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Elections are about choices, and this November the choice is about who will lead on creating the jobs we need to put America back to work. We believe progressives have made headway on starting America down the road to economic recovery, and we know we have much more work ahead. Now, a mere 11 weeks before the election, we think it’s important to recap the battle to rebuild our economy over the last year and half.
Let’s start with an illustrative contrast to put us in the right frame of mind to think about the choices the nation faces this November.
Calling Congress Back from Recess to Save Jobs…or Voting No and Taking the Dough
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the House back into session yesterday to approve a critical job-saving bill that will keep teachers in classrooms, firefighters in their stations, and cops on the beat, while also helping states cover soaring Medicaid costs.
She understands that members of Congress shouldn’t be on vacation while hundreds of thousands of public servants are at risk of being laid off.
Contrast this with the 100+ Republicans who voted against the President’s Economic Recovery Act and then clamored to take credit for job creation in their districts—paid for by the stimulus funds they voted against.
That’s the story of progressives and conservatives on jobs in a nutshell.
The Mess We Were Handed
The longer version starts with the catastrophe progressives inherited from a decade of conservative rule. President Obama entered the White House with our national economy on the verge of collapse. Banks had virtually stopped lending money, the stock market was plunging, and we were shedding more than half a million jobs each month. All told, we lost 8 million jobs during the “Great Recession” [1] and unemployment has hovered around 10%.
This was no accident. The Bush Administration put its deeply ideological opposition to government above the need to maintain reasonable checks on the big Wall Street banks to protect consumers and taxpayers. And President Bush chose to spend scarce resources on a huge tax cut for the wealthy instead of investing in infrastructure, clean energy technology, and other programs that would have laid the groundwork for prosperity.
Voters elected President Obama and a wave of progressives in 2008 because they wanted a change in direction.
President Obama and the Democratic Congress Have Taken Decisive Action
Change is exactly what the President and Democratic Congress have delivered.
Recovery Act
As his first major legislative initiative, the president pushed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The Act provided $787 billion in funding for public investments in critical infrastructure and energy priorities, tax cuts to stimulate job growth, and extensions of federal assistance (like unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies).
While we are not yet where we need to be, the Recovery Act has worked in stabilizing the economy and preventing us from falling off a cliff. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is the organization responsible for providing official estimates of the costs and impacts of legislation. These folks say that the Recovery Act has increased the number of people employed by up to 2.8 million and increased the number of full time jobs by up to 4.1 million. [The White House Council of Economic Advisors estimates the Act has created or saved between 2.5 and 3.6 million jobs.]
See page 49 of this report for estimates the number of jobs created in each state in the second quarter of 2010.
The bottom line is that millions more Americans would be out of work right now if Congress and the President had not acted quickly in the beginning of last year.
Princeton Economist Alan Blinder and Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi put it bluntly in a recent report: “The stimulus has done what it was supposed to do: end the Great Recession and spur recovery.” Without government policy responses that included stimulus and TARP, the authors estimate that unemployment would be nearly 5.5 percentage points higher right now, or almost 16%.
Wall Street Reform
After passing the Recovery Act and health insurance reform, Democrats set their sights on the root causes of our financial crisis and huge job losses. Over the objections of the nearly 1500 lobbyists the financial industry had swarming Capitol Hill, we passed legislation that ended the “too big to fail” system, brought complex derivatives trading out of the shadows, and created a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency to watch out for those of us with our pensions and life savings in the stock market.
Unemployment Insurance Extensions
One of the provisions of the Recovery Act temporarily extended unemployment insurance benefits for those looking for work for more than six months. This provision expired on June 2nd, but nearly half of the unemployed were jobless for more than six months—the highest percentage since 1948.
When people who are out of work have no support, no money in their pockets to spend in the community, this costs more jobs as restaurants and stores are forced to shut their doors.
This is why economists estimate that every $1 of unemployment insurance benefits spent results in $1.64 in economic stimulus in the community.
So, Congress extended these benefits, saving an estimated 800,000 jobs according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Saving Teachers, Firefighters, and Police Officers from Being Laid Off
This brings us to this week when Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought the House back into session to pass a critical bill that will create or save 319,000 jobs, protect public safety and children’s education (by preventing 161,000 teachers from being laid off), and help states cover rising Medicaid costs, all while cutting the deficit by $1.4 billion over ten years. Here is how much aid each state received from the $26 billion bill.
