President Obama gives another great speech—great not just because he’s a compelling speaker but because he’s laying out so much about what’s wrong with the economy.
Excerpts:
I ran for President because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work: Cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires. Cut regulations for special interests. Cut trade deals even if they didn’t benefit our workers. Cut back on investments in our people and in our future -– in education and clean energy, in research and technology. The idea was that if we just had blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everyone else to fend for themselves that America would grow and America would prosper.
And for a time this idea gave us the illusion of prosperity. We saw financial firms and CEOs take in record profits and record bonuses. We saw a housing boom that led to new homeowners and new jobs in construction. Consumers bought more condos and bigger cars and better TVs.
But while all this was happening, the broader economy was becoming weaker. Nobody understands that more than the people of Ohio. Job growth between 2000 and 2008 was slower than it had been in any economic expansion since World War II -– slower than it’s been over the last year. The wages and incomes of middle-class families kept falling while the cost of everything from tuition to health care kept on going up. Folks were forced to put more debt on their credit cards and borrow against homes that many couldn’t afford to buy in the first place. And meanwhile, a failure to pay for two wars and two tax cuts for the wealthy helped turn a record surplus into a record deficit.
I ran for President because I believed that this kind of economy was unsustainable –- for the middle class and for the future of our nation. I ran because I had a different idea about how America was built.
And
I believe government should be lean; government should be efficient. I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others. (Applause.)
But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) And that means making the long-term investments in this country’s future that individuals and corporations can’t make on their own: investments in education and clean energy, in basic research and technology and infrastructure. (Applause.)
That means making sure corporations live up to their responsibilities to treat consumers fairly and play by the same rules as everyone else. (Applause.) Their responsibility is to look out for their workers, as well as their shareholders, and create jobs here at home.
And that means providing a hand-up for middle-class families –- so that if they work hard and meet their responsibilities, they can afford to raise their children, and send them to college, see a doctor when they get sick, retire with dignity and respect. (Applause.)
That’s what we Democrats believe in -– a vibrant free market, but one that works for everybody. (Applause.) That’s our vision. That’s our vision for a stronger economy and a growing middle class. And that’s the difference between what we and Republicans in Congress are offering the American people right now.
Some key excerpts from President Obama’s Labor Day speech.
I believe this with every fiber of my being: America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class — (applause) — a middle class built on the idea that if you work hard, if you live up to your responsibilities, then you can get ahead; that you can enjoy some basic guarantees in life. A good job that pays a good wage. Health care that will be there when you get sick. (Applause.) A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. (Applause.) An education that will give your children a better life than we had. (Applause.) These are simple ideas. These are American ideas. These are union ideas. That’s what we’re fighting for. (Applause.)
I was thinking about this last week. I was thinking about this last week on the day I announced the end of our combat mission in Iraq. (Applause.) And I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and our veterans. And this new generation of troops coming home from Iraq, they’ve earned their place alongside the greatest generation. (Applause.) Just like that greatest generation, they’ve got the skills, they’ve got the training, they’ve got the drive to move America’s economy forward once more. We’ve been investing in new care and new opportunities and a new commitment to our veterans, because we’ve got to serve them just the way they served us. (Applause.)
But, Milwaukee, they’re coming home to an economy hit by a recession deeper than anything we’ve seen since the 1930s. So the question is, how do we create the same kinds of middle-class opportunities for this generation as my grandparents’ generation came home to? How do we build our economy on that same strong, stable foundation for growth?
Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it’s going to trickle down to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you’ll never see it. (Applause.) If that’s what you’re waiting for, you should stop waiting, because it’s never happened in our history. That’s not how America was built. It wasn’t built with a bunch of folks at the top doing well and everybody else scrambling. We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell. We did it with sweat and effort and innovation. (Applause.) We did it on the assembly line and at the construction site. (Applause.)
We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up –- the workers, middle-class families, small business owners. We out-worked folks and we out-educated folks and we out-competed everybody else. That’s how we built America.
More:
You know, that’s why we passed financial reform to provide new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; stopping credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes. (Applause.) Ending taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street once and for all. They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do. (Applause.)
