Republicans Fear That If Unemployment Goes Down, So Will Their Chances To Win In 2012

Obama's "jobs" speech last week may only have scratched the surface of solving the country's economic crisis but there are absolutely some good proposals mixed in with all the tax cuts and the hodgepodge of failed conservative proposals. And predictably, the Republicans want to cut those good parts out and pass all the bad parts. Who couldn't have seen that coming a mile away?

House Republicans responded by signaling an openness to passing parts of Obama’s new jobs bill, while signaling disapproval of Obama’s vow to barnstorm the country to get the American Jobs Act passed in its current form.

“The message was: either accept my package as it is, or I will take it to the American people,” Eric Cantor said. “I would say that that’s the wrong approach.”

Today, the White House offered its answer: Sorry, we want the whole bill passed. Nothing less.

With the spin war over the speech now shifting to a phase where Republicans are telegraphing a desire to compromise, even as Obama hits the road to sell his whole plan to the American people, this exchange on MSNBC this morning between Chuck Todd and White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer struck me as important:

TODD: The bill gets sent to Congress next week. Are you guys assuming that it gets sort of piecemealed, that at the end of the day you’re going to get some of what you want but not all of what you want?

PFEIFFER: No, we’re not assuming that. The president said it 16 times, I’ll say it a 17th time today. He wants them to pass the American Jobs Act. That’s the piece of legislation he’s sending up. It’s a simple thing. Puts the Americans back to work and puts more money into the pockets of working families. Our belief is that everything in this bill is reasonable. Everything in the bill has bipartisan support. Everything will have an effect right now. And so we want them to pass it.

After the president spoke we highlighted how a New Hampshire progressive candidate for Congress, Ann Kuster, was looking at the unemployment situation. She put a far more effective proposal on the table than President Obama did and told New Hampshire voters that "It is time-- in fact, it is way past time-- to make job-creation the single, critical priority of our entire nation." She continued:

Washington has spent plenty of time lately on other issues, from genuine crises like Libya to political distractions like the debt-ceiling debate and efforts to end Medicare. But we cannot afford to go another month without real solutions for getting more Americans back to work. 

I may sound like a broken record-- for the past two years, whenever I have been asked about the top three issues facing our country, my reply has been “Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs.” But the truth is, this Congress has done next to nothing to promote an economic recovery and get Americans back to work.

How do we do it? Education is how we grew an economy this strong in the first place, and it is where we have to start again. Innovation has been a powerful competitive advantage for America, and we can’t afford to lose our edge. And Rejuvenation-- of our bridges & roads, cities & towns, and economic networks (highways and broadband communications)-- that's the key to a country that is built to win the future.

New Hampshire has two congressional districts and the other one is also held by a rubber stamp Republican, Frank Guinta, with absolutely no inclination to solve the mess conservatives created for working families. Next year will see a re-match between Guinta and former Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter. Carol responded to the Republican obstructionism after Fox aired a Republican Party propaganda segment on Hannity's show.

“After spending his whole vacation insisting that he was so bipartisan now that he was friends with Barney Frank, it did not take our current Congressman, Frank Guinta, a New York minute to condemn President Obama's Jobs Program. One of the top Republican leaders, Rep Eric Cantor, said, 'But there are some things that we can do if we transcend those differences and stick to what the mission here is,' but Frank [Guinta] simply refused to be bipartisan at all, flatly stating, 'they got more failed policy and empty eloquence'."

Like Ann, Carol vows to New Hampshire voters she will work in Congress in the interests of ordinary working families and small businesspeople. If you'd like to contribute to their campaigns, they're both on the same page.


THE SUNDAY CLASSICS POST DEVOTED TO BORODIN'S PRINCE IGOR (following Friday night's and last night's previews) is coming up at 2pm PT.

What If People Bolder Than Obama's Hideously Conflicted Wall Street Economic Team Had Put Together The Jobs Bill-- Like Alan Grayson's Children?

Alan Grayson's a great dad. He just got back from taking one of his pre-teen sons to Ghana for a week. His kids have been to more countries than most Americans can identify on a map! Although Republican Taliban Dan Webster home-schooled his brood of morons, none of them are capable of getting jobs in the real world and now they all work in Taliban Dan's airconditioner refurbishing shop. Grayson is very hands on with his kids' education in a more traditional way. They go to public schools and he helps them with their homework. I've never met them. I'd bet they're all really smart. A letter from Alan this week about his children's ideas on job creation makes it an easy bet. He posed a math problem:

“We are spending $159,000,000,000.00 on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. If we ended the wars, brought the troops home, took that money, and created decent jobs paying $30,000 apiece in the United States, then how many jobs would we create?”

Skye, the 16-year-old, took out her phone, clicked on the calculator app, and gave the answer:

“5,300,000 jobs.”

Correct.

I asked the 12-year-old, Star, and the 10-year-old, Sage. Both gave me the right answer:

“5,300,000 jobs.”

Then I asked the 6-year-old twins, Storm and Stone. Storm said “thirty hundred and five.” Stone agreed.

OK, so we have a jobs program that a 10-year-old can understand. But, admittedly, not a six-year-old.

And what would that jobs program do to the unemployment rate? The math is a little more complicated, but the answer is that it would drop the unemployment rate from 9 percent to 5.5 percent. Immediately.

It’s actually better than that, because money that is spent hiring Americans, in America, then circulates in America. Economists tell us that every new job like that creates as many as five other jobs-- the employee then pays his rent, the landlord then goes to the restaurant, the waiter then gets his hair cut, and so on. Unemployment, goodbye.

As opposed to spending our money in Iraq, on Iraq. Have you ever been in the desert when it rains? The water runs through the sand so fast that 15 minutes after the rain is over, it’s as though it never rained at all.

That’s what happens to our tax dollars spent in Iraq. The term “bottomless pit” is an understatement.

And what would all those employees do? Well, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky has figured that out. She has introduced a bill to hire 2.2 million people, and her bill breaks down this way:

• The School Improvement Corps would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.


• The Park Improvement Corps would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.


• The Student Jobs Corps would create 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.


• The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire 300,000 teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 firefighters.


• The Health Corps would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.


• The Child Care Corps would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.


• The Community Corps would hire 750,000 individuals to do necessary work in our communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.

Or, alternatively, we can have all those millions of people, our fellow Americans, do nothing all day, as they lose their jobs, lose their homes, and slide slowly into poverty and bankruptcy.

And I’ll tell you one thing for sure: more corporate welfare will not create jobs. In the past ten years, we have crammed trillions of dollars into the pockets of Big Business, through bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, no-bid government contracts, grants, cheap mining and drilling licenses, etc., etc. Do you know how many jobs in America the private sector has created during that time?

Zero.

Actually, less than zero. There are around one million fewer private sector jobs today than there were ten years ago.

We keep handing our money over to the rich, in the vain hope that they will give some of it back. That hasn’t worked, and it won’t work.

So which do you prefer: war or jobs-- jobs for all Americans? I want jobs.

We want jobs. Jobs, health and peace.

