Harger: Trump said clean the forests. Let’s hand him a broom

I wrote yesterday about how I think Tuesday’s election sent a message. I also wrote about how there are some things the incoming Democratic Congress could work on with the White House to help improve the economy and the lives of everyday Americans. I think it’s important to offer up ideas instead of constantly complaining and criticizing.

Yesterday’s commentary brought up spending on transportation in ways not seen since Eisenhower was president, and emphasized training in the trades for millions of Americans.

Yes, all of it costs money. I’m truly spitballing here. Consider it the start of a conversation. Here are a few more ideas:

Black Diamond shows WA can build homes, eventually

Washington needs about 1.1 million more homes over the next 20 years, according to the state Department of Commerce.

Look at Black Diamond. Planning for Ten Trails started around 2000. It broke ground in 2016.

About 16 years.

Now it’s booming. About 1,600 homes have been built, and 4,800 more are planned, according to Seattle Magazine. Black Diamond and Sultan grew 45% in six years, the fastest in the region. Ten Trails townhomes sell for a median of about $550,000, according to builder Conner Homes. In Seattle, it’s about $755,000.

Build them, and families come. Then the roads can’t keep up. A Black Diamond listener told my KIRO colleagues Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin that Ten Trails is “completely changing everything,” with too much traffic for the roads out there.

A housing deal: builders promise homes, government builds the roads

So make it a deal. A builder commits to a set number of homes, at a range of prices, by a firm date. In return, government permits are issued quickly, and the feds pay for the roads, sewers, and water lines the neighborhood needs.

Don’t trust the states to do it? The federal money doesn’t have to run through Olympia, either. Send it straight to the project: the county, the local sewer and water district, and the builder, with Washington, D.C., holding everyone to the deadline.

Do it in the exurbs, in places like Black Diamond, Sultan: anywhere there’s open land to build on. Do it in the city, by rezoning empty strip malls, surface parking lots, and office parks nobody’s going back to. And make it fast and easy to replace worn-out older homes.

Put factory-built homes on the table, too. It’s the same idea as building a bridge beside the highway and rolling it into place. Can it work here? Is it safe? Will builders buy in? If the answers are yes, build them.

Trump built buildings for a living. Democrats want homes people can afford. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and framers build every one of them.

A StraighterLine-style program could make the first two years of college free

For students headed to a university, college costs too much, and too many aren’t ready when they get there. Two fixes.

First, the basics. Almost every college student has to get through the same prerequisites in the first two years: English composition, college algebra, biology, history, among others. A company called StraighterLine already sells self-paced online versions of those classes for about $79 each, with credits guaranteed to transfer to more than 180 partner schools.

Do that nationally, and make it free. Heck, hire StraighterLine to run it. Online, on a student’s own schedule. Finish the basics and walk away with an accredited associate degree, with credits guaranteed to count at public colleges and universities.

Second, the catch-up classes. In Washington, 22% of recent high school grads who went to community and technical colleges had to take remedial courses, according to OSPI. Those are classes for students whose high school education didn’t get them to college level. Nothing to be embarrassed about. But it means paying college tuition for high school material.

So offer free, AI-powered training through the same program, and get students up to college level before they pay a dime of tuition.

Trump wants clean forests. Bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Remember Trump’s wildfire advice?

“You’ve got to clean your floors, you got to clean your forests,” he said in 2020.

Fine. Let’s hand him a broom.

During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps put nearly 3 million young men to work, including my grandfather. In Washington alone, they built dozens of parks, trails, and planted millions of trees.

Bring it back. Millions of acres of eastern Washington forest are overgrown and primed to burn. The Department of Natural Resources aims to treat 1.25 million acres by 2037, according to its 20-year plan.

Make them year-round jobs. Seasonal crews start in May and get laid off in October. A corps would work all year. From fall through spring, crews thin overgrown stands, run prescribed burns, restore watersheds, and fix forest roads. In fire season, they fight fires.

Most of those jobs would land in rural Washington, in timber towns that have watched mill jobs disappear for decades. Chainsaws, heavy equipment, hard work outdoors. Blue-collar paychecks close to home.

Democrats get a major investment in public lands. Rural conservatives get steady paychecks and less fire risk, before the smoke rolls into Puget Sound.

What WA gets for the money

These ideas cost money. They also pay it back. Building 1,000 single-family homes supports about 2,900 full-time jobs and generates about $111 million in taxes and fees, according to the National Association of Home Builders, the industry’s trade group.

An apprentice earning $94,900 a year pays taxes for decades instead of paying off student loans. Bad roads already cost the average driver about $1,400 a year, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. And fewer fires mean fewer towns to rebuild.

Doing nothing costs plenty, too. We just don’t get a bill for it.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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