Resolution

Achieving Full Employment

WHEREAS universal employment would help maintain consumer confidence, stabilize financial markets, and facilitate public works projects highly beneficial to the United States in a multitude of ways, thus promoting the general welfare of our citizenry, and

WHEREAS the desirability of universal employment was recognized and advocated by FDR in his 1944 proposal of an Economic Bill of Rights, is included in Article 23.1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is further articulated in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the United States has signed but not yet ratified, and

WHEREAS government has the unique financial resources and implementary authority to serve as both the consumer and employer of last resort, especially during times of economic downturn, with full employment being achievable partly by way of reformed trade policies which would bring many jobs back to America, and partly by creating new public works jobs paid for largely if not completely by using current unemployment compensation funds, taxes from the incomes of the newly employed, taxes resulting from the economic activity generated by the spending of the newly employed, and revenue gained from corrections to flawed tax policies that would require profitable businesses to start paying their fair share,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Government of the United States should be required to provide and fund programs that would enable every American who cannot find work in the private sector to engage in socially useful work under just and favorable conditions, and in a way that does not undermine the position of other workers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to our California Democratic delegation and the President of the United States for their immediate action.

Submitted by Craig Dunkerley, 22nd AD, and Bill James, 21st AD