And that's why we want Alan Grayson back in Congress. You can help him-- and other New Deal Democrats like him here. I just heard Obama bragging on TV about his jobs bill: "Nothing radical here." That's right-- nothing radical in the whole equation, except what corporate conservatives have perpetrated on American working families. Clearly, Obama isn't going to do enough to stop the rot. We need people who will.

Republicans Want MORE Unemployment, Not Less

Like I explained yesterday, Obama's speech, rather than a bold New Deal kind of clarion call to real action, was a mishmash of mostly Republican ideas that could possibly create a little momentum around the edges of the economic chasm the corporate politicians of both parties have created for the country. But, predictably, the Republicans won't even get behind this! As Obama headed out to Richmond-- a small sliver of which is in Cantor's predominantly suburban/exurban district-- the Republican House Majority Leader said the GOP could get behind a few of the ideas-- slicing up "entitlement" programs and cutting corporate taxes-- while rejecting the whole package.

"I certainly would like to see us be able to peel off some of these ideas, put them on the floor, vote them across the floor and get the senate to join with us so we can actually get something to the president and make some progress as quickly as possible."

The last thing in the world Cantor and his right-wing cronies want is for Obama to go to the people with the plan and start a fight. No doubt Cantor was focused on how the local media in his district would be covering Obama's visit to Richmond when he said "This is my objection to the message that was delivered tonight. The message was: either accept my package as it is, or I will take it to the American people. I would say that that’s the wrong approach. What we’re here to do is try to transcend differences, not let them get in the way in the areas we can make progress on."

Even after Cantor's politically inept shrieking about holding up hurricane and earthquake relief funds-- in the wake of an earthquake and hurricane in his own district-- he is unlikely to be defeated in a virtually all-white district specifically gerrymandered to safely elect Republicans. Bush won with 61% there both times and even McCain managed to win with 53%. Cantor was reelected in 2008 with 63% and last year with 59%. But what he could lose is the House majority-- and his job as Majority Leader. If Obama can persuade enough swing voters and disappointed Democrats that he wants to fix the economy and the Republicans are blocking him-- as they are-- it is likely that even if the GOP wins the Senate-- almost a foregone conclusion-- they'll lose the House.

Obama's package could only be seen as in any way controversial for conservatives if they are only focused on narrow partisan goals rather than on the needs of the country. As much as progressives are, once again, disappointed in Obama's half-assed attempts to get the job situation fixed, these are, after all almost ALL Republican ideas. And they are geared to create almost 2 million new jobs and grown the economy by 2%. With 14 million people unemployed that's a step in the right direction-- for America... but a step in the wrong direction for Republican politicians focused solely on power and on defeating Obama next year at the polls. They don't want any jobs created. They want their fascist ideology shoved down America's throat. Period.

A completely deranged teabagger, Bob Turner, could be the vehicle for Democrats in a Brooklyn-Queens district-- the one I, as well as Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders grew up in-- that they're fed up with Obama. NY-9 hasn't elected a Republican since one termer Andrew Petersen... in 1921. But the special election to replace Anthony Weiner Tuesday is now favoring Turner by 6% (according to a new Siena poll). Obama's approval rating there-- where he won an anemic 55% in 2008-- is only 43%. A Turner victory Tuesday would certainly bolster Cantor's and Republicans' resolve to go for broke.

Pass This Now? Yeah, Yeah... Sure, Sure

Treacherous Georgia John Bircher & alcoholic Paul Broun boycotted the President's speech last night

Early yesterday morning TV announcers were announcing that Obama was still fine-tuning his jobs proposal for his 7pm speech. Would it be $300 billion or $400 billion? Turned out to be faux-boldly 10% over $400 billion, mostly tax cuts, about $100 billion in straight up infrastructure, about a tenth of what would be judged to be a serious FDR-like proposal.

Last night we got a good look at what our president is made of: jellyfish bones. The speech was a weak and desperate call for Congress to get behind a mishmash of failed Republican policies. It was sad watching a Democrat pleading with Congress to save his ass by passing it. They won't. The nicest thing I heard anyone not on the Democratic payroll say about it was Paul Krugman who wrote it's better than nothing.

O.K., about the Obama plan: It calls for about $200 billion in new spending — much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs — and $240 billion in tax cuts. That may sound like a lot, but it actually isn’t. The lingering effects of the housing bust and the overhang of household debt from the bubble years are creating a roughly $1 trillion per year hole in the U.S. economy, and this plan — which wouldn’t deliver all its benefits in the first year — would fill only part of that hole. And it’s unclear, in particular, how effective the tax cuts would be at boosting spending.

Still, the plan would be a lot better than nothing, and some of its measures, which are specifically aimed at providing incentives for hiring, might produce relatively a large employment bang for the buck. As I said, it’s much bolder and better than I expected. President Obama’s hair may not be on fire, but it’s definitely smoking; clearly and gratifyingly, he does grasp how desperate the jobs situation is.

But his plan isn’t likely to become law, thanks to Republican opposition. And it’s worth noting just how much that opposition has hardened over time, even as the plight of the unemployed has worsened.

A more typical analysis came from Nick Ruiz, the independent-minded progressive Democrat running for a Florida congressional seat held by demented teabagger Sandy Adams. Nick was less impressed than Krugman.

Obama is raiding the Social Security plan-- the cornerstone of the average American's retirement plan. By reducing the payroll tax even more-- it truly is a reductio ad absurdum. You want to cause Social Security to have problems-- Obama's plan is exactly how you do it. It's a giveaway to the hawks, wolves and sharks that call themselves "servants" of the people-- while they hold a dagger in their other hand.

Worse, what evidence is there that such a cut will do anything other than put pocket change in the hands of a severely beaten down populace? None. This part of the plan has one goal only: to deconstruct Social Security for the worse. Further, it's apparent Obama is still on board with cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, which is entirely unacceptable to Democrats worthy of that name.

There are aspects of the Obama plan that are desirable, like investment in schools, unemployment extensions, etc.-- but the net result is a poison pill. This package is not progressive, it's not New Deal philosophy, and it's a stretch to call it Democratic. It's just the kind of proposal Republicans from the 1990s would have been quite comfortable with-- and nothing that 21st century Democrats should endorse, without serious and extensive New Deal-style amendments, like legislation that requires that Wall St. pitch in to support the ailing economy they helped cripple, federal law that collects FICA tax all the way up the income scale, and federal income tax increases for the most fortunately wealthy of Americans. I agree with Obama in one sense-- yes, let's stop the political circus.

Even before he got up to speak, Ann McLane Kuster, New Hampshire activist and Democratic candidate for the House seat held by corporate shill Charlie Bass, sent out a letter with her perspective on what is needed to left the country out of the economic rut engineered by years of the pernicious corporate Republican economic agenda.

It is time-- in fact, it is way past time-- to make job-creation the single, critical priority of our entire nation.

Washington has spent plenty of time lately on other issues, from genuine crises like Libya to political distractions like the debt-ceiling debate and efforts to end Medicare. But we cannot afford to go another month without real solutions for getting more Americans back to work. 

