Main Street

Obama Renews the Battle for Jobs

President Obama spoke yesterday at the Brookings Institution and elaborated on a set of major, additional programs designed to address “an urgent need to accelerate job growth” and support economic recovery.

Key components of his plan included the necessary renewal of Recovery Act provisions to extend and expand jobless aid and support for health insurance for the unemployed; increased funds for state and local governments to stave off teacher and other public employee layoffs; tax cuts and other incentives for small businesses to hire more workers and make credit more attainable; expanded transportation, communications and other infrastructure investments that will create jobs; and cash incentives for consumers to weatherize homes and improve energy efficiency.

Despite the fact that the President did not include a new large-scale public jobs program, favored by many, neither did he close any doors to the possibility of taking up additional initiatives.

Far from it. Far more impressive than the details and specifics, which will be hammered out by the White House and Congress in the coming weeks, was the President’s insistent tone and urgent tenor.

Full video and transcript are here (via DailyKosTV).

Some selected quotes from the text of President Obama’s speech yesterday at Brookings:

Over the previous year, it was obvious that folks were facing hard times. As I traveled across the country during the long campaign, I would meet men and women bearing the brunt of not only a deepening recession, but also years — even decades — of growing strains on middle class families. But now the country was experiencing something far worse. Our gross domestic product — the sum total of all that our economy produces — fell at the fastest rate in a quarter century. Five trillion dollars of Americans’ household wealth evaporated in just 12 weeks as stocks, pensions, and home values plummeted. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs each month, equivalent to the population of the state of Vermont. That was true in December, January, February, March. The fear among economists across the political spectrum that was — was that we were rapidly plummeting towards a second Great Depression.

So, in the weeks and months that followed, we undertook a series of difficult steps to prevent that outcome. And we were forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party, which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that had led to the crisis, decided to hand it over to others to solve.

After detailing the beneficial results of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and other initiatives put in place this past year to stabilize the economy and begin a recovery, Obama said:

But I’m here today because our work is far from done. For even though we’ve reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who’ve been swept up in the flood. There are more than 7 million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That’s a staggering figure, and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy.

Sometimes it’s hard to break out of the bubble here in Washington and remind ourselves that behind these statistics are people’s lives, their capacity to do right by their families. It speaks to an urgent need to accelerate job growth in the short term while laying a new foundation for lasting economic growth.

On winding down the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP):

In fact, because of our stewardship of this program, and the transparency and accountability we put in place, TARP is expected to cost the taxpayers at least $200 billion less than what was anticipated just this past summer. And the assistance to banks, once thought to cost taxpayers untold billions, is on track to actually reap billions in profits for the taxpaying public. So this gives us a chance to pay down the deficit faster than we thought possible and to shift funds that would have gone to help the banks on Wall Street to help create jobs on Main Street.

On why we can’t just go back to the way things were:

I’ve said this before. Even before this particular crisis, much of our growth for a decade or more had been fueled by unsustainable consumer debt and reckless financial speculation, while we ignored the fundamental challenges that hold the key to our economic prosperity. We cannot simply go back to the way things used to be. We can’t go back to an economy that yielded cycle after cycle of speculative booms and painful busts. We can’t continue to accept an education system in which our students trail their peers in other countries, and a health care system in which exploding costs put our businesses at a competitive disadvantage. And we cannot continue to ignore the clean energy challenge or cede global leadership in the emerging industries of the 21st century. And that’s why, even as we strive to meet the crisis of the moment, we have insisted on laying a new foundation for the future.

On the need for major reform of the financial system:

Because our economic future depends on a financial system that encourages sound investments, honest dealings, and long-term growth, we’ve proposed the most ambitious financial reforms since the Great Depression. We’ll set and enforce clear rules of the road, close loopholes in oversight, charge a new agency with protecting consumers and address the dangerous, systemic risks that brought us to the brink of disaster. These reforms are moving through Congress, we’re working to keep those reforms strong, and I’m looking forward to signing them into law.

On the “false choice” between deficit reduction and job growth:

Now, there are those who claim we have to choose between paying down our deficits on the one hand, and investing in job creation and economic growth on the other. This is a false choice. Ensuring that economic growth and job creation are strong and sustained is critical to ensuring that we are increasing revenues and decreasing spending on things like unemployment insurance so that our deficits will start coming down.

On the hypocrisy of budget-busting Republicans and the so-called deficit hawks:

Folks passed tax cuts and expansive entitlement programs without paying for any of it — even as health care costs kept rising, year after year. As a result, the deficit had reached $1.3 trillion when we walked into the White House. And I’d note: These budget-busting tax cuts and spending programs were approved by many of the same people who are now waxing political about fiscal responsibility, while opposing our efforts to reduce deficits by getting health care costs under control. It’s a sight to see.

On past political failures and the current “fight to the finish” for jobs and recovery:

We’ve seen the consequences of this failure of responsibility. The American people have paid a heavy price. And the question we’ll have to answer now is if we’re going to learn from our past, or if — even in the aftermath of disaster — we’re going to repeat those same mistakes. As the alarm bells fade, the din of Washington rises, as the forces of the status quo marshal their resources, we can be sure that answering this question will be a fight to the finish. But I have every hope and expectation that we can rise to this moment, that we can transcend the failures of the past, that we can once again take responsibility for our future.

On the letters he gets from the families of the unemployed, and on the “seriousness of purpose” needed in Washington:

I hear from mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who’ve seen one or two or more family members out of work. The toughest letters are in children’s handwriting — kids write to me, my dad just lost a job; my grandma is sick, she can’t afford health insurance — kids who can’t just be kids because they’re worried about mom having her hours cut or dad losing a job, or a family without health insurance.

These folks aren’t looking for a handout, they’re not looking for a bailout — just like those people I visited in Allentown — all they’re looking for is a chance to make their own way, to work, to succeed using their talents and skills. And they’re looking for folks in Washington to have a seriousness of purpose that matches the reality of their struggle.

Tags: Barack Obama, Jobs, recovery