Weekly Audit: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

by: The Media Consortium

Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 12:02

President Barack Obama invited leading economic thinkers to a job creation summit on Thursday to help combat the worst unemployment crisis in decades. The stakes couldn't be higher: If Obama can't build momentum for robust legislation that will create jobs, the unemployment rate could remain in double-digits all the way through 2011.

In Salon, Andrew Leonard highlights some positive comments Obama made at the jobs summit. In an exchange with The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner, Obama said that the long-term budget deficit is an issue, but that the best way to reduce that deficit is to spur economic growth. When the economy is growing, the same tax rates reap greater returns for the government.

If the U.S. dramatically slashes economic support programs to clamp down on the deficit in the short-term, the economy is going to shrink. About two-thirds of the economic growth in the third-quarter of 2009 came from intiatives related to Obama's economic stimulus plan. If we cut back on stimulus, we lose more jobs and make the long-term deficit worse by hampering growth.

We've faced this kind of dilemma before and seen what happens when you focus too much on the deficit,  as Katrina vanden Heuvel emphasizes in a column for The Nation. "In 1937, just as there was some recovery from the Depression, the debt hawks swooped in and there was a return to the deficit reduction model," vanden Heuvel writes. "Things went south again. We don't need a repeat of that."

So Obama doesn't want to attack the deficit at the expense of jobs, which is good. But it's problematic that the President is still at the summit stage on the most politically pressing issue for Democrats, as Terence Samuel explains for The American Prospect. If the labor market doesn't start getting better soon, voter dissatisfaction with Obama's economic platform will impact other critical policy initiatives, from health care to climate change.

"The president is up against an unpredictable clock," Samuel writes. "With his approval rating hovering around 50%, he can't be sure how long Democrats in Congress will stick with him on anything if there is not some noticeable improvement in the jobs picture soon. The urgency on the job situation is not lost on Democrats in the House and Senate who must defend the seats of 18 Democrats in 2010."

Most of the pressure Obama now faces is to create jobs, not just save them. That's because his stimulus helped get the unemployment rate under control-we're still losing jobs, but not as fast as we were in January. But as Aaron Glantz notes for New America Media, the risk of heavier job loss is still present.

State governments are up against very difficult budget constraints, thanks to tax losses related to widespread layoffs and foreclosures. If they don't get help from the federal government, states will be forced to cut expenses, which means shedding more jobs. Glantz highlights a recent conference call with AFL-CIO leaders who warned that state and local governments could be forced to cut up to one million jobs in 2010 if Congress and President Obama fail to enact a major jobs bill.

David Moberg envisions an ideal jobs bill for Working In These Times. We need a major aid package to state governments, modernizing our schools and transportation network, a public-sector job program to fund important work in our communities, and a tax credit for companies that hire workers. The whole thing would only cost $400 billion and would create 4.6 million jobs. That could be enough money to move unemployment out of crisis-mode. Right now, about 15.4 million workers are out of a job. Half those workers have been put out of work over the course of the recession. Creating 4.6 million jobs would make an enormous difference.

And while the $400 billion price tag may sound like a big number, it's a drop in the bucket compared to our $9 trillion fiscal deficit. Going back to The Nation: As vanden Heuvel notes, the whole package could be paid for with a modest tax on risky Wall Street securities trading.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

Some links before the holiday…

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Nov 25, 2009 at 05:00

Before I go, here are some links to check out:

• Given that this is the biggest shopping week of the year, Open Left has joined with CREDO action to offer some great gift ideas: Send a coat hanger to one of the 20 "pro-choice" Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment. And to save you the trip to the store, all you have to do to send a coathanger is to sign a petition opposing the Stupak amendment in the final bill.

• Looks like artic ice and glaciers are part of the Climategate conspiracy.  So nice of them to help out.

• While the Senate will be focusing on health care after Thanksgiving, the House will focus entirely on the new jobs bill.  The leadership is aiming to pass it by December 18th, when Congress goes on recess for the next holidays.
  

  For the occasion, a new, actually bi-partisan jobs caucus has formed around the bill. I am always interested in new Congressional caucuses, but their ideas are a little strange:

  Kaptur, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), the top three members of the Jobs Now Caucus, have all said they're open to using some of the roughly $600 billion left in stimulus money for new programs targeted specifically for job creation.
  