I may sound like a broken record-- for the past two years, whenever I have been asked about the top three issues facing our country, my reply has been “Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs.” But the truth is, this Congress has done next to nothing to promote an economic recovery and get Americans back to work.

How do we do it? Education is how we grew an economy this strong in the first place, and it is where we have to start again. Innovation has been a powerful competitive advantage for America, and we can’t afford to lose our edge. And Rejuvenation-- of our bridges & roads, cities & towns, and economic networks (highways and broadband communications)-- that's the key to a country that is built to win the future.

There is room for smart cuts and streamlined regulation, but economists all agree that we can not build a stronger tomorrow simply through cuts alone. The time for political arguments and excuses is over. 

Doing nothing isn’t working. Let’s rebuild our country and win the future, again.

And if Obama wants to get a different perspective than the conservative, Wall Street-oriented one he gets from his abysmal economic team, Ann laid it all out for him in black and white, in bullet points that will neatly fit on the TelePrompter:

EDUCATION

• Education is how we grew an economy this strong in the first place, and it is where we have to start again.

• Moderate Republican David Brooks admitted the truth in the New York Times last week: We must “rebuild America’s human capital. The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth primarily because Americans were the best educated.” This means an investment in our schools and public higher education, including community colleges and vocational schools. We are in a global economy, and we must train our workforce to win on the global stage.

INNOVATION

• Innovation as been a powerful competitive advantage for America, and we can’t afford to lose our edge. We need fast-growing companies to hire those well-trained workers.

• In New Hampshire, more than half of all workers are employed by small business-- that’s been one of our strengths in weathering the recession-- and even in this tough climate we have some small and mid-sized businesses experiencing explosive growth, especially in technology and renewable energy. We need more of them. Congress should encourage entrepreneurs-- make small business lending easier and more available and fix the broken tax code so that we are rewarding R&D investment and startup growth, not subsidizing rich and powerful industries like oil and gas, agribusiness, and redundant defense contracts that we simply can no longer afford.

REJUVENATION

• Rejuvenation-- of our bridges and roads, cities & towns, and economic networks (highways and broadband communications)-- that's the key to a country that is built to win the future.

• Hurricane Irene reminded us of just how fragile our region’s backbone really is. Meanwhile, huge opportunities lay waiting for us to exploit: universal access to broadband communication to allow every resident of the state to compete at the global level, biomass and new energy technologies to bring down the cost of energy and make us less dependent upon foreign oil and high speed rail that would expand our economic markets and the range of opportunity for jobseekers. 

• And of course, these projects themselves create good jobs as they are built. In the mid-nineteenth century we built the railroads, and prospered. In the 1950s, we built the interstate highway system, and grew. In the 1980s and 1990s, we grew American technology, and reaped the rewards.

Obama's been so busy promoting right-wing talking points about deficit reduction and the heinous Austerity agenda demanded by his institutional campaign contributors that he has completely failed to address the problem that most Americans care most about-- jobs. Scott Paul, Executive Director of the nonpartisan Alliance for American Manufacturing hasn't been a fan of Obama's (and Bush's and Clinton's) corporate trade policies. Yesterday before the speech he pointed out that "The trade deficit with China is growing and shows no signs of abating. But the real question is, will Congress and the Administration do anything about it? The trade deficit is more than a statistic. It represents jobs, income, and know-how leaving America. And it is another bill our children will have to pay someday." He continued:

If China were out-competing America, I’d say we only need to focus on getting our own house in order. But the truth is, China’s gains come largely from its undervalued currency, state-owned enterprises, and heavy industrial subsidies. Shame on China for its mercantilism and protectionism, but the real shame is on us for not doing anything to stop it.

There are concrete steps the Administration and Congress could take right now to lower this trade deficit. Congress should immediately pass the bipartisan and wildly popular Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (H.R. 639) to counter China’s currency manipulation. The Peterson Institute on International Economics estimates that the Yuan is more undervalued today (28.5 percent) than it was a year ago (24.2 percent), so the need is even more urgent today.

For its part, the Administration could convene a multilateral meeting to address global imbalances and in particular Chinese mercantilism. If China doesn't agree to participate, designate it a currency manipulator this October. The Obama Administration has had the opportunity to cite China for its currency peg five times, but has failed to do so each time, despite near unanimous agreement that Beijing deliberately undervalues its currency. A failure by the Administration to designate China a currency manipulator this year, given American job loss and our skyrocketing trade deficit, would be indefensible.

Given a level playing field, our manufacturers can successfully compete and create good jobs. But the field is still dramatically tilted away from us, and towards China.

Obama will be hard-pressed to win reelection. At best, the Republicans will nominate someone perceived as even worse than him and lose it. But for progressives to win congressional races-- to get Democrats and left-leaning independents to even bother to come out to vote-- they're going to have to distance themselves from Obama's conservative approach. He may not even mind-- he's been distancing himself from them since he was elected.

“If they don’t get it done, then we’ll be running against a Congress that’s not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear,” Obama said last month at Decorah, Iowa.

The Democratic senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, isn’t too happy about that kind of rhetoric coming from the president.

“It’s not Congress’ fault,” he said sternly on Wednesday. “It’s the Republicans who were throwing up all these roadblocks, delaying things, objecting-- not Congress. If he wants to be forthright and
honest to the American people, he’s got to tell it like it is.”

The frustration has been percolating in Democratic circles for months. They argue that they carried the president’s agenda across the finish line for two years and now believe there’s greater urgency to shape public perception that Republicans are the ones blocking progress.

“I personally prefer for the president to create a bright line by defining who is opposing his policies to create jobs and move the country forward versus who is supporting him,” said Sen. Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), who is up for reelection next year. “But when you just say ‘Congress,’ you draw the whole institution together, that means both Houses and both parties when in fact that isn’t necessarily the case.”

The White House’s relationship with Democrats has grown increasingly strained as of late, as Obama has tried to cut a sweeping budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and as the president’s reelection campaign has begun to suck up cash from deep-pocketed donors who are also being courted by Senate Democratic officials.

A reminder: Blue America has never contributed to Barack Obama and we have no intention of ever doing so. Recall a few days ago we ran the letter from House Democratic caucus chairmen asking for a meeting to talk with Obama before the speech. He refused. Blue America works to elect progressives, like Eric Griego (D-NM), who tweeted this morning, "Mr. President: We need a bold new Marshall Plan for American jobs to put millions back to work!" And Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), who wrote yesterday that “The size of the federal budget deficit is not keeping the American people up at night; they’re worried about how to pay for groceries. That’s what members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus found when we traveled across the country on a jobs tour this summer, listening to struggling Americans and seeking to elevate their voices over the misleading noise from Washington. Members regularly heard from families struggling to stay afloat, losing their homes, and emptying their savings just to pay the bills.”

John Waltz is running for the Michigan congressional seat currently held by corporate shill and hereditary plutocrat Fred Upton. He was cautiously hoping for more from Obama. He'll be the Blue America guest on September 24 but this is what he told me after the speech last night:

Obama seemed to put his campaign face on in his jobs speech, but he tamped that down by showing he wanted to offer programs that will appeal to both sides of the aisle. Somehow he must have missed the obvious message from Republicans, which is they will do anything to ensure he is defeated in 2012. 