Each Victory Came Over Repeated Republican Opposition and Obstruction…
Republicans and their allies have made it their explicit political strategy to stop President Obama’s agenda regardless of the cost to the country. Rush Limbaugh famously said he hopes the President fails. Sen. Jim DeMint said “If we’re able to stop Obama on [health care], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him…” They’ve taken the same “just say no” attitude about every job-creation measure Democrats have proposed.
Number of House Republicans who voted for the Economic Recovery Act: zero. Number of Senate Republicans: 3 (one of whom is now a Democrat).
Number of House Republicans who voted for Wall Street reform: zero. Number of Senate Republicans: 3.
Number of weeks Republicans held up unemployment insurance extensions for after millions of Americans were cut off on June 2nd: 7. [Democrats finally overcame a Republican filibuster on 7/22/10.]
Number of House Republicans who voted to save 319,000 teacher, firefighter, police officer, and nurse jobs: 2.
…And Breathtaking Hypocrisy: Voting No but Taking the Dough
Republicans have not just attempted to block every job-creation measure. Many Republican members of Congress fought the Recovery Act as wasteful spending that would not create jobs, have claimed the Act is not working to create jobs, and then have actively sought funds for their districts to create jobs or tried to take credit for jobs funded by the Recovery Act they opposed.
Think Progress reports here on 110 GOP members who have voted “NO” on the Recovery Act but sought the dough. The Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg have all done good reporting on this as well.
In a particularly brazen example, Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a frequent critic of the stimulus, held a job fair in which nearly half the organizations hiring had received Recovery Act funds.
The Real Consequences of Obstruction
This obstruction and hypocrisy has real consequences for people’s lives. Senator Jeff Merkley tried to reason with Senator Jim Bunning, the Republican holding up extensions of unemployment insurance. He tried to point out the real-world pain people were suffering as Senator Bunning played political games. More than 2.5 million Americans had their lifelines cut between June 2nd and July 22nd when the Senate finally passed an extension. Bunning’s response: “Tough s--t.” [2]
That’s right. It is tough for ordinary families when politicians put political gain over addressing their needs. When teachers are laid off, classrooms get filled to the brim and children lose precious moments of individual attention. When police officers are taken off the beat and street lights dimmed, violence increases and remaining cops work more (and more dangerous) hours.
There are real costs to unemployment, and these costs may only rise over time. Severe joblessness now can hamper an entire generation’s future prospects—from individuals suffering from poor nutrition and forgoing college education to collective neglect of the public and private investment that will create new technologies, new opportunities, and a better life. One example of this is the sky-high youth unemployment rate (25.7%), which denies legions of young people the chance to develop the jobs skills and resume lines that will help them enter careers.
We’ve Accomplished a Lot…But There’s More to be Done
Stimulating the economy, preserving the safety net, and helping states cope with budgets in turmoil has helped stave off disaster. These actions have helped prevent the Great Recession from becoming an actual depression, saving up to 5 million jobs.
But, numbers on a chart don’t change how people are feeling every day. Millions of Americans have been looking for work for more than six months and are becoming discouraged. States and local communities are in such dire straits that they’re risking public safety by taking extreme steps like turning off street lights, and choking their local economies by shuttering entire public transit systems. More than 300,000 state and local public employees have been laid off since August of 2008.
And, economists are warning about the possibility of a “double-dip” recession if we don’t continue to work hard at creating jobs.
That’s why progressives have a forward-looking jobs agenda.
Local Jobs for America Act
We can follow up our work shoring up the safety net by passing the Local Jobs for America Act. This bill will create or save 1 million jobs over two years by providing funds to local communities to hire or retain key staff. This means retaining and rehiring firefighters, law enforcement officers, and teachers, and providing training for private-sector positions. Click here for estimates of how many jobs would be created in communities across America.
Stop Outsourcing and Boost Manufacturing Here in the U.S.
Too much of what we wear, drive, and use to power our lives is made overseas. And, our tax policies sometimes encourage companies to ship jobs offshore.
This is a security concern, and it’s costing us millions of jobs here at home: 5.6 million manufacturing jobs just in the last decade. This Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report provides the net job losses for each state and the top 50 congressional districts due to the growing trade deficit with China.
There are some promising signs. The manufacturing sector added 136,000 jobs in the first six months of this year, the longest growth period since 1997. But we need to do more.
That’s why Democrats announced in July a 17-bill “Make It in America” program to boost manufacturing in the United States. The package includes proposals to increase exports of clean energy technology, create more efficient domestic markets for certain industries, reduce tariffs on inputs that American manufacturers need from abroad, and invest in infrastructure.
