered state and local governments, which have seen their tax receipts plunge and which, unlike the federal government, can’t borrow to cover a temporary shortfall. More aid would help avoid both a drastic worsening of public services (especially education) and the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Now, how exactly is this going to help beleaguered young graduates on their career path? Bureaucratic office jobs and road construction temp work don’t exactly sound like the cornerstones of a fruitful career. I can’t imagine how a job at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the local Marriage License Office will help a recent grad toward future career success.

Surely, a recent finance grad will be swarmed by Wall Street hedge funds years from now desiring his priceless DMV experience. Can’t you see all the opportunities that will come knocking on his door?

Think about this student a few years down the road. He’s going to be making a nice paycheck on his comfortable government job. Plus, he’ll be further insulated as a member of his local municipal union. Will the private market offer him better wages? I highly doubt it. He’d have to start all the way at the bottom.

The longer he stays in government, the less chance that he will ever leave. And why should he? Who will make him leave that cushy government job once he gets it? This recession has shown us that when faced with gigantic deficits, governments will try anything to avoid cutting jobs. Just look at the furloughs across the country. Could you imagine a private company saying, “Hello customers, we’re doing so badly that we’ll be closed on Fridays from now on?” It’s insanity!

If local governments aren’t willing to make cuts now, they surely won’t make them later. Instead of setting our recent graduates on a course for success, such a stimulus program would lock them into a lifelong path of bureaucratic servitude.

And with a permanent bureaucracy in place, this is no longer a temporary fiscal stimulus, but instead a long-term commitment to salaries, pensions, healthcare, and other inflated government “benies.”

Krugman’s plan is quite the opposite of long sighted. It neither considers the resulting future budget problems nor the future prospects of today’s graduates taking those jobs. The last thing the upcoming generation of Americans needs is to be tied at the hip to government. Krugman’s solution would both fail to solve our current problems and would help to sow the seeds of tomorrow’s crisis.

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