Obama’s plan is a mix of tax cuts that have shown to be a failure in the past because what employers need is demand. That demand can be spurred by the investment in our ailing infrastructure, which puts folks back to work and in turn the workers will pump money into the economy. We can’t stop at just infrastructure we need much more. 

Obama touched on what we can do to compete with foreign countries, but it came up light on details. Here are some details that should have been put out and laid in stone... we need to immediately start creating jobs by scrapping current free trade agreements and start over again. We need free trade deals that will allow us to compete fairly with countries that we trade with. 

Obama spoke of the wealthy and corporations paying their fair share, but again came up short in details. Let us get down to brass tax on how we can stop coddling the superwealthy: End the Bush era tax cuts, restore tax brackets for the superwealthy with the Fairness in Taxation Act, tax Wall Street speculation and finally end the Paris Hilton giveaway by establishing a stronger estate tax via the Responsible Estate Tax Act.

Lastly, we need to invest in the future by injecting money into creating clean energy jobs, invest in public education, and the jobs that are created must pay living wages protected by collective bargaining. Talk is great, but what we need is real action. 

Real action? You can donate to John's campaign here. While you're getting out your credit card, take a look at Bernie Sanders' response to Obama's speech. And you can contribute to his campaign here.

Democrats In Congress Want To Have A Quiet Friendly Little Talk With Barack Obama... Before His Jobs Speech

This afternoon, the chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus-- who seem to be speaking for over half the Democrats in the House-- have asked for a meeting with the president before the joint session-- although with more and more Republicans declaring they're not going to even bother to attend, I'm not sure how joint a session it really is shaping up to be. Here's the letter the chairmen sent over to the White House today:

September 6, 2011
 
The Honorable Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500
 
Dear Mr. President:
 
As chairs of the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus representing more than half of the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, we are requesting a meeting with you regarding your upcoming speech to the nation on job creation. With unemployment at 9.1% nationally-- approaching 12% in the Hispanic community, 16.7% in the African American community and with Asian American and Pacific Islanders remaining unemployed for longer periods than any other group-- we are in a national crisis. We have learned throughout American history that big, bold action is required to put people back to work and promote economic growth.
 
Throughout the month of August, we heard repeatedly from our constituents and neighbors that their primary concern is the state of the economy and chronic unemployment. The American people want us to pass emergency jobs legislation that puts our nation back to work now. Further, Americans know we cannot cut our way to prosperity. The best, most effective way to tackle our debt problem is to put people back to work.
 
We can stem the tide of mass unemployment and meet our long-term national commitments by being bold now. The chairs of the CBC, CAPAC, CPC, and CHC look forward to an opportunity to talk with you about proposals we would like you to consider before you address the nation this week.
 
Sincerely,
 
Emanuel Cleaver, II, Chairman, Congressional Black Caucus                

Judy Chu, PhD., Chairwoman, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
                                 
Keith Ellison, Co-Chair Congressional Progressive Caucus                        
 
Charles A. Gonzalez Chairman, Congressional Hispanic Caucus  
                
Raúl M. Grijalva, Co-Chair Congressional Progressive Caucus

               
If I were a congressman I'd be doing the same thing... trying to talk Obama into facing reality and making him understand that you can't have civic engagement with nihilists bent on your-- and, more important, the country's-- destruction. It hasn't done any good to meet these fascists half way. In fact, it has done irreparable damage. But I'm not a congressman and I'm done listening to Obama. I don't want to hear him any longer. I've heard enough. Let me know if he does something. Until then, I'll assume he's going to lose his reelection bid and I'll be working my ass off to help elect worthwhile progressives to the House and to the Senate. (Take a look; see if there's anyone you'd like to get behind.)

I just saw this post by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Looks like we're on the exact same Obama track:

Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are back in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best-- play the part of a progressive. He's good at it. It sounds like he has a natural affinity for union workers and ordinary people when he makes these speeches. But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America, who happen to entirely make up his inner circle.

I just don't believe this guy anymore, and it's become almost painful to listen to him.

Thought We Destroyed Fascism In The 1940's? Think Again-- It's Called "Austerity" Now

The U.S. has the lowest tax rates since I was a child-- when Eisenhower was president and the rich paid their fair share. The decrease in taxation on the wealthy and the rise in their power and their aggregate share of the nation's wealth has been, naturally enough, accompanied by a catastrophe for ordinary working families and the country is now stuck in a severe economic decline. This is being further accelerated by the worldwide Austerity regime being shoved down everyone's throats by the ruling elites. It's a regime that is destroying employment in the U.S. and Europe, threatening social cohesion and undermining democracy itself.



Yesterday's employment numbers-- 17,000 private sector jobs created, 17,000 government jobs eliminated-- are just more of the same from Republicans determined to destroy the economy for partisan gain... and a weak and conflicted Democratic president unwilling or unable to fight back against the biggest threat the nation faces-- a fascist Republican Party willing to do anything to win power.



As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the same kind of Austerity our ruling elites are forcing on the country, is destroying Europe's recovery.

After more than a year of aggressive budget cutting by European governments, an economic slowdown on the continent is confronting policymakers from Madrid to Frankfurt with an uncomfortable question: Have they been addressing the wrong problem?



The campaign to reduce government deficits has come in response to a European debt crisis that could endanger the global banking system. And the budget cutting has been coupled with a reluctance by the European Central Bank to stimulate economic growth like the Federal Reserve has in the United States; the ECB has instead raised interest rates twice this year to contain inflation.



Those steps have sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of a European economy that may be edging towards recession.



Such a downturn, by choking off government revenues and increasing the demand for public services, could put struggling countries such as Spain and Italy at risk of missing the very deficit-reduction targets that budget cuts and other austerity measures were meant to achieve.



In the United States, political and economic leaders are facing the similar dilemma of how to rein in the massive federal debt by enacting deep and immediate spending cuts without undermining already anemic economic growth.



...In Spain, for instance, where the parliament this week is voting to place constitutional limits on government deficits in a bid to reassure global investors, some analysts say the country is taking the wrong medicine. Spain’s debt level remains lower than even that of Germany, the continent’s strongest economy and one of the world’s benchmark credit risks. But Spain’s unemployment rate is more than double that of the United States, and some economists say the country needs a healthy dose of policies to restore growth, not constrain it.



The International Monetary Fund, which has generally encouraged “fiscal consolidation” in euro-zone countries, has noted that budget cutting undermines growth and employment. The impact is even more pronounced if many countries are cutting at once and central bank policies are not geared toward growth-- just the path Europe is following, according to the IMF.



With the euro-zone economy slowing and governments aggressively cutting, the ECB may need to concede its rate increases and tight money were a mistake, Peter Vanden Houte, an analyst at ING, wrote Wednesday in a research note. “Loose monetary policy seems to be the only medicine left to prevent a painful fall back into recession,” he said.