That’s why we eliminated tens of billions of dollars in wasteful taxpayer subsidies, handouts to the big banks that were providing student loans. We took that money, tens of billions of dollars, and we’re going to go to make sure that your kids and your grandkids can get student loans and grants at a cheap rate and afford a college education. (Applause.) They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do. (Applause.)
Yes, we’re using those savings to put a college education within reach for working families.
That’s why we passed health insurance reform to make coverage affordable. (Applause.) Reform that ends the indignity of insurance companies jacking up your premiums at will, denying you coverage just because you get sick; reform that gives you control, gives you the ability if your child is sick to be able to get an affordable insurance plan, making sure they can’t drop it.
That’s why we’re making it easier for workers to save for retirement, with new ways of saving your tax refunds, a simpler system for enrolling in plans like 401(k)s, and fighting to strengthen Social Security for the future. (Applause.) And if everybody is still talking about privatizing Social Security, they need to be clear: It will not happen on my watch. Not when I’m President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
That’s why — we’ve given tax cuts — except we give them to folks who need them. (Applause.) We’ve given them to small business owners. We’ve given them to clean energy companies. We’ve cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised you during the campaign. You all got a tax cut. (Applause.)
And instead of giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas, we’re cutting taxes to companies that are putting our people to work right here in the United States of America. (Applause.)
If that’s the question you’ve been asking yourself, in one form or another, over the course of the past year or two, believe me you are not alone. Whenever the subject comes up people seem to respond with that instant sense of recognition and a one word accompaniment: “Right?”
By now it’s clear that a sizable consensus of all but the most wackadoodle economists think that the stimulus measures in the original Recovery Act were far too small. As the Congressional Budget Office continues to report, those stimulus measures have had a positive impact on the economy. And without them, things would have been far, far worse. But for all of the benefits of the Recovery Act — extended unemployment insurance, COBRA health subsidies, highway and rail projects, TANF low-income-family employment programs, the largest tax cut for the middle-class in history, Medicare assistance for states and education aid for the nation’s schools — it just wasn’t big and bold enough to create the millions of new jobs needed to restore full employment.
Now, with the economic impact of the original stimulus winding down, the job market, the housing market and the economy overall are worsening again. The Republican obstructionists, especially in the Senate, have succeeded to a large extent in thwarting additional measures to boost the economy. Those measures that have passed, including a partial extension of unemployment benefits and aid to states, were substantially reduced in funding and scope even as they took months off the legislative calendar. Larger jobs bills were at least temporarily abandoned. Even a small business lending bill is stalled.
Caring not a whit that their obstruction is itself a cause of deepening misery for millions and increasing economic woes for the country, Republicans are betting that a worsening economy will work to their political benefit in November.
Unemployment remains staggeringly high. For more than a year, the monthly jobs figures have reported roughly 15 million American workers unemployed. That’s more jobless workers in our country than there were in 1933, at the depths of the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, calls are mounting for additional stimulus, particularly large-scale public-funded jobs programs, amid warnings that not acting would have devastating consequences. As Paul Krugman wrote recently:
The markets aren’t demanding that we give up on job creation. On the contrary, they seem worried about the lack of action — about the fact that, as Bill Gross of the giant bond fund Pimco put it earlier this week, we’re “approaching a cul-de-sac of stimulus,” which he warns “will slow to a snail’s pace, incapable of providing sufficient job growth going forward.”
A number of renowned policy voices have been even more strident of late in demanding that major, long-past-due efforts directed at large-scale job creation become the singularly crucial focus.
With the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression worsening, you might expect emergency action out of Washington. But the biggest upcoming debate there is whether to extend the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent, or for everyone, or for no one. This is like debating whether to get a mousetrap when your home is sinking in quicksand.
We need a response proportional to the crisis.
[...]
First item on the agenda: establishing a federal bank that will provide states and locales zero-interest loans, to be repaid when their unemployment rates drop to 5 percent or below.
Second item: eliminating payroll taxes on the first $20,000 of all incomes and make up the difference by subjecting all income above $250,000 to the payroll tax. (Remember, the wealthy save most of their after-tax income, lower-income Americans spend it.)
