The coldest, most bitter part of winter is upon us. Even those of us with a warm home and a proper coat have good reason to fear that truly awful type of wind, the kind that cuts through the skin and chills to the bone. And, for those among us without, this is the time of year when life becomes a struggle for very survival.
With the holidays past, it can be tempting to indulge in a little selfishness, putting all that thankfulness and goodwill towards others on the backburner. When some unsold clothes that Walmart and H&M put in garbage bags outside their stores were found to have been slashed over the last few weeks, rendering them unwearable, it was probably not an act of malice against people who have been left out in the cold, but it certainly betrayed a lack of compassion. No one should be forced to rely on digging through the trash for clothing, but, until we create a sufficient social safety net, it would be nice to think that we would all try at a minimum—a very minimal minimum—not to make life even more difficult for people trying to scrape by.
The economic collapse is forcing us to confront the degree to which our fates are inextricably linked. And, while there is good reason to believe that many Americans have been reminded that we’re all in it together, all it takes is one story like this to see that, if we intend to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, we have an awfully long way to go.
The economic stimulus package has tackled some of the most pressing job-related issues facing our communities. However, with national unemployment at over 10% for the first time since the early 1980s, we have to make sure recovery monies are spent in communities who need help the most. We have a better chance of achieving success in these areas if we come together to ensure that our most vulnerable communities, including communities of color, immigrants, and the poor, can participate in and contribute to our economic growth.
Over the next few months, The Opportunity Agenda will be highlighting the progress that a number of community groups have had in dealing with the economic recovery. Specifically, we will be highlighting the successes and challenges that these groups have had in accessing stimulus funds, how those funds have been used to increase job opportunities and ensure economic security, and what the economic recovery package has meant for poor communities and communities of color.
As an organization working to ensure equal opportunity in the economic recovery, we have begun interviewing local and state-level groups to gain a better understanding of how our country is faring during this critical period. Today’s post centers on the our interview with Sondra Youdelman and Henry Serrano, focusing on their work with Community Voices Heard (CVH), a membership organization working to build power for low-income families in the state of New York. Sondra is the Executive Director of CVH, and Henry is their Senior Organizer/Voter Engagement Project Coordinator.
During these trying economic times, CVH has been lucky enough to achieve success by taking advantage of stimulus funding opportunities and grassroots activism. Recently, CVH won $25 million in new resources for subsidized employment, partly through regular Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) contingency money. In addition, CVH has been extremely proactive in assuring proper oversight and monitoring of public housing capital funds, specifically in the enforcement of Section 3 provisions of the 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act. The Opportunity Agenda interviewed Sondra and Henry together on October 21, 2009. Here are some portions of that interview:
You'd think some super-smart Dems might notice the difference here. You'd be wrong.
The GDP/unemployment vision gap perfectly captures the outlines of a world where Dems happily vote to cut off ACORN, and let Wall Street keep wallowing in public cash
Mr. Bernanke, who had become cautiously more upbeat in recent weeks amid signs of third-quarter growth, said for the first time that forecasters agree "at this point that we are in a recovery."
The rebound, he added, would likely be so moderate it wouldn't produce many jobs.
"Even though from a technical perspective the recession is very likely over at this point, it is still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time as many people still find their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was," he said.
His remarks, made after a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington to mark the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, came just after the Commerce Department reported retail sales climbed 2.7% in August after falling 0.2% in July.
And they added this optimistic chart, showing the biggest spike in autos, helped out by the now-terminated "cash for clunkers" program:
But on Thursday, Nobel Prize-Winner Joseph Stiglitz said 'not so much':
Just after returning to New York from Japan, Britain, and economically devastated Iceland, Stiglitz paints a picture of a U.S. economy that has stanched the most serious bleeding but remains deeply wounded. "I think we would be lucky to be out of the recession by 2012," Stiglitz says. "2010 may be a year of positive growth, though far weaker than would be necessary to get unemployment down significantly." Central to the grim diagnosis, Stiglitz says, is the lack of new jobs -- an argument echoed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which this week said high unemployment in the world's wealthiest countries could last years.
The difference here lies in what the two economists are looking at. Bernanke appears to going with the technical, GDP-based definition: if GDP is no longer going down, the recession is over. By that measure, the Great Depression ended sometime in 1933, if you can believe it-though, of course, there was another Recession when Roosevelt let up on recovery efforts and tried to balance the budget. Stiglitz, OTOH, is looking at jobs. And jobs didn't fully recover until WWII brought us the fullest employment economy we had ever known.
This seems like Framing and Political Strategy 101 to me, but since few other people are talking in this way, let me just lay out a basic idea: all this talk about doing a stimulus package versus not doing a stimulus package is fundamentally besides the point. What we need is a comprehensive policy package that is very simply focused on one thing and one thing only: jobs.
I know the policy wonks on Capitol Hill may be confused by that paragraph because, they would say, well, a stimulus program would create jobs. Well, yeah, that is the idea of stimulus. But my point is this: the politics of a second stimulus package are a dead end. The politics of having a debate about a policy package that will create jobs is a helpful thing. Announcing a second stimulus package gets Democrats into a defensive crouch about why the first one failed, and gets us into that same "can we get to 60" dance with Ben Nelson, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins that caused the first stimulus bill to be pared back and rendered less effective.