Recent statistics showed that the combined economy of euro-zone countries nearly stalled from April through July, with growth of just 0.2 percent. Germany’s economy, one of the main props of the region, grew just 0.1 percent. Analysts project Spain’s annual growth at about 0.7 percent for the year, far below prior government estimates of 2.3 percent. That may force a choice: further belt-tightening, or missing the deficit targets that international markets now expect.

In the U.S., conservative governors-- you're absolutely NOT allowed to call them fascists-- have been cutting public sector jobs as fast as the private sector creates new ones. And nationally, the GOP-controlled Congress has worked diligently to wreck every proposal that's come along to ameliorate the unemployment situation. Looking at the trend all year, Matty Yglesias cut right to the chase over at ThinkProgress: "The public sector has been steadily shrinking. According to the conservative theory of the economy, when the public sector shrinks that should super-charge the private sector. What’s happened in the real world has been that public sector shrinkage has simply been paired with anemic private sector growth. This is what I’ve called 'The Conservative Recovery.' Conservatives complain about the results because the President is a Democrat named Barack Obama. But the policy result is what conservatives say they want. Steady cuts to the government sector, offset somewhat by private sector growth. The reality is that this dynamic sucks, and we ought to be forcefully trying to avoid public sector layoffs knowing that workers are also customers for the private sector. But we’re not."



No one ever accused Pimco's Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, of being a dirty fucking hippie. But he told reporters yesterday that "Governments should be focusing on creating growth rather than reducing debt. To do it right now is almost suicidal." Bohner and Cantor are eager for that suicidal thing-- it's not their suicide-- but will Obama pay attention? No reason to think he will.



New polling shows that the people who elected Obama in 2008, want him to break free of this Austerity bullshit and do what they elected him to do. When it comes to his jobs speech next week by a five to one ratio they want the him to lay out a broad plan for creating jobs and hold Republicans accountable if they block the legislation-- as opposed to him proposing smaller measures that Republicans will probably just oppose anyway-- like they do whatever he supports. And by a five to two ratio these same Obama voters want him to close corporate tax loopholes rather than offer tax breaks to corporations. Overwhelmingly, Obama voters say closing corporate tax loopholes and raising taxes on the wealthy would make them more likely to support Obama's 2012 re-election. Wednesday The Hill reported on the Progressive Caucus' pressure on Obama to follow this path.

Liberal House Democrats are pressuring President Obama to ignore his conservative critics and take "bold action" to tackle the lingering jobs crisis.



Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)-- the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus-- want the president to champion sweeping investments in the nation's crumbling infrastructure as a way to create jobs and jolt the sluggish economy.



"With 14 million Americans still looking for work, this is not the time to tinker around the edges," the lawmakers wrote to Obama Thursday. "We must take bold action, and that requires federal emergency jobs legislation."



...Specifically, Grijalva and Ellison are urging Obama to promote a national infrastructure bank, a public-private partnership designed to fund the nation's aging roads, bridges, railways and other vital structures. That proposal, championed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), is part of the Make it in America agenda being pushed by House Democrats this year.



"The country’s infrastructure needs an estimated investment of $2.2 trillion," Grijalva and Ellison wrote. "We should not delay these crucial investments, especially while millions of Americans are out of work. Rebuilding America-- without creating expensive new corporate tax loopholes-- will further boost our economy and create badly needed jobs."



Such a plan would have a tough road ahead, however, as the majority House Republicans are opposed to new stimulus spending as a way to inject life in the limping economy. Instead, GOP leaders want to cut taxes, slash spending and scale back regulations they say have prevented businesses from hiring new workers.

Immediately after the dismal jobs report was released Friday morning Scott Paul, Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing laid out an aggressive plan for both parties to get the country back on the right path.

"Manufacturing, once a bright spot for job creation, has stalled. Unless our nation adopts an aggressive manufacturing strategy our industrial sector and millions of workers will get left behind. The American people want Washington to focus on manufacturing jobs, but Washington still isn’t listening.



"Last month we proposed some bipartisan, concrete steps to create jobs-- both now and in the long run-- in the most productive sector of the economy, manufacturing:



• Establish a national infrastructure bank to leverage capital for large-scale transportation and energy projects.



• Reshape the tax code in a revenue neutral way to provide incentives for job creation and inward investment. R&D tax credits should help firms that not only innovate in America but also make their products here. Lower tax rates for manufacturing activity in America and eliminate tax shelters for hedge funds or financial transactions that have no real value.



• Apply "buy America" provisions to all federal spending to ensure that American workers and businesses get the first shot at procurement contracts. (Nothing says "please steal our jobs" like using subsidized Chinese steel in construction projects.)



• Shift some education investment to rebuilding our vocational and technical skills program, which would address looming shortages in the manufacturing sector.



• Refocus the trade agenda by giving American businesses new tools to counter China's currency manipulation, industrial subsidies, intellectual property theft and barriers to market access.



• Condition new federal loan guarantees for energy projects on the utilization of domestic supply chains for construction.



"Focusing on manufacturing will also lower our trade deficit which will make it easier for America to pay its bills. There is plenty that President Obama could do on his own right now without congressional approval:



• Expedite small business loans through the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department to help firms expand, retool and hire.



• Convene a multilateral meeting to address global imbalances and in particular Chinese mercantilism. If China doesn't agree to participate, designate it a currency manipulator. (China ships fully one-third of its exports to the U.S. and finances less than 10 percent of our public debt, so we have more leverage than some might suggest.)



• On the heels of the landmark agreement with automakers on fuel economy standards, secure an additional agreement from all foreign and domestic car companies to increase their levels of domestic content by at least 10 percent over the next three years.



• Direct the Department of Defense to leverage existing procurement to contractors that commit to increasing their domestic content of our military equipment, technology and supplies.



• Approve additional applications for renewable and traditional energy projects, contingent on the use of American materials in construction.



• Kick any CEO off of federal advisory boards or jobs councils who has: (1) not created net new American jobs over the past five years, or (2) is expanding the company's foreign workforce at a faster rate than its domestic workforce. Replace them with CEOs who are committed to investing in America.



"Many of these steps are commonsense ways to refocus existing federal programs, policies, and investment on what we sorely need the most right now: job creation. Of course, there are major investments in infrastructure, innovation and education that must be bolstered to prepare America for global competition and provide sustained job growth. If the recommendations of the "supercommittee" fail to include these investments, Congress truly will be dooming the next generation to a lower standard of living.



"Congress, please get to work. Mr. President, please do the same. Stop blaming each other and do your jobs. Otherwise, you might all be looking for work after next November."

Thrown Out Of Work? Have A Drug Test

Friday evening, when everyone was freaking out about Irene, Chris Hayes was freaking out about something more directly man-made, the Ohio Republican Party's latest plan to kick the unemployed while they're down. A video of the segment is embedded above. "The legislation," opined the always astute Hayes, "is being driven by the apparently unkillable prejudice that the poor are shiftless, drug-addled lay-abouts scheming to get their hands on your precious, precious, gooey tax dollars."