Third item: recreating the WPA to hire Americans directly. The Works Progress Administration put Americans back to work during the Depression rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
The jobs emergency requires no less.
And in a withering critique, titled ‘Fire and Imagination’, Bob Herbert urges the Obama administration to “re-examine what it might do to improve what is fast becoming a depressing state of affairs.”
Mr. Obama’s problem — and the nation’s — is that in the midst of the terrible economic turmoil that the country was in when he took office, he did not make full employment, meaning job creation in both the short and the long term, the nation’s absolute highest priority.
Besides responding to the nation’s greatest need, job creation would have been the one issue most likely to bolster Mr. Obama’s efforts to bring people of different political persuasions together. In the early months of 2009, with job losses soaring past a half-million a month and the country desperate for bold, creative leadership, the president had an opportunity to rally the nation behind an enormous “rebuild America” effort.
Such an effort, properly conceived, would have put millions to work overhauling the nation’s infrastructure, rebuilding our ports and transportation facilities to 21st-century standards, establishing a Manhattan Project-like quest for a brave new world of clean energy, and so on.
[...]
Think of the returns the nation reaped from its investments in the interstate highway system, the Land Grant colleges, rural electrification, the Erie and Panama canals, the transcontinental railroad, the technology that led to the Internet, the Apollo program, the G.I. bill.
The problem with the U.S. economy today, as it was during the Great Depression, is the absence of sufficient demand for goods and services. Consumers, struggling with sky-high unemployment and staggering debt loads, are tapped out. The economy cannot be made healthy again, and there is no chance of doing anything substantial about budget deficits, as long as so many millions of people are left with essentially no purchasing power. Jobs are the only real answer.
[...]
During the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt explained to the public the difference between wasteful spending and sound government investments. “You cannot borrow your way out of debt,” he said, “but you can invest your way into a sounder future.”
Now, with so much money already spent and Republicans expected to gain seats in the Congressional elections, the president finds himself with a much weaker hand, even if he were inclined to play it boldly.
Perhaps he can still. In fact, he must. The ideas needed to re-employ millions of Americans are not what’s lacking. There are plenty of effective ideas, and plenty of ways to finance them as well. What is needed is the resolve to put them forward and fight for their effective implementation. And not in two years or three years. Much sooner. Like now.
In a recent speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s grandson, Curtis Roosevelt, described the situation facing FDR in the late summer prior to the 1934 mid-term elections during his first term, in the context of the situation facing President Obama today. The full text makes for some fascinating reading; but for our purposes here, I’ll offer some relevant excerpts.
Needless to say, looming in the background for both Presidents were and are the mid-term elections. Both — 1934 and 2010 — were and are predicted to be resounding defeats for the Democrats.
[...]
Looming over Roosevelt’s head was the Great Depression, already entrenched for several years when he became president.
During the first year and a half of FDR’s first term, as his grandson recounts, FDR’s New Deal had largely focused on addressing the banking and financial crises. And while progress had also been made to help stabilize employment in some industries, and to improve wages and working conditions for many of those workers with jobs, vast numbers of workers remained unemployed. In 1934, what we’ve come to view as the core signature programs of the New Deal — the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Social Security and unemployment insurance — were yet to be enacted. That would come a year later, in 1935.
Curtis Roosevelt continues:
Roosevelt biographer Arthur Schlesinger Jr., described FDR’s dilemma during the few months before the 1934 mid-term elections. “Roosevelt, suddenly silent and irresolute, seemed to have lost his touch … The administration appeared to lack coherence both in policy and in strategy.” Schlesinger added, “these were hard days for the President. He knew that things were going badly … Roosevelt faced the organised business community [and] its determination to halt the New Deal …[He] faced the tumult of mass opinion, so ardently stirred by the radicals and demagogues … Overhanging was the threat of judicial action against New Deal laws and programs.”
The most influential historian of the day Charles A. Beard forecast doom for FDR in 1934. He wrote: “the disintegration of President Roosevelt’s prestige proceeded with staggering rapidity during February and March.”