Voters don't know what it means to say you are going to stimulate the economy, but they do know what a job is. And right now, what we need is jobs sooner rather than later. My point here is not to just rename the stimulus bill the jobs bill. In fact, there are quite a few things the White House and Congress can do to focus on jobs that don't involve just spending more, although more money will certainly need to be spent. Here is what I would include in a comprehensive package:
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
It's official: The U.S. economy has been in a recession for a year and a half and many of the economic troubles worrying progressives in 2007 have yet to be addressed. While the Obama administration has taken steps to relieve some problems, a series of counterproductive bailouts, woefully inadequate labor laws and rampant inequality are still in urgent need of attention.
Building a new foundation requires a lot of heavy machinery. Bulldozers to clear the land, extractors to dig the foundation, concrete-mixers to pour the cement and trucks to haul the raw materials. So perhaps it's appropriate that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar will be at the White House tomorrow for the first meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB). The group includes some of America’s leading thinkers, business executives, and academics, including the CEOs of GE, UBS, and Google. (full list here)
The Board was created by President Obama in February to provide an outside-the-Beltway perspective on how we can recover from the financial crisis and build a new foundation for the American economy. "New Foundation" is emerging as the catch-all phrase to describe Obama's domestic policy agenda, similar to FDR's "New Deal" or Johnson's "Great Society" as a recent New York Times article points out. It's a good term, capturing both the shaky and unsustainable foundation of our past economic growth and framing out the kind of economy we need to build for the long-term. We are well past the time for patchwork solutions. We must rebuild and we must rebuild the right way.
The dialogue on immigration has, historically, been contentious and cyclical. There are times when hysteria peaks, and rational thought struggles to enter the national dialogue. There are also moments of truth. This week, independent media debunked many myths about the undocumented and made the case for the positive impact of immigrants in the US, including the positive effect of legalizing the undocumented on the economy and how citizens are holding elected representatives accountable for votes against pro-immigrant measures.
The selection of Adolfo Carrion, Bronx Borough President, to lead The White House Office of Urban Policy (WHOUP) is particularly important as the federal government unleashes the $787 billion economic stimulus package President Obama signed into law on Tuesday. The effectiveness of the stimulus package depends on the ability of federal officials to select among a range of public works projects identified by mayors and other metro officials according to these criteria: the speed with which they can be undertaken; the type, availability, and location of the workers they require; and their short-term and long-term economic effects. WHOUP must coordinate the federal government’s communication with officials at the city and metro level where most of these stimulus projects will be executed in the coming months.
Obama’s cities chief will have the opportunity to show the country that urban policy is uniquely about smart investment, careful planning, and effective policy design rather than wasteful spending on unnecessary projects—that it’s about harnessing the resources concentrated in metro areas, where a vast majority of Americans live, by maximizing present value and extracting future potential.
With shock and horror, stimulus opponents last week paraded around fragments of a government study showing that less than half the funds included in the now-passed House stimulus legislation would be spent by 2010. This was bad news. But then the Congressional Budget Office released the official (that is, the real) report, which reckoned that 64% of spending would occur before 2011 (85% by 2012). The House Minority Leader responded with vigorous, if seemingly misinformed, enthusiasm: the "so-called stimulus plan" will come "way too late to make any real difference in fixing the economy."
Instead, the House minority party proposed a treasure chest of tax cuts - some for individuals, including deductions for health insurance costs and relief from the alternative minimum tax, and some for businesses, including a carryback loss provision and small business income deductions. The only spending provision would continue the extended unemployment benefits program through the end of 2009.
Certainly, the opposition had succeeded in creating a fast-acting plan. But they seemed to ignore the arguably more important condition that the stimulus stimulate. Indeed, the pesky Congressional Budget Office that stimulus opponents have come to adore reports that the "multiplier" - the amount of economic activity wrung out of a dollar of additional spending or a dollar reduction in taxes - for tax cuts is the smallest of six stimulus policy options. And then there's conservative economist Martin Feldstein who calls the carryback loss provision "primarily lump-sum payments to selected companies." Others call this TARP II.
But this debate about fast-acting, ineffective stimulus versus slower-acting, effective stimulus obfuscates what the House legislation actually accomplishes (even if it raises important concerns about the persistence of the Bush ideology). Indeed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ties together measures designed to assist struggling households immediately and investment that can help set the stage for an economy built on energy efficiency and durable infrastructure.
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
"I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans. I'm talking about a moral deficit . . . . We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick."
I learned three things listening to Secretary Paulson on the Bailout program yesterday:
1. Paulson is a worse public speaker than Alan Greenspan (something I didn't think possible), leaving a more confused image of the Bailout Program behind him.
2. Homeowners will now not benefit from any kind of mortgage recovery from the Bailout, as it is now all going to keep banks afloat.
3. Since thee has, so far, been no oversight by Congress over the program, Paulson can do anything he wants without accountability.
and trucks to haul the raw materials. So perhaps it's appropriate that 