Posted on 02/05/2010 5:25:41 PM PST by Chi-townChief
President Obama calls on Congress to pass a jobs program immediately, estimating its cost at $100 billion. This nestles the president's program nicely between the program passed by the House in December, totaling about $150 billion, and that being discussed by the Senate, said to be $80 billion and getting smaller by the day.
Obama's plan -- in a clear concession to Republicans -- focuses on tax cuts and loans for small business. He endorses the "jobs tax credit," that would give small businesses a tax credit for new hires. He calls for eliminating capital gains taxes for some small businesses and putting a little money into infrastructure and new energy.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell scorns the president's program. He rails about the deficits, but he doesn't object to adding to them. He wants to extend tax cuts for the wealthy, those making more than $250,000 per year, opposes taxing the banks to repay the TARP funds and wants the president to focus solely on other tax cuts. And, of course, he wants to abandon health-care reform, which is paid for and would reduce the deficit over time by slowing the rise of health-care costs. "Our problems," he says, "are not a result of taxing too little, but of spending too much."
But in the major U.S. cities, unemployment isn't at 10 percent; it is at 20 percent and higher. Across the country, one in five men of working age is unemployed or forced to take part-time work. In cities, that number surges to one in three. Among the young, it's closer to one in two.
McConnell's tax breaks for the wealthy won't help them -- and won't help lift the economy either. They will help fill the coffers of the Republican Party for the fall elections, but they have nothing to do with a real recovery.
The president's tax breaks for small business are more sensibly targeted, but are likely to be equally ineffective. The credit for new hires will go overwhelmingly to reward businesses for hiring that they would do anyway.
There really is no question about what is needed. We need direct public service jobs that will reach out to the most affected areas, put people to work, provide them with training and ensure that they do not sink into misery and despair.
We need far larger infrastructure spending to rebuild our crumbling sewers, roads and bridges and put construction workers back to work. We need aid to states and localities so crippling cuts aren't made to teachers, police, universities and construction projects. And then we need to sustain assistance to those displaced through no fault of their own -- through unemployment insurance, COBRA health-care payments, expanded food and nutrition assistance. We also need a real program of mortgage write-downs so people can stay in their homes. And the scale has to be three or four times the size of the president's plan.
We need to borrow the money to do this now. Without this, we will witness the decimation of the emerging African-American and Latino middle class -- as well as the continued decline of America's workers. Homes will be lost, families broken, young people forced to drop out of college. Homeless children will struggle to find family on the streets. The crisis is real, stark and brutal.
Can we afford this? Yes, even now we are borrowing money at remarkably low interest rates. And we can't afford not to do it -- for the costs of failing a generation will be far greater than the cost of investing now.
And in the long term, the reality that cannot be admitted in Washington is that Mitch McConnell is profoundly and cynically simply wrong. We've had three decades of conservative domination of our politics -- cutting top- end taxes and starving basic investments, with special venom for programs that would provide opportunity for the poor.
The problem is not economics but politics. Americans are worried about deficits. Conservatives and Republicans -- the very folks who drove us off this cliff -- are stoking fears, obstructing any reforms and benefitting from the resulting disgust with Washington. So, Obama is trimming his sails and Democrats are fleeing for the hills.
In this historic testing, the poorest neighborhoods and the most devastated regions will be left in a downward spiral that isn't likely to turn up soon.
mailto:jjackson@rainbowpush.org
Which reminds me of one of my favorite radio programs that has just come back on the air here in LA:
“What the Hell Did Jesse Jackson Say?”
http://socalmediascoop.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-hell-did-jesse-jackson-say.html
You can listen to it on-line too.
www.kfi640.com
Hilarious!
ROFLMAO
JESSE JACKSON is an idiot.
Time to email the GOP and tell them all the money has to be for non government Jobs.
NO! NO! NO!
This is just more insanity.
Remember the original stimulus promises?
They were throwing terms around like “shovel ready” and pumping excitement about rebuilding infrastructure like highways, bridges, etc.
So far most of whaqt has been spent has been wasted and hasn’t created any jobs. And over half of that money still sits in an Obama slush fund for him to use influencing elections and paying off cronies. But our bridges and roads are still crumbling.
If republicans have anything to do with this they are as mad as Obama.
Oh, please, this is all a grand Kabuki act to get the public to think that Obama is actually being bi-partisan and the eeevil Republicans are being obstructionists.
Imagine how stupid you'd have to be to write something like that. Then be grateful that you aren't that stupid.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
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