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Adviser: Sanders Presidency Could Start with $300 Billion US Jobs Program

Reuters

   WASHINGTON - A Bernie Sanders presidency could begin modestly with a
   roughly $300 billion federal jobs guarantee before pushing for
   trillions of dollars in new spending on health care, the environment
   and infrastructure, says a key adviser to the U.S. Democratic
   front-runner.

   Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont and self-described democratic
   socialist, has promised a sweeping transformation of the U.S. economy
   if he wrests the keys to the White House from President Donald Trump in
   the November 2020 election.

   A jobs guarantee, which would see the federal government ensure
   employment for anyone who wanted to work, would be a logical first step
   for the would-be president, said Stephanie Kelton, who has been
   Sanders' senior economic adviser since his unsuccessful 2016
   presidential campaign.

   "I like very much the idea of getting a safeguard in place right away
   because, like most people, I worry about what happens when the next
   downturn comes," Kelton, an economics professor at Stony Brook
   University in New York state, said to journalists this week on the
   sidelines of a National Association for Business Economics meeting.

   Kelton estimates the jobs guarantee would increase the federal deficit
   by about 1.5% of gross domestic product while ensuring the elusive goal
   of full employment. The U.S. deficit currently stands at 4.5% of GDP.

   Such a proposal is not a novel idea in U.S. history or even the current
   presidential race. Government employment programs were used to ease the
   sting of the Great Depression, and have been more recently proposed by
   Democratic presidential candidates including Senator Elizabeth Warren.

   But Sanders has made it a centerpiece of his agenda.

   It would, Kelton said, form an ultimate economic backstop that ensured
   full employment even in a recession and expanded federal spending just
   as private sector incomes ebbed.With that first proposal in place,
   Sanders could turn his attention to cancelling the $1.7 trillion in
   federal student debt, Kelton said, a step she argues would boost
   economic growth.

   Trillions would then be allocated to pay for ambitious parts of the
   Sanders agenda such as the Medicare For All proposal to provide health
   insurance for all Americans based on the existing government-run
   program for those 65 and older, a climate-friendly Green New Deal or an
   infrastructure building program.

   Those programs would need to be rolled out more deliberately and
   designed by teams of experts across federal agencies to match what the
   economy can "absorb" in any given year without causing a worrying jump
   in inflation, she said.

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