Jared Polis: gender Marxism for the stimulus bill

Jared Polis is a dot-com multi-millionaire who went into politics, first as the Vice-Chairman of the Colorado State Board of Education and now as a Congressman from Colorado. In the first job in 2005 he collaborated with the Mexican government to produce a state-sponsored guide for illegal aliens. That was so successful that the next year that government gave him their highest award for foreigners.

In his present capacity, he offers "Remember the ladies", a plea to include women in the stimulus plan (link). While there's nothing in there quite as salient as the recent remarks from Robert Reich, his thought processes are just as bad. Rather than encouraging any stimulus monies to be spent on a wide variety of occupations, he supports a form of gender Marxism:
We must not let this gender imbalance lessen the impact of this much-needed investment or hinder our economic recovery...

First, we should expand the U.S. Department of Labor's Women in Apprenticeship and Non-traditional Occupations (WANTO) grant program that "awards competitive grants to recruit, hire, train, and retain women in apprenticeships and non-traditional occupations."

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 allows states to use funds for "preparing students for employment in fields that are traditionally dominated by one gender." Not only should funding for the Perkins Act increase, but the program should be more narrowly geared toward gender diversification in infrastructure-related jobs through gender equity set-asides and the reestablishment of equity coordinators.

Second, we should increase the targets for female employment by federal construction contractors and require them to design and implement plans for hiring and retaining qualified female workers. Selection criteria for contracts could include assessments of these strategies and past performance. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance should rigorously enforce implementation.

Third, we should provide incentives for companies employing women. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) encourages employers to hire members of families receiving benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, among other disadvantaged populations, whose beneficiaries are overwhelmingly women. Increasing the size of the credit would make it an even stronger incentive for employers.