DOCUMENTATION
Resolution to Kentucky Legislature
This is a resolution which was filed on May 11 by State Rep. Perry Clark (D) with the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
A Resolution Urging Congress
To Take Emergency Actions
To Save the Economy and the Auto Industry
WHEREAS, an increasing number and variety of relevant specialists have been joining an international chorus which is warning that an ongoing, systemic economic collapse of the world's monetary system has now entered its terminal phase; and
WHEREAS, certain stop-gap actions must now be implemented to forestall the irreparable damage to our physical economy, which is typified by the presently accelerating crisis of the United States automobile industry; and
WHEREAS, any liquidation of the present structure of the physical productive capacities of the auto industry, especially its machine tool sector, would mean both the end of the United States of America as a leading physical economic power, and related kinds of chain-reaction damage to the world economy as a whole; and
WHEREAS, government must now be mustered to act in accord with the implied constitutional obligation of our modern nation state to promote the general welfare, both for our own republic and in concerted action among nations. Unless corrected, the present crisis would now become far worse than what was experienced in Europe or the Americas during the Great Depression of the 1930s; and
WHEREAS, some of the most essential immediate remedies required must be set into motion through included actions consistent with the combined explicit and implicit Constitutional powers of advice and consent of the United States Senate; since the United States Senate is presently the most appropriate instrument for setting into motion the indispensable steps of remedial action, despite manifest reluctance of some circles of the Presidency to grasp the urgency of the present national and world crisis; and
WHEREAS, our constitutional system, known as the American system of political economy, is premised implicitly on the included role of a system consistent with the notion of national banking, which provides our form of constitutional government with the power of its Executive acting in concert with the separate and distinct authorities of the House and Senate to create relatively vast masses of long-term credit for the immediate and long-term expansion of our national economy; and
WHEREAS the creation of new productive capital can be accomplished, under our system, without interference by private financial interests; and
WHEREAS under our constitutional system, this outpouring of debt-based long term capital must be used chiefly not only to create expanded productive employment, but also to create the long-term capital investment in improved basic economic infrastructure, agriculture, and manufacturing; and
WHEREAS, the principal interest and objective of the United States government in the current panic among leading North America automobile manufacturers is to ensure that the continued employment of the labor force associated with that industry remain as functioning, each and all in their present localities of employment; and
WHEREAS, the loss of the tool-making and related capabilities of that sector of the industry would be a strategic disaster of incalculable chain reaction consequences within our nation and the world; and
WHEREAS, the relationship between the machine tool and related elements, and the much larger mass of technicians and operatives employed downstream in the process is an integral relationship, creating situations whereby the employment of the one cannot be separated from employment of the other; and in which the ratio of less-skilled operatives to highly-skilled machine tool and related technicians similarly cannot be reduced; and
WHEREAS, the only remedy is diversification of the productive potential of the auto industry to a broader mixture of suitable forms of production, shifting large portions of current employment into the domain of essential capital goods of production and basic economic infrastructure; and
WHEREAS, whatever the disposition of the relevant troubled financial corporations in the auto and related industries, the productive potential of the industrial labor force of the industry must be held together intact in their present locations making it necessary for the federal government to create the interim vehicle under which the continuity of physical operations can be continued; and
WHEREAS, the relevant choices of alternative markets for this purpose are chiefly in the category of basic economic infrastructure, such as the need to repair, expand, and improve our national railway systems, to maintain and improve our water management systems, and to maintain other urgently needed infrastructure projects; and
WHEREAS, these actions will result not only in saving our existing industry but also in the creation of large new areas of employment of our citizenry in infrastructure and manufacturing, comparable to the best of the New Deal programs that rescued the nation and the world from the last Depression.
NOW, THEREFORE, Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Section 1. The Congress of the United States is urged to intervene on behalf of the national and related interests to ensure that the productive potential of the automobile industry, with its featured high technology and machine tool capability, be held together in place and intact.
Section 2. The United States government must intervene to vastly expand the construction and maintenance of infrastructure projects and related industries in the nation. The impact of this intervention on the Commonwealth of Kentucky will be to provide tens of thousands of productive jobs repairing our infrastructure.At least ten million jobs could be created nationally in these endeavors, while at the same time maintaining the auto production of the General Motors Corporation, of the Ford Motor Company and of their respective subsidiaries. This initiative will restore our tax base and increase the standard of living, in physical terms of our citizenry.
Section 3. The Clerk of the House of Representatives shall send a copy of this Resolution to each member of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.