And, that’s why we need to pass the Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which will eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
Congressional leaders also plan to address the currency manipulation that has allowed China to keep its exports artificially cheap.
Eric Lotke of Campaign for America’s Future put it well in a helpful post about manufacturing in the U.S.:
“People think the decline of American manufacturing is about competing with low wage workers in low wage countries. It’s not. Our troubles come from the distortions of the tax code. Our troubles come from illegal Chinese subsidies and currency manipulation. Our troubles come from the incentives on multi-national corporations nominally headquartered in America to do things that are good for them but bad for the country.”
The Republican Alternative
Republicans are quick to blame President Obama for the faltering economy, but have offered no serious proposals of their own.
When the president put forth his budget proposal, Republicans countered with an alternative that had no concrete numbers. That’s right—a “budget” that didn’t specify how much the government would raise or spend, just vague generalities about cutting waste. Oh, and a very concrete tax cut for the wealthy.
Their current solution for job creation is to extend the Bush tax cuts and further deregulate big business. That’s right, massive tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% that were enacted just before our economy went into a tailspin. And, a return to the free-for-all policies that led to the largest financial collapse since the Great Depression.
Conclusion
Progressives and conservatives could not be clearer on their respective jobs agendas.
Progressives have taken decisive action to stabilize the economy and move us towards recovery by saving nearly 5 million jobs. They propose more action to create 1 million jobs here at home, prevent states and local communities from cutting critical services, stop unfair outsourcing, and boost American manufacturing.
Conservatives have tried to stop every job-creation measure in the past two years—and then shown up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies to take credit for jobs they voted against. They will continue to fight every proactive step towards recovery, relying instead on their old, tired formula of more tax cuts for the rich and less oversight of big corporations: the same formula that produced the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression.
Again, this November, the election is about jobs...and choices. In 1992, Bill Clinton captured the White House by remaining true to a very simple slogan: “it’s the economy, stupid.” This year’s slogan should be as simple as “it’s about jobs, period.”
This fall, progressives must learn to talk-the-talk on jobs and walk-the-walk by backing candidates who will fight for job growth and opposing candidates who won’t.
Resources
To learn about job creation nationally and in your state, check out these resources:
White House Recovery Act website
Direct stimulus jobs created by state (job total only for 2nd quarter of 2010)
Estimated total jobs created by state (chart on page 49)
State-by-state fiscal relief to states from August 2010 legislation
Estimated job creation/savings by community for Local Jobs for America Act
State American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Website
AK http://www.alaska.gov/recovery
AL http://recovery.alabama.gov/
AZ http://az.gov/recovery/
CA http://www.recovery.ca.gov/
DE http://recovery.delaware.gov/
FL http://flarecovery.com/
IL http://recovery.illinois.gov/
LA http://www.stimulus.la.gov/
MN http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/recovery/
NE http://www.recovery.nebraska.gov/
OH http://recovery.ohio.gov/
PA http://www.recovery.pa.gov
SC http://www.stimulus.sc.gov/
VA http://www.stimulus.virginia.gov/
WA http://www.recovery.wa.gov/
To dive into the issue more generally, here are some great resources:
Economic Policy Institute website
NY Times article on extreme cuts
Information about Republican hypocrisy on job creation:
Think Progress report exposing 114 GOP members
Washington Times
Wall Street Journal
Bloomberg
[1] Economic Policy Institute, “American Jobs Plan: A Five-Point Plan to Stem the U.S. Jobs Crisis” at 4 [available at http://www.epi.org/index.php/american_jobs/understanding_the_jobs_crisis].
[2] George Packer, The Empty Chamber, The New Yorker, August 9, 2010 at 46.
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Yesterday, lead negotiators on the DISCLOSE Act announced a special carve-out that would allow the NRA—one of the nation’s largest and wealthiest political actors—to avoid election spending disclosure even while accepting corporate money.
The carve-out is clearly intended only for the NRA – it appears that only a couple of other groups may meet the criteria. [Criteria are: 1 million members; members in all states; c4 status for 10 years; no more than 15% corporate funding; doesn’t pay for campaign activity with corporate funds.]
This is bad for democracy and bad for progressives—it provides added ammunition to perhaps the most potent conservative force in American politics.
More important, it creates a huge potential loophole for funneling corporate money into politics without disclosure. NRA will become a magnet for up to $87 million of new corporate funds to funnel into the system through its coffers.