Buoyed by what an embarrassing failure Rick Scott's drug testing bill has been in Florida-- all it proved is that poor people use far less drugs than the average American, probably because they can't afford them-- Ohio Republicans see it as another battle in their vicious class war against the poor. They're coming up with their own bill-- one that is much worse than Rick Scott's! Perhaps next Ohio Republicans will follow Rick Scott and Florida Republicans down the political sewer of cutting back on the health clinics that serve... who else?... poor people. So many ways out there for well-financed right-wingers to attack poor people.

To balance the budget, state lawmakers slashed funding for county health departments, and along with other federal cuts, it resulted in $55.6 million being cut this year from the health agency's $2.9 billion budget.



Already, 172 county health department workers have been targeted for elimination statewide. Some have already been laid off, left or switched jobs, including doctors, nurses and support staff.



Another round of layoffs will happen next month and raise those statewide totals, including 30 staffers in Orange County. Osceola County laid off 37 workers earlier this year, shrinking its staff to 200, and dozens more health workers will be let go next month in departments across Florida.



To make ends meet, some health departments have shut down offices and reduced services for immunizations, women's and prenatal health, children's dental care, AIDS treatment and other needs. County clinics often provide free services for the poor and underinsured working poor.



"They have a good system," said Dewey, who recently moved from Illinois to Central Florida with her 11- and 14-year-old kids. "But there's so many people who need help. I don't know how they can cut their budgets."



Local health officials also monitor for contaminated drinking water, rabies, flu and mosquito-borne illnesses and staff special-needs shelters during hurricanes. Osceola's layoffs cut across its entire department, an official there said.



"We knew those cuts were coming and the impacts would be devastating in some circles," said Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Community Health Action Information Network, a group that advocates for more access. "A lot of people depend on health departments for care."

Back in Ohio, Tim Schaffer, a former p.r. hack who was elected to the legislature from Fairfield County in 2000, serves as Chairman of the Senate Ways and Means and Economic Development Committee. Previous to Friday's MSNBC exposé (above) revealing his role in the GOP class war against working families, Schaffer was best known for a harebrained bill that allows Ohio gun nuts and violent criminals to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants provided that they are not consuming alcohol. The bill was strongly opposed by bar and restaurants owners and workers and by both the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio. But the MTA, the Republican Party and John Kasich love it and Schaffer's bill passed and was signed into law.



Tim Grendell, long one of Ohio's most controversial GOP nut cases, and who is conspiring with Schaffer against the unemployed on this mandatory drug testing bill, was also first elected to the legislature in 2000, to represent Geauga County. He's the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary-Criminal Justice Committee. He was one of the few Republicans to oppose Ohio's union-bashing anti-collective bargaining law and is thought to be working with Schaffer on this one to regain his right-wing cred with party extremists. (He had previously been a key backer of Schaffer's guns-and-booze bill.)



And, like Hayes pointed out in his monologue, Grendell and Schaffer want anyone seeking unemployment insurance to pay for their own drug tests. I guess that's because the Florida law it's based on is not only showing that poor people use less drugs but is winding up costing Florida taxpayers a lot of money-- rather than saving them any. Rick Scott's mean-spirited foray into class warfare is costing Florida taxpayers over $40,000 a month in reimbursements for basically showing that welfare recipients aren't a bunch of drug addicts. Hayes:

The Florida and Ohio drug testing laws come at a time when Republicans are launching a new attack on the working poor. In his presidential announcement speech, Texas Governor Rick Perry expressed outrage that 46.4% of households paid no federal income tax in 2011... He's not outraged that the injustice that nearly half of American households work but are paid so little that their take-home pay barely covers basic necessities. He's outraged because they're not paying more taxes.

Rick Perry feels pretty

Nick Ruiz, Blue America-endorsed candidate running for a central Florida congressional seat currently held by a garden variety teabagger, is outraged too-- but not because working families aren't paying enough taxes. No fan of his state's extremist governor, Ruiz thinks both Florida and Ohio are unfairly targeting people who have been thrown out of work.

"The whole drug testing-private-prison complex paradigm is the fantastic conjuration of conservative imbeciles who have no faith in the working poor of America. It is literally the abandonment of Americans that is being purveyed by fanatics like John Kasich (R-OH) and Rick Scott (R-FL) As if drug abuse had some moral component. It does not. Rather, it is a disease, like cancer or heart disease, and all medical authorities reveal drug abuse as such. But let's not forget, conservatives like these don't believe in global warming, don't believe in evolution, and do believe they have the God-given right to control the female body, and police sexual orientation. These hypocrites epitomize the Big Government they decry as a way of life.



"The facts are simple. People abuse cigarettes and alcohol everyday-- shall the Republicans deny these people benefits as well? And who else? The disabled, or mentally incapacitated? We've been down this road before as a people. It leads to great suffering, abuse and inhumanity. To deny citizens, employed or not, basic public services like unemployment insurance or other welfare programs because of a disease is categorically inhumane and should be denounced as such."

If you'd like to help replace a crackpot teabagger (Sandy Adams in this instance) with Nick, think about contributing to his campaign fund. One lucky contributor today-- regardless of how big or small the contribution-- will get a thank you note from Blue America along with 3 autographed books-- The Truth by Al Franken, Framing the Debate by Jeffrey Feldman, and The Audacity of Greed by Jonathan Tasini. Just contribute (any amount) to Nick Ruiz's campaign here and you'll have a shot at getting all 3 signed books.





UPDATE: How About Lie Detector Tests For State Legislators!



What a great idea I just ran across from Dave the Wave at Daily Kos. Voters in Ohio are proposing a new law requiring all Ohio legislators, administration officials, and the governor pass monthly lie detector tests related to kickbacks,  campaign contributions, sweetheart contracts, voter caging, and lobbying activity.



Each month government officials would be required to pass a battery of questions regarding government expenditures and legislation. Officials who failed the tests would be suspended pending further investigation and subject to recall elections.

Sample of the questions:



1. Have you accepted any campaign donations as a condition of access to your office?



2. Have you failed to report any offers of campaign donations as a prerequisite to performing a service or awarding a contract?



3. Have you discussed proposing legislation for receiving campaign contributions with anyone?



4. Have you lied to your constituents about the purpose of any proposed legislation?



5. Have you accepted campaign contributions from any interest groups without revealing the source of the contributions.



6. Have you spent time soliciting campaign contributions during normal work hours from 8:00 AM till 5:00 PM?



7. Have you or any member of your staff participated in attempts to reduce the participation of legal voters by sending false information regarding voter eligibility, time or date of elections?

And... aren't these questions perfect for Florida as well?

Is There An Alternative To The Toxic Austerity Agenda The Ruling Elites Are Demanding?

Monday we took a look at what a real jobs agenda to put America back to work would look like and how this has to be handled politically by independent-minded progressives like Norman Solomon. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is a progressive but she's hardly independent-minded. When push comes to shove she's always a shill for the Democratic Establishment... but at least she pushes them in the right direction before taking one for the team. Her jobs bill is exactly what Obama should be embracing rather than the slightly-- ever so slightly-- kinder, gentler Austerity agenda the Republicans are clamoring for... you know, the one causing the collapse of social cohesion in England now.