FDR could not have felt his accustomed confidence, and was certainly not wearing his usual jaunty air. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes recorded in his diary that he found his old friend “distinctly dispirited. He looked tired … and he seemed to lack the fighting vigour or the buoyancy that has always characterized him.”
Reviewing the criticisms leveled against New Deal programs was apparently instructive for the president. Roosevelt listened to his advisors suggesting one or another alternative, one option against another. And then he pondered … and pondered … taking his time, much to his aides’ frustration. “He knows nothing about economics!” was the usual charge exchanged among them.
Then, suddenly, FDR brightened and seemed to know how and where he wanted to move. His staff remained perplexed, but again Schlesinger gets it right.
“The basic reason for [FDR's] inaction was that he was simply unprepared to act … [His] inscrutable processes of decision were moving all too slowly within.” Concludes Schlesinger, “He could not lead until he knew where he wanted to go.”
My grandfather’s convoluted way of decision-making-from the stomach up to the heart, and then the head-was, as usual, right on. Later, historians would call it his natural intuition, or something like that.
[...]
In their next edition, Time magazine reported: “Franklin Roosevelt’s mood suddenly changed.” His whole legislative program was in the pot and boiling …The Social Securities Bill, the Banking bill, the Utilities Bill, the Wagner Bill, the fate of the NRA … Suddenly the irritability which had marked his recent actions dropped from him. Pronounced Time: “His ‘winter peeve’ was over.”
Yes, the New Deal was rolling again. Referring to the autumn term of Congress in 1934, just at the time of the November elections, Charles A. Beard radically changed his tune from only a few months before. “Seldom, if ever, in the long history of Congress had so many striking and vital measures been spread upon the law books in a single session.”
And the results of mid-term election of November 1934?
The Democrats increased their congressional seats in both houses, increased their governorships, and chalked up a higher proportion of the popular vote. So much for the pundits!
The Democrats’ recovery, I think, continued to be dependent upon Franklin Roosevelt’s very personal style. He seemed to sense his way through the political maze. Whatever, it remains an exceptional example of political leadership.
What FDR did in the late summer of 1934, was talk straight with and directly to the American people, fighting for expanded public job-creation programs on a scale to re-employ millions of unemployed American workers.
In his famous Fireside Chat radio broadcast of August 30, 1934, FDR said:
To those who say that our expenditures for Public Works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try to tell me that we must make up our minds that for the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed just as other countries have had them for over a decade. What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility to determine. But as for this country, I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. On the contrary, we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return.
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I believe with Abraham Lincoln, that “The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”
I still believe in ideals. I am not for a return to that definition of Liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of Liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.
The Democrats’ predicted defeat in the 1934 mid-term elections was averted. The nation rallied to FDR’s side in the battle against unemployment — for jobs and economic recovery. The core New Deal programs that most directly benefited working Americans, both employed and unemployed, were largely enacted the following year. The WPA alone went on to employ 8 million American workers.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s impassioned statements, refusing to accept joblessness for millions of Americans, were stirring words indeed. But they were not merely words. FDR and his administration were resolved and committed to enacting big, bold New Deal plans — like the WPA — to re-employ America. And they knew that the costs of not doing so would, in fact, be far greater.
That’s the resolve that was needed in 1934; and it is needed again today.
The author is the winner of the 2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year.
Some of the high points of the State of the Union (for me—your mileage may of course vary). In general there was a lot I liked, but of course it was a very long speech and I’m sure many points got buried:
Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy; 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders. And we’re on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.
The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. That’s right -– the Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus bill. Economists on the left and the right say this bill has helped save jobs and avert disaster. But you don’t have to take their word for it. Talk to the small business in Phoenix that will triple its workforce because of the Recovery Act. Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created. Talk to the single teacher raising two kids who was told by her principal in the last week of school that because of the Recovery Act, she wouldn’t be laid off after all.
This is the kind of salesmanship it would have been good to see all along, but good to do it now.
But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that’s why I’m calling for a new jobs bill tonight.
Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information.
We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America.