The Brady Campaign analyzed NRA’s IRS 990 forms and announced yesterday that the group’s 2007 501(c)(4) revenues were $332 million and 2008 revenues were $247 million. Total NRA 2008 election cycle revenue adds up to $579 million.
This means that NRA can take $87 million (15% of its total revenues) in corporate money and still be exempt from this bill.
So far, there’s been no public disclosure of how much of NRA’s income comes from corporations.
Either NRA already takes tons of corporate money which they can funnel into politics by offsetting other expenses and technically using their individual donor money for Independent Expenditures.
Or, even worse, they have much less corporate money in their revenue stream now. This means that a huge loophole for new corporate money coming into the system has been opened. And, even if NRA is close to its corporate limit now, they could use the prospect of attracting corporate funds as a “match” to attract more money from wealthy right-wing donors, who may not care about gun rights, but want to defeat Democrats (78% of NRA PAC contributions went to Republicans in 2008).
NRA did not conduct any independent expenditures through its 501(c)(4) in 2008, sticking to $7 million in PAC spending. But the group clearly plans to spend on elections through its c4 going forward—or else it would not have sought such a tailored exemption from the DISCLOSE Act.
Supporters of the carve-out will note—correctly—that NRA cannot take corporate funds specifically to spend on elections; this would void its exemption. But, everyone in politics is familiar with the wink and the nod. Corporations can give general revenue funds which will then free up NRA’s copious individual donor money from their 4+ million members for spending on elections—money they would not have otherwise spent.
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Can Chuck Norris convince his Tea Party fans, and their Republican
Senators, to support cracking down on the big banks?
This has been showdown week in Washington, and the main event is Wall
Street vs. Main Street.
Goldman Sachs was testifying, 1500 Wall Street
lobbyists are lobbying, and Republicans were filibustering
common sense reforms to reign in the biggest banks.
This is such a clear-cut, common-sense, powerful-special-interests vs.
the-rest-of-us issue that we think even Tea Party activists should be on
our side.
But their representatives—conservative Republican Senators—have dug in
hard against reform. In the face of mounting public outrage, they ended
their three-day effort to prevent an open debate on the
President’s proposals to rein in the big banks. But now they’ll try to
weaken or kill reform proposals on the Senate floor.
These conservative Senators need to see that standing up for the big
banks won’t excite their base.
And, that’s where our "favorite" Texas Ranger comes in. Chuck Norris is a
much-loved right-wing icon who’s spoken out on many issue—he even wrote
the foreword to a recent book extolling the Tea Party. But he’s
been silent on Wall Street reform. So, we’re asking Chuck to stand up
for the little guy and urge Congress to reign in the big banks.
Tea Party activists have said they don't want to become tools of the
Republican Party. Now it's decision time - when Republicans put
campaign fundraising and Wall Street special interests ahead of ordinary
citizens, will prominent Tea Party supporters stand up to the GOP?
Click
here to draft Chuck Norris into the fight to reform Wall Street.
Will this famous fighter answer the call? We’ll see in the coming days.
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Today is Equal Pay Day. Why April 20th? If an average woman and an average man both began earning wages for the same job performed on January 1, 2009, today is the day that the woman would FINALLY catch up to the amount the man had earned by December 31, 2009.
That's right...it takes nearly 5 MONTHS longer for a woman to make the same amount of money as a man performing the same job.
But discrimination based on sex is illegal, right?
Sure, but like so many other things, some companies are exploiting a loophole that allows them to make it harder for women to bring wage discrimination complaints -- no small thing considering the intense social, cultural and professional obstacles women already face when trying to demand equal pay.
In order for an equal pay complaint to be considered, the woman must identify a comparable male employee who makes more money for the same work performed. This burden is significant in and of itself, but once she has made that case, then the company must present an affirmative
defense. There are four acceptable defenses:
1. Seniority
2. Merit
3. Quantity or quality of production
4. Factor other than sex
Clearly, the first 3 defenses are straightforward and are unchanged by the Paycheck Fairness Act. The fourth defense, however, is quite vague and is being misused by companies and upheld by the courts. Companies have used the loophole to excuse offering men higher starting salaries than women for the same job because they were paid more in previous jobs, without examining if the reason they were paid more in previous jobs was due to sex discrimination. They have also used the loophole to excuse paying men more for qualifications or education that have nothing to do with the job they hold.