Schakowsky sounds a toug note as though she were ready to take on Obama, something she's never done and never will. But it sounds good:

"If we want to create jobs, then create jobs. I’m not talking about “incentivizing” companies in the hopes they’ll hire someone, or cutting taxes for the so-called job creators who have done nothing of the sort. My plan creates actual new jobs. The worst deficit this country faces, isn’t the budget deficit. It’s the jobs deficit. We need to get our people and our economy moving again."

Her jobs bill would create over 2 million new jobs at a cost of $113.5 billion over each of two years, paid for entirely by creating a slightly higher tax bracket for millionaires and billionaires. These are the specifics:

• The School Improvement Corps would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.



• The Park Improvement Corps would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.



• The Student Jobs Corps would creates 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.



• The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire 300,000 teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 firefighters.



• The Health Corps would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.



• The Child Care Corps would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.



• The Community Corps would hire 750,000 individuals to do needed work in our communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.

Not the profound policy sea-change in manufacturing and trade policies we were advocating Monday... but a decent step in the right direction, at least for the short run. And, lo and behold, the NY Times editorial board has taken note... approvingly.

In what can only be described as a triumph of bad policy and craven politics, Congress and the Obama administration have spent the year focused on budget cuts, as the economy has faltered and unemployment has worsened. Official unemployment is 9.1 percent, but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work.



...By a large margin, Americans have told pollsters that job creation is more important than budget cuts. Yet Republican leaders are wedded to austerity and appear to think that high unemployment will hurt President Obama politically more than it will hurt them, so they will likely resist efforts to create jobs, no matter how great the need.



...Mr. Obama has begun to talk more about jobs, but his agenda is thin. Its main components-- extending federal unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut beyond their expiration at the end of this year-- are vitally important, but their extension will only maintain the status quo. His idea for an infrastructure bank to finance large-scale building projects is also good, but would take time, and would not address the immediate need for jobs. Ditto his push for patent reform and trade agreements.



There are other ideas worth fighting for. Take, for example, Fix America’s Schools Today, or FAST, an idea that has been incorporated into a House proposal to be introduced this fall by Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois. Public school buildings in the United States are on average over 40 years old and in need of an estimated $500 billion in repairs and upgrades. A $50 billion school renovation program would employ 500,000 workers (1.5 million construction workers are currently unemployed) and could be easily scaled up. The money could be disbursed through existing federal formulas to all 16,000 public school districts. The initial cost could be largely offset over 10 years by ending tax breaks for fossil fuels, as called for in Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget.



Other programs in the Schakowsky bill could employ an estimated one million young people for projects in federal parks, community centers and on college campuses, as well as 350,000 laid-off teachers, police officers, firefighters and health care providers.



Washington, in thrall to austerity, has abandoned one of the most immediate and powerful tools for supporting growth and jobs, namely, borrowing at today’s low rates to provide direct fiscal aid to states. But Mr. Obama can and should make the case for targeted new jobs today, to be paid for over time by closing tax loopholes.



Republicans are sure to howl that new programs will undo the debt ceiling deal, but it is surely possible over a 10-year period to tackle near-term action on jobs and long-term action on deficit reduction. The alternative is even slower growth and higher unemployment.

Our friend Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) explained how important government efforts can be in an OpEd he did yesterday for the Arizona Daily Star reminding his entrepreneurially-minded constituents that "no one creates jobs without investing upfront, and the federal government can help make that possible for many small businesses. Federally guaranteed loans, which cost taxpayers nothing and help businesses around the country expand and hire new employees, are a proven way for federal agencies to help our economy."

You may have heard recently about two large federally guaranteed loans for solar projects in Southern Arizona. Abengoa Solar recently finalized a $1.45 billion loan guaranteed by the Department of Energy to help build a new solar plant near Gila Bend, and Agua Caliente Solar finalized a similar $967 million DOE-backed loan on Aug. 5 to build a new plant in Yuma County. I was happy to support them both. These projects, made possible by the Recovery Act, don't cost taxpayers a dime, and they aren't alone.



How do these loans work? The DOE Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) was initially created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to make it possible for emerging technologies to help grow and create jobs. The Recovery Act temporarily expanded the LGP's authority to guarantee loans for certain renewable energy, power transmission and biofuel projects. In all, since the Recovery Act became law, Arizona has received approximately $2.8 billion in federally guaranteed loans, helping to create about 2,400 new jobs.



It bears repeating: None of this has cost taxpayers a dime. A loan guarantee is an agreement between a federal government agency, the borrower, and a private creditor-- usually a bank-- in which the agency will cover the borrower's debt in the highly unlikely event of default. This allows the federal government to reduce the financial risks of projects that employ new technologies by partnering with companies that have established their financial stability.

And this morning in Slate Eliot Spitzer calls for Obama to work up an inner FDR moment in terms of housing and unemployment-- starting with doing something. "President Obama should heed the famous wisdom of FDR: 'Above all, try something.' Being passive in the face of rising anxiety breeds discontent, doubt, and ultimately, contempt."

He should act dramatically to help the American homeowner. There is a continuing and incendiary crisis in the housing market, with about 20 percent of all homes underwater (that is, the mortgage owed on the house is greater than the value of the house). This is dragging down our economy, creating a downward spiral of foreclosures and abandonment. The lack of mortgage reform also reminds every homeowner of the unfairness attached to the bailouts: The banks, in their moment of insolvency and need, got hundreds of billions of direct cash payments, guarantees, and transfers in the form of artificially low interest rates, all of which have led to a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and savers to the banks. Yet homeowners who have seen their primary asset drop in value have been given nothing at all by the banks and nothing meaningful by the president.



The administration, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, should insist that banks, in return for all the taxpayer subsidies they have gotten and continue to receive, reduce any mortgage that exceeds the value of the house. Once it is established that the homeowner is underwater, other variables can be considered to determine how much the mortgage should be reduced: the income of the borrower, the year the mortgage was issued, the behavior of the bank in recommending the mortgage, or the culpability of the borrower in misrepresenting income levels.



... Second, the president should do more to help the American worker. He should establish a jobs program. Do the simple math: We are spending more than $110 billion annually in Afghanistan. Stop it. Or scale it back to the sort of covert operations and drone war that is warranted. Savings? Perhaps about $100 billion-- per year. Use that money to create up to 5 million jobs at $20,000 each. With the unemployment among those aged 16 to 19 at anastonishing 25 percent, and unemployment among black people at 15.9 percent, there is no question that the crisis of unemployment is destroying the fabric of our nation. Those who refuse to work get denied all other benefits... Get the dollars flowing back into the economy to help pull us out of the Great Recession. And when the unemployment rate dips below an agreed upon number, indicating that the labor market is healthy again, phase out the program.

And for the practical-minded let me leave you with a prescription laid out today by the Alliance for American Manufacturing on how President Obama can jumpstart our nation's industrial sector and generate new jobs... And how to do it cost-effectively and NOW:

• Expedite small business loans through the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department to help firms expand, retool and hire.