Please remember to pay good wages and benefits for those jobs making homes energy-efficient, or there’s a lot less point to it…
To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let’s take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years –- and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.
Fantastic. Really good policy.
At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door.
Again, a great point to make. It’s great now, would’ve been amazing a while ago before the narrative was set.
To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town — a supermajority — then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let’s show the American people that we can do it together.
This is another of those things I like, and hope happens…but I’m not holding my breath.
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.
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.
Earlier I posted a summary of the jobs proposals President Obama laid out this morning at the Brookings Institution. Here are a few, still-preliminary thoughts. Since this will be the initial defining address on one of the issues that defines the economy today and will be a massive upcoming legislative debate, it’s worth looking at from a few angles now.
Reasonable people—or, as the president might say, responsible ones—agree: We need serious action to produce jobs and to support people who have been without jobs for months. And they agree on many of the key ways to do that: The president’s address today embraced several points of the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan on jobs, and called for an extension of unemployment benefits extended under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the AFL-CIO and the National Employment Law Project have done.
Reasonable people can—and will—quibble over the details. We’ll be doing a lot of that in the coming months. But as the speech makes clear, action has been urgently needed at several points in the past year, and is needed once again. Reasonable people cannot disagree on that point—those who don’t think there’s a problem or who think that the way to solve the problem is to continue the policies that created it are not worthy of the title. The debate over the details of how to create jobs and spur economic growth needs to take place among reasonable, responsible people.
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.
When President Obama addressed the AFL-CIO convention this week, calling on labor to help the country rebuild our middle class, the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans were, in a sense, also in the room.
And as we know, and Bob Herbert reported in his column the same day, those millions of Americans are in “A World of Hurt”.
While the Wall Street Journal was touting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s view that the recession was “very likely over”, Mr. Herbert wrote:
“this is no time to lose sight of the wreckage all around us. This recession, a full-blown economic horror, has left a gaping hole in the heart of working America that is unlikely to heal for years, if not decades.
Fifteen million Americans are locked in the nightmare of unemployment, nearly 10 percent of the work force. A third have been jobless for more than six months. Thirteen percent of Latinos and 15 percent of blacks are out of work. (Those are some of the official statistics. The reality is much worse.)”
To get beyond the usual reporting of numbers and statistics, the study sought to address the human toll of the recession on unemployed Americans. They surveyed 1,200 Americans nationwide who have been unemployed and looking for work in the last 12 months, and found 894 still jobless. They say their study
“portrays a shaken, traumatized people coping with serious financial and psychological effects from an economic downturn of epic proportions.”
Describing the overall results of the survey, co-author Van Horn said:
“Millions of unemployed Americans are suffering economic and personal catastrophes. This is not your ordinary dip in the business cycle. Americans believe that this is the Katrina of recessions. Folks are on their rooftops without a boat. The water is rising, and many see no way out.”
Summarizing some of what the survey found:
60% of the recently unemployed lost their jobs suddenly, without advance warning; more than half the unemployed lost their jobs for the very first time; more than half have borrowed money from friends or relatives; 25% have skipped mortgage or rent payments; two-thirds report being depressed; three-quarters feel stress and anxiety; three-fifths report feeling helpless; only 40% of those currently unemployed received unemployment insurance; 83% of those who did receive aid worry that their benefits will run out before they find a job
The survey’s full 27-page report (pdf) also contains personal stories and quotes from respondents. Here are several:
After 38 years…the co[mpany] I worked for let six people go — three in billing where I worked. My seniority should have counted at that time. I wasn’t mad — more shocked than anything. I gave 110% every day I worked there. I put my job before my husband — now “ex” — and before my kids.
I have been unemployed so long that I can no longer put off my student loan payments, which are twice the amount of all my other bills combined.
Even low-paying jobs are hard to find. My age (57) is hurting me.
There was no warning at all. He said we’d work something out with the hours. Then I’m gone. I will be trying to start my own business, but there is no credit available. All the banks reduced credit lines without warning, even though all bills [were] paid on time. It makes it even hard to get by.
My age (59) leaves me feeling worthless, very old, and isolated from the workforce — with little chance of finding employment.