Here's an example of how this "factor other than sex" defense could be used to undermine the Equal Pay Act rather than uphold it. Let's say that a man and a woman both inspect car parts in a manufacturing facility. They perform the same work, work the same shifts, and have similar educational and professional backgrounds. The man happens to speak French, the woman does not. Even though there are no French
employees or customers, and the man's job performance cannot be enhanced by the fact that he speaks French, a judge could use this skill as a legitimate reason to justify paying the man a higher salary than the woman, because companies are not currently required to demonstrate that their reasons for pay disparities are for legitimate business purposes or relevant to the job duties.
The Paycheck Fairness Act seeks to clarify what is necessary in order to demonstrate that the "factor other than sex" defense is valid. It will require the following:
1. The "factor other than sex" must be based on a bona fide factor such as education, training or experience not derived from sex-based discrimination
2. Must be based on qualifications that are relevant to the job
3. Must be consistent with business necessity
4. The defense won't apply if the woman can demonstrate that
alternative employment practices exist that would not create the pay differential and the employer refused to adopt it
The Act has already passed the House in January 2009, and awaits Senate approval. It has 37 co-sponsors in the Senate, all Democrats.
It's time for the Senate to follow the House's lead and ensure that our daughters are paid the same as our sons for a hard day's work. Click here to send the message:
http://www.progressivefuture.org/paycheck-fairness
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Republican Senator Tom Coburn thinks this is a good time to risk more job loss by cutting off unemployment insurance benefits.
So, he singlehandedly blocked Congress from renewing benefits before they expired on April 5th. The same way Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) held up unemployment benefits until the final hour a few months ago. Different Republican senator, same backwards agenda.
But, this time, the unemployment benefits actually expired. More than 200,000 people have lost unemployment benefits already and as many as 1 million could have their lifelines cut this month.
And to make matters worse, as these folks cut back on groceries and other essentials, even less money goes into our economy and even more jobs are lost. In fact, cutting unemployment benefits could cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs by the end of the year.
The Senate will vote this week on whether to extend unemployment benefits for another 30 days. They must do this, but it’s not enough. We need to provide states and citizens with the stability they need by extending benefits through the end of the year.
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From the Wall Street Journal, by Janet Adamy...
In a major push against the health overhaul, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $50 million this summer and fall to sway election outcomes around the issue. It also plans to devote a team of staff members to shaping thousands of pages of new health regulations.
Thomas J. Donohue, the group's president and chief executive, sent a letter to the group's board members late Monday detailing an aggressive strategy to blunt the impact of the new law. Mr. Donohue said the business lobby would seek changes to regulations to "minimize the potentially harmful impacts of this bill on our members and the country."
If regulators "exceed legislative mandates or try for end-runs around the lawful rulemaking process," he wrote, the chamber "will take legal action."
"The Chamber is going to carry a message across the country that says the health care debate is not over," Mr. Donohue wrote. The law "is a major step in the wrong direction and will prove to be a serious drag on our economy and the nation's fiscal solvency."
The group, which says it represents three million employers, was among the most vocal opponents of the legislation while Congress assembled it. It contends the law will impose $569 billion in new and higher taxes that will eliminate jobs, increase insurance premiums and prompt millions of workers to leave employer plans for government-subsidized insurance.
Democrats say the bill will help businesses, particularly smaller companies that have struggled to absorb sharp increases in insurance premiums in recent years. Starting this year, small businesses will be eligible for tax credits up to 35% of their insurance premiums. Democrats say larger firms will benefit from a new reinsurance program that offsets the cost of covering retirees and other provisions that aim to lower the overall cost of medical care.
In recent days, that has been called into question as a number of large companies, including insurer Prudential Financial Inc., telecom giant AT&T Inc. and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc., have announced millions of dollars in charges under the law's tax change for retiree prescription-drug benefits.
In his letter, Mr. Donohue shot back at House Democrats for calling the companies to appear before Congress next month to explain the charges. "They are searching for a way to blame these businesses for a mess that the lawmakers themselves have made," he wrote.
The chamber plans to assign a team of its most experienced staff "to participate in the years-long process of writing the thousands of pages of federal regulations that will implement the many provisions in the legislation," Mr. Donohue wrote. While the chamber can't actually write those provisions, it can lobby for certain language and technical corrections.
Democrats say they plan to beat back any attempts by business to thwart the bill's changes. The $938 billion overhaul will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans by expanding the Medicaid federal-state insurance program for the poor and giving lower earners tax credits to offset the cost of buying care. In exchange, most Americans will be required to carry insurance and employers will be required to help pay for it.
