These cuts will remove what little remained of new public spending and will reduce domestic outlays below the levels of the Bush administration in most categories. This, too, reflects pre-Keynesian thinking about economics. In 1940, unemployment was above 13 percent. By mid-1942, it had dropped to 3 percent. This did not occur because of massive training programs.
Training can certainly be part of the strategy.
When a worker takes leave to go on a training sabbatical, a slot is opened for another worker. Training also reduces labor-supply bottlenecks in certain specialties, which limits the tendency of tight labor markets to drive up wages and cause inflation. But retraining, like cheap money, can never be the whole full-employment policy for it doesn't create enough jobs. In addition, we need the massive scale of public investment that conservatives normally sanction only in wartime. With the exception of Germany, where massive investments in infrastructure seek to bring eastern German living standards up to western ones, no government is pursuing Keynesian policies.