Very few employers are willing to hire someone at my age because they are afraid of possible health concerns down the road, and that I may decide to retire too soon to make me a good risk.
I don’t want to move back home with my parents. Right before I became unemployed, I had moved out on my own for the first time.
The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally.
Being unemployed is frustrating, demeaning and, at this point, frightening. Articles in the paper say we “baby boomers” will have to work for a few more years especially since so many of us have lost half if not more in retirement “funds”. Now, you tell me, how can I work for a few more years if I can’t even get a job interview?!
If these comments ring true with you and you’re one of the 15 million unemployed, one of the best resources anywhere is Working America’s Unemployment Lifeline where you’ll find links to community, government and online resources in your area. You can connect with other people there too, and take action to call on Congress to extend unemployment benefits.
In his speech to the AFL-CIO Convention President Obama said, in part:
For over half a century, the success of America has been built on the success of our middle class. It was the creation of the middle class that lifted this nation up in the wake of a great depression.
…
And the fundamental test of our time is whether we will heed this lesson; whether we will let America become a nation of the very rich and the very poor, of the haves and the have-nots; or whether we will remain true to the promise of this country and build a future where the success of all of us is built on the success of each of us.
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We cannot afford to go back – we must move forward. That’s why we need to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. By creating the jobs of the future.
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We’ll grow our middle class by creating jobs for Americans who want one – not just any jobs, but jobs with good wages, jobs with good benefits. Jobs that give a person the satisfaction of knowing they’ll meet their responsibilities to themselves and their families. Jobs that are not just a source of income, but a source of self-respect. Every American deserves that much.
True enough. So let’s get started on a scale adequate to the task of creating the millions of new jobs we need.
As Bob Herbert concludes in his column “At some point the unemployment crisis in America will have to be confronted head-on.”
I’d say if ever there was a fierce urgency, it’s now.
I watched President Obama’s stirring address to a joint session of Congress on the urgent need to deliver on the American people’s long-standing demand for real health care reform. The full video is here. At the beginning I was excited, hopeful and impressed. At the end I was moved to tears, knowing just how long and hard the battle has been for the moral and economic necessity of health care reform — and how close we may be now.
But in between, as the President forcefully knocked down the most bogus claims of right-wing reform opponents, hearing a group of Congressional Republicans booing and heckling the President, followed by Republican Congressman Joe Wilson shouting “You lie” — video of that segment is here — it was all too clear that for a certain segment of Republicans, the extremes of their ideology have led them to emulate the sociopaths who tried to disrupt Democratic town hall health care forums this summer.
I saw it recently when I attended a local town hall meeting hosted by my Congressman, Democrat Jim Himes (CT-4) with more than 1,000 people on September 2 in Norwalk. At the meeting Rep. Himes spoke with courage, conviction and intelligence on the need for health care reform and his support for a public insurance option for those lacking coverage. Supporters of health care reform clearly outnumbered opponents at the meeting, perhaps by as many as 2-to-1. The turnout by progressives, local Democrats, labor and health care advocates was impressive. And we had numerous opportunities to show our support, the majority standing and applauding for Congressman Himes whenever he spoke strongly for real reform with a public insurance option.
But it was the sociopathic behavior of a significant number of reform opponents in the crowd that was shocking.
This angry, loud and ignorant gang, numbering perhaps 250 gathered in groups throughout the auditorium, many armed with right-wing website instructions on how to disrupt these meetings, put on a display of sociopathic behavior that many in attendance found hard to believe.
They booed and heckled doctors and nurses who told their stories of often not being able to provide adequate health care due to interference from private insurance companies, or due to excessive costs or patients lacking finances or insurance.
They booed and heckled a retired former health insurance executive who told of his long-standing frustration with not being able to offer quality insurance policies to people at affordable prices.
They booed and heckled anyone who didn’t share their fear, their ignorance and their prejudice.
Now Congressional Republicans, seeing the edifice of their lies about health care reform crumble, in heckling the President seek to emulate the town hall sociopaths they themselves spawned. Sociopaths — the face and the base of the Republican party.