"There's going to be a lot of different players in the health-care field that are going to want changes made to protect what they've had in the past," Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) said Tuesday. "I don't think we're going to be too anxious to continue the kind of subsidies we've had in the past that drain so much money out of the health-care system."
Mr. Donohue reiterated that the group doesn't plan to put resources toward repealing the bill outright "because it is not realistic," he wrote. Republicans have backed a series of state-based challenges to the bill on the grounds that various aspects of it are unconstitutional.
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As you’ve no doubt heard, Congress passed historic health care reform late Sunday night.
With this vote, our nation took a giant leap towards providing every American with quality, affordable health insurance. The Senate will act as soon as this week to pass some agreed-upon revisions and the final package will be on President Obama’s desk shortly.
We won. For the first time in generations, we’ve overcome the staunch opposition of the insurance industry and ideological extremists to make real progress for working families:
Families will save money. Insurance companies recently announced rate hikes as high as 40% for individuals buying coverage on their own. [1] This plan will expand choice and competition, saving struggling families thousands of dollars per year.
Taxpayers will save money. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that the plan will “reduce federal deficits by an estimated $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period,” [2] and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that. [3] These savings will come from reforms like cutting waste and paying doctors to deliver the right care, rather than more (or more expensive) care.
Patients will receive the protections we need. New rules will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for “pre-existing conditions” or dropping us when we get sick.
More Americans will get affordable coverage. The new law will provide 32 million new people with access to health insurance. [4] This will save lives. But, it isn’t just the right thing to do—it also saves us all from paying for expensive emergency room visits that could have been avoided with earlier, preventative care.
Best of all, getting spiraling health care costs under control will help jumpstart our economy, as entrepreneurs are able to take new risks and small businesses can afford to hire additional employees.
The final package doesn’t contain everything we’ve fought for. The fight to keep improving our health care system continues. But this Sunday, we made huge historic gains.
For the first time in far too long, we’ve addressed a major policy challenge head on. And, this new victory provides momentum for passing the rest of President Obama’s domestic agenda. For the next several months, we’ll focus on creating more and more jobs to put our nation back to work, on cracking down on the big banks, pushing back on corporate money in politics, and creating a new, clean energy future.
President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid could never have taken on the health insurance industry and their extremist allies in Congress without the outpouring of public support from activists like you. Over the summer, as the Tea Parties peaked, it seemed like we wouldn’t reach this day.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021801345.html
[2] http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=508
[3] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/cbo_health-care_reform_bill_cu.html
[4] http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf
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Subject: The stimulus package one year later
On this one year anniversary of the passage of the stimulus package, you might ask yourself, "What has all that money accomplished?" Here are just a few resources to answer that question.
David Leonhardt has a great piece today in the New York Times which outlines the success of the stimulus package and makes the case for another bill to aid states.
The Economic Policy Institute released a graph which shows job loss before and after the Recovery Act -- the graph clearly indicates significantly less job loss post-stimulus.
SEIU has released a report today which outlines the number and types of jobs that were created by the stimulus. You can read the report here: http://www.seiu.org/a/ourunion/research/how-the-recovery-act-investments-in-human-services-created-and-saved-hundreds-of-thousands-of-jobs.php
Take a few minutes to look over some of these resources today.
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In one of the most amazing stand-up performances I've ever seen in politics, President Obama tore apart House Republicans' talking points and flimsy arguments at their caucus retreat yesterday.
And, he made a very important point: when you go out and call me the devil and a socialist, you box yourself in. You can't negotiate or make a deal with me now because by your own rhetoric you'd be making a deal with the devil. If you vote for any of my policies now you're vulnerable with your own base.
The session is more than an hour long, but IT'S WORTH WATCHING EVERY MINUTE. I was riveted watching last night, and never more proud to have Barack Obama as our president.
Watch here.
I hope for more of these sessions (sort of like "Questions" in the British Parliment). Perhaps one improvement would be to have a nonpartisan panel of experts in the room that would simply give a True/False rating to the factual claims made by each side (since there was a lot of disagreement over basic facts as you might expect).
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At Progressive Future, we applaud President Obama’s State of the Union statement that Citizens Untied vs. FEC “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections.” Today, we echoed the President in urging Congress to act swiftly to minimize the Supreme Court ruling’s impact on our democracy.