Main Street

Obama Announces Jobs Proposals

President Obama announced some jobs proposals this morning. We’ll start by just summarizing what they are, from a release received via email.

Today, the President laid out some of the broad steps that he believes should be at the heart of our efforts to help put Americans back to work and get businesses hiring again. This announcement is part of the President’s ongoing effort to take every responsible step to accelerate the pace of job growth. The President views every bill through the prism of job growth and will continue to explore additional approaches as well. These measures are part of the overall policy designed to not just create jobs in the short run but also shift America away from consumption-driven growth to a focus on enhancing the competitiveness of America’s businesses, encouraging investment, and promoting exports.

The bold and difficult steps the President took to stabilize the financial system have reduced the cost of TARP by more than $200 billion, providing additional resources for job creation and for deficit reduction.

He lays out three main areas, each of which has a couple proposals associated with it:

Helping Small Businesses Expand Investment, Hire Workers and Access Credit

• Tax cuts to support additional business investment next year – with a particular focus on struggling small businesses – with much of the cost recouped over time.
• A new tax cut for small businesses to encourage hiring in 2010.
• Eliminating fees and increasing guarantees for small businesses that borrow through major SBA programs in 2010.

As is often the case, one big question will be “how is small business defined?” Are we talking legitimately small, or are we talking big-just-not-huge?

Investing in America’s Roads, Bridges and Infrastructure

• Additional investment in highways, transit, rail, aviation and water.
• Support for merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars.

Creating Jobs Through Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Investments

• New incentives for consumers who invest in energy efficient retrofits in their homes
• Expansion of successful oversubscribed Recovery Act programs to leverage private investment in energy efficiency and create clean energy manufacturing jobs.

As I’ve pointed out before, we have to be sure that the jobs created to retrofit homes are good jobs; same with investment in energy efficiency and clean energy jobs.

Finally,

In addition to the proposals outlined above, the Administration will be working with Congress to ensure that those hit hardest by this economic crisis continue to receive the support they need. This includes: extending unemployment insurance for Americans who are struggling to find jobs, extending the Recovery Act provision that helps out-of-work Americans keep their health insurance through COBRA, providing an additional $250 Economic Recovery Payment to our seniors and veterans, and taking steps to ensure that state and local governments are not forced to lay-off teachers, police officers and other key personnel at this critical time.

This is great news, but it is probably still a good idea to take part in the National Employment Law Project’s call to action.

Tags: Barack Obama, Jobs, unemployment