  Miller floated the proposal during a news conference last week introducing the caucus. Miller supports redirecting stimulus funds toward more infrastructure projects.

  They are really proposing using stimulus infrastructure money to pay for new infrastructure projects in the jobs bill?  Really?  That's entirely pointless.  It isn't even as silly as robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Its robbing Paul to pay Paul.
  

• Speaker Pelosi also seems to get what the Obama administration seems a bit dense about-people want jobs more than they want deficit reduction.  Pelosi:

  "But I think if anybody is asked in the public, 'Would you rather have a job or a percentage of GDP or our national debt will go up a little bit?,' I think everybody wants a job."

  Good.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration is going to focus on deficit reduction next year.  This jobs bill is just about the last chance Democrats have to avoid getting crushed in 2010.

• Speaking of global warming denial, there are moments when I wonder if conservatives really are more off-base than progressives.  Then, I remember that the majority of conservatives don't believe in either global warming or natural selection.  Its at that point that I remember we are dealing with people who aren't interested in a reasoned examination of the world.

• Yes, the filibuster is bad.

  Let me further add that if the filibuster is not destroyed, the public policy passed in 2009 will be the most progressive policy we will see for at least one or two more decades.  If you are cool with that, then go ahead, defend the filibuster.  If you want more, then we need to start working to destroy it.
  

  And of course there are risks.  Yes, without a filibuster, Republicans will be able to pass more of their legislation once they regain control of the Senate and the White House.  However, that is a risk I am perfectly willing to take in order to at least have a chance to actually make significant progressive change happen before the kids I have not yet had are old enough to vote.

• Over at FDL, Jon Walker notes that PhRMA is running ads urging Joe Lieberman to pass the health care bill as is.  Are they perhaps afraid of progressives blocking the health care bill?

  I suspect if PhRMA were 100% confident Joe Lieberman could successfully remove the public option and still ensure the rest of the bill would pass intact, they would be supporting his efforts. The fact that PhRMA is asking Lieberman not to fight indicates to me that they actually fear the possibility that the progressive block might kill the current bill because if it lacks a public option.

  Maaaybe.  But really, does anyone fear the Progressive Block on health care?  Or the Progressive Block on anything?  Even Ralph Nader refused to admit he was helping Republicans.  If Naderites aren't even going to admit they are willing to help defeat Democrats, and help Republicans, if their demands are not met, then why should we expect Progressives in Congress to do so?  There is something deeply embedded in the American progressive psyche that prevents them from ever admitting they will hurt Democrats, and help Republicans, in order to further their goals.

This is an open thread.

Darcy Burner discusses what's behind DeFazio's remarks that Geithner & Summers should go

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 10:00

Open Left: On MSNBC Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he and other liberal House members are becoming increasingly tired of the Obama administration economic policies that are too focused on maintaining the stability and health of Wall Street firms and largely ignore Main Street. There's been significant criticism of Geithner and Summers in the blogosphere since their appointments were first announced, and significant criticism of their policies as well. There's been scattered and occasional congressional criticism before, but this sounds like it's a good deal more serious.  Is it?  And if so, why is it different and why now?  Let's take those one at a time.

Is it different?

Darcy Burner: My best guess is that it is more serious.  Now the Progressive Caucus has not taken an official position.  Congressman DeFazio was speaking on his own behalf, quite eloquently, I thought.  I particularly liked the line about "losing two jobs to save millions." But I think that the indications are that there is growing dissatisfaction among the members of Congress who very much want to see a set of economic policies that are going to help main street, rather than just Wall Street.  And a jobless recovering isn't particularly progressive approach to how we solve the economic crisis that we're in.  

Now, it is the case, obviously, that we have some progressives who've been very active, particularly in the financial reform aspect, if you look at Alan Grayson, for instance.  He is a member of the Progressive Caucus, he's been extraordinarily involved in asking the tough questions, and encouraging his fellow members on the Financial Services Committee to ask some really tough questions at the hearings they've held, about the Federal Reserve, about the banking system, about the banks, about some of the Wall Street shenanigans.

So there has been growing pressure from members of Congress. And, you know, we're seeing some traction around the idea of auditing the Fed, and finding out what's really going on there.

So I don't think it's particularly surprising that there would be an expression of real dissatisfaction with the Administration's economic policies and the economic advisors from progressives in Congress.