Forty-five years ago, the A. Philip Randolph Institute issued “The Freedom Budget,” in which a program for economic transformation was proposed that included a job guarantee for everyone ready and willing to work, a guaranteed income for those unable to work or those who should not be working, and a living wage to lift the working poor out of poverty. Such policies were supported by a host of scholars, civic leaders, and institutions, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; indeed, they provided the cornerstones for King's “Poor Peoples’ Campaign” and “economic bill of rights.” This paper proposes a “New Freedom Budget” for full employment based on the principles of functional finance. To counter a major obstacle to such a policy program, the paper includes a “primer” on three paradigms for understanding government budget deficits and the national debt: the deficit hawk, deficit dove, and functional finance perspectives. Finally, some of the benefits of the job guarantee are outlined, including the ways in which the program may serve as a vehicle for a variety of social policies.
A. Philip Randolph Institute. A “freedom budget” for all Americans: budgeting our resources, 1966–1975, to achieve freedom from want.New York: A. Philip Randolph Institute;1966.
2.
AndersonB.Robert Browne and full employment.Rev Black Political Econ.2008; 35(2-3): 91–101.
3.
BellS.Do taxes and bonds finance government spending?J Econ Issue.2000; 34: 603–20.
Black Radical Congress. The freedom agenda. In: MarableM., MullingsL., editors. Let nobody turn us around.New York: Rowman & Littlefield; 1998. p. 2000.
6.
BlinderA.Debt and the twin deficits debate.Mountain View: Mayfield; 1991.
7.
BuchananJ.Public principles of public debt.Homewood: R. D. Irwin; 1958.
8.
CavanaughF.X.The truth about the national debt.Boston: Harvard Business School Press; 1996.
9.
DarityW.A.Jr.“A direct route to full employment”.Rev Black Polit Econ2010; 37, No. 3.
10.
EisnerR.How real is the federal deficit?New York: The Free Press; 1986.
11.
EisnerR.The misunderstood economy.Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press; 1994.
12.
EisnerR.The great deficit scares: the federal budget, trade, and social security.New York: The Century Foundation Press;1997.
13.
EvansP.Do large deficits produce high interest rates?Am Econ Rev.1985; 75(1): 68–87.
14.
ForstaterM.Functional finance and full employment.J Econ Issue.1999; 33: 475–82.
15.
ForstaterM.Jobs for all: another dream of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Forum Social Econ.2002; 31(2): 45–53. reprinted in D. Menkart, et al., eds., 2004, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching, Washington, D.C.: Poverty & Race Research Action Council.
16.
ForstaterM.From civil rights to economic security: Bayard Rustin and the African American Struggle for full employment, 1945–1978.Int J Polit Econ.2007; 36(3): 63–74.
17.
FriedmanB.Day of reckoning.New York: Random House;1988.
18.
GreenspanA.Hearing on monetary policy report.Washington DC: US House Committee on Financial Services; 2005.
19.
HawkinsA.F.“Full employment to meet America's needs”.Challenge.1975; 20–28. November/December
20.
HeilbronerR.L., BernsteinP.L.The debt and the deficit: false alarms, real possibilities.New York: W. W. Norton;1989.
21.
HeilbronerR.L., BernsteinP.L.A primer on government spending.1963.
22.
KingM.L.Jr.“Showdown for nonviolence”.Look.1986 [1968]; 32: 23–25, reprinted in J. M. Washington, ed., “A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” New York: Harper & Row.
23.
KingM.L.Jr.Letter requesting support for the March on Washington. In: Goodman R, After the Planners.New York: Simon & Schuster;1971 [1963]
24.
LernerA.Functional finance and the federal debt.Soc Res.1943; 10: 38–51.
25.
LernerA.Economics of employment.New York: McGraw Hill;1951.
26.
LernerA.“Money”.Encyclopedia Britannica.1946
27.
MarableM. In: Black Liberation in Conservative America.“Full employment and affirmative action,”.Boston: South End Press; 1997.
28.
MarcusA., SpratlenT., WilsonC.Z.Robert Browne and the caucus of black economists.Rev Black Political Econ.2008; 35(2-3): 61–6.
29.
MincyR.B.“The Underclass: concept, controversy, and evidence”. In: Confronting Poverty, edited by SheldonH. Danziger, GaryD. Sandefur, DanielH. Weinberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
30.
MoslerW.B.“Full employment and price stability”.J Post Keynesian Econ.1997–98; 20(2): 167–82.
31.
National Urban League.The state of black America 1996.New York: National Urban League, Inc; 1996.
32.
PetersonP.G.Facing up.New York: Simon and Schuster;1993.
33.
PetersonP.G.Running on empty.New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux;2004.
34.
RustinB.“The anatomy of frustration”. Address to the anti-defamation league of B'nai B'rith. 1971 [1968], May 6, 1968, reprinted in Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
35.
RustinB.“The influence of the left and right in the civil rights movement”. paper prepared for the Negro Leadership Conference. 1971 [1965]. January 30–31, 1965, reprinted in Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
36.
SavageJ.D.Balanced budgets and American politics.Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 1988.
37.
TynerJ.Crime—causes and cures. In: MarableM., MullingsL., editors. Let nobody turn us around.New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000; 1994.
38.
UssherL.“Do budget deficits raise interest rates? A survey of the empirical literature,”Transformational growth and full employment project, Working Paper No. 3, New York: New School for Social Research; 1998.
39.
VickreyW.S.A trans-Keynesian manifesto (thoughts about an assets based macroeconomics).J Post Keynesian Econ.1997; 19(4): 495–510.
40.
VickreyW.S.“Fifteen fatal fallacies of financial fundamentalism”. In: WarnerA., ForstaterM., RosenS., editors, Commitment to full employment, Armonk: M. E. Sharpe; 2000 [1996].
41.
VickreyW.S.“We need a bigger 'Deficit'”. In: WarnerA., ForstaterM., RosenS., editors. Commitment to full employment, Armonk: M. E. Sharpe; 2000 [1993].
42.
WilsonW.J.When work disappears: the world of the new urban poor, New York: Knopf; 1996.
43.
WrayL.R.Understanding modern money.Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; 1998.