• Convene a multilateral meeting to address global imbalances and in particular Chinese mercantilism. If China doesn't agree to participate, designate it a currency manipulator. (China ships fully one-third of its exports to the U.S. and finances less than 10 percent of our public debt, so we have more leverage than some might suggest.)



• On the heels of the landmark agreement with automakers on fuel economy standards, secure an additional agreement from all foreign and domestic car companies to increase their levels of domestic content by at least 10 percent over the next three years.



• Direct the Department of Defense to leverage existing procurement to contractors that commit to increasing their domestic content of our military equipment, technology and supplies.



• Approve additional applications for renewable and traditional energy projects, contingent on the use of American materials in construction.



• Kick any CEO off of federal advisory boards or jobs councils who has: (1) not created net new American jobs over the past five years, or (2) is expanding the company's foreign workforce at a faster rate than its domestic workforce. Replace them with CEOs who are committed to investing in America. Shame is a good motivator.

Obama Working With The Republicans To... Undermine Obama

To combat President Obama's goal of bringing down unemployment, the Republican party has systematically-- both in Congress and on a state basis in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Maine, where they have installed fascist-leaning governors and legislatures-- slashed "government" jobs. Obama's tepid, go-slow approach to stimulus, didn't factor in determined Republican opposition to fixing the jobs problem. Why would Republicans do that? Two overriding reasons: to hamper Obama's chance for reelection by keeping unemployment high, "on his watch," and for the reason right-wing parties always oppose full employment-- to keep the price of labor low and the power of unions minimal.

In today's NY Times Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, take a look at the other half of the equation, what happened to Obama? We could have seen what was coming on Inauguration Day.

When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.

In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:

“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out. And it didn’t work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again.” A story isn’t a policy. But that simple narrative-- and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it-- would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn’t tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit-- a deficit that didn’t exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.

And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.

But there was no story-- and there has been none since.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me-- and I welcome their hatred.”

...[W]hen faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public-- a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

The truly decisive move that broke the arc of history was his handling of the stimulus. The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led. Yet instead of indicting the economic policies and principles that had just eliminated eight million jobs, in the most damaging of the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of his presidency-- and against the advice of multiple Nobel-Prize-winning economists-- he backed away from his advisers who proposed a big stimulus, and then diluted it with tax cuts that had already been shown to be inert. The result, as predicted in advance, was a half-stimulus that half-stimulated the economy. That, in turn, led the White House to feel rightly unappreciated for having saved the country from another Great Depression but in the unenviable position of having to argue a counterfactual-- that something terrible might have happened had it not half-acted.

To the average American, who was still staring into the abyss, the half-stimulus did nothing but prove that Ronald Reagan was right, that government is the problem. In fact, the average American had no idea what Democrats were trying to accomplish by deficit spending because no one bothered to explain it to them with the repetition and evocative imagery that our brains require to make an idea, particularly a paradoxical one, “stick.” Nor did anyone explain what health care reform was supposed to accomplish (other than the unbelievable and even more uninspiring claim that it would “bend the cost curve”), or why “credit card reform” had led to an increase in the interest rates they were already struggling to pay. Nor did anyone explain why saving the banks was such a priority, when saving the homes the banks were foreclosing didn’t seem to be. All Americans knew, and all they know today, is that they’re still unemployed, they’re still worried about how they’re going to pay their bills at the end of the month and their kids still can’t get a job. And now the Republicans are chipping away at unemployment insurance, and the president is making his usual impotent verbal exhortations after bargaining it away.

...The average voter is far more worried about jobs than about the deficit, which few were talking about while Bush and the Republican Congress were running it up. The conventional wisdom is that Americans hate government, and if you ask the question in the abstract, people will certainly give you an earful about what government does wrong. But if you give them the choice between cutting the deficit and putting Americans back to work, it isn’t even close. But it’s not just jobs. Americans don’t share the priorities of either party on taxes, budgets or any of the things Congress and the president have just agreed to slash-- or failed to slash, like subsidies to oil companies. When it comes to tax cuts for the wealthy, Americans are united across the political spectrum, supporting a message that says, “In times like these, millionaires ought to be giving to charity, not getting it.”

When pitted against a tough budget-cutting message straight from the mouth of its strongest advocates, swing voters vastly preferred a message that began, “The best way to reduce the deficit is to put Americans back to work.” This statement is far more consistent with what many economists are saying publicly-- and what investors apparently believe, as evident in the nosedive the stock market took after the president and Congress “saved” the economy.

So where does that leave us?

Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama-- and by extension the party he leads-- believes on virtually any issue. The president tells us he prefers a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction, one that weds “revenue enhancements” (a weak way of describing popular taxes on the rich and big corporations that are evading them) with “entitlement cuts” (an equally poor choice of words that implies that people who’ve worked their whole lives are looking for handouts). But the law he just signed includes only the cuts. This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling. He announces in a speech on energy and climate change that we need to expand offshore oil drilling and coal production-- two methods of obtaining fuels that contribute to the extreme weather Americans are now seeing. He supports a health care law that will use Medicaid to insure about 15 million more Americans and then endorses a budget plan that, through cuts to state budgets, will most likely decimate Medicaid and other essential programs for children, senior citizens and people who are vulnerable by virtue of disabilities or an economy that is getting weaker by the day. He gives a major speech on immigration reform after deporting a million immigrants in two years, breaking up families at a pace George W. Bush could never rival in all his years as president.

It's painful for those who bought into Obama's campaign themes of Hope and Change but Westen goes on, demanding yo know "why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit" and playing right into the hands of very able and very well-financed right-wing propagandists. Westen's several hypotheses explaining Obama's behavior are all tragically unappealing and his conclusion is chilling-- unless you're a Mitt Romney enthusiast-- or a revolutionary zealot ready for action.

[T]he arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

Without digging into Obama's conservative voting record in the Senate, Krugman not only loudly agreed with Westen's analysis today, he wrote that "If you paid attention to what he actually said during the primary and the election, he was always a very conventional centrist. Progressives who flocked to his campaign basically deluded themselves, mistaking style for substance. I got huge flack for saying that at the time, but it was true, and events have borne it out... I went back to look at my own reactions to the inaugural speech; I’m sorry to say that my misgivings at the time have proved all too justified." At the time (January 22, 2009) Krugman wrote in the Times that "I ended Tuesday less confident about the direction of economic policy than I was in the morning. [O]ne wishes that the speechwriters had come up with something more inspiring than a call for an 'era of responsibility'-- which, not to put too fine a point on it, was the same thing former President George W. Bush called for eight years ago. But my real problem with the speech, on matters economic, was its conventionality. In response to an unprecedented economic crisis-- or, more accurately, a crisis whose only real precedent is the Great Depression-- Mr. Obama did what people in Washington do when they want to sound serious: he spoke, more or less in the abstract, of the need to make hard choices and stand up to special interests. That’s not enough. In fact, it’s not even right..."

And Obama still is... and it still isn't right.