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.
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).
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.
President Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight provides an important opportunity to reflect back on all we’ve accomplished over the past year and a half, and to take stock of the hard work before us.
We’ve put together a short video to highlight some of our collective successes and speak to the role Progressive Future will work to play moving forward.
As you know, Progressive Future promotes progressive values through grassroots action. We’re building long-term citizen power by developing skilled activists; helping citizens engage in grassroots advocacy across a range of issues; and reaching out to undecided voters and turning out our supporters in key districts and states.
We always knew that the change our country needs wouldn’t come without a long, hard fight with the right-wing and special interest forces lined up to protect the status quo.
We accomplished a lot in round one. And, we’re looking forward to working with you in the days and months ahead to take the next steps: turning our economy around, finishing our work to fix health care, protecting progressive majorities in the critical 2010 elections, and more.
Today, with its decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court rejected decades of precedent and declared that corporations enjoy the same free speech rights as live citizens.
Thanks to the Roberts Court, mega-banks that are using billions of our bailout dollars for obscene bonuses can now use our money to help place their hand-picked candidates into the halls of power.
Take action to push back on this affront to citizen-powered democracy here.
And, view Progressive Future's press release here.
Justice Kennedy, writing for the Court, rejects the contention that Congress may treat corporations differently than citizens with respect to free speech rights. This not only overrules both McConnell v. FEC (2003) and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), it contravenes the logic of the UNANIMOUS decision in 1982’s FEC v. National Right to Work Committee.
That decision upheld the constitutional requirement that corporations establish “separate segregated funds” (i.e. PACs) in order to engage in political speech. Although Justice Kennedy distinguishes the case because it applied to a corporation with a PAC that made direct contributions to candidates, the logic applies equally to independent expenditures. In National Right to Work Committee (NRWC), the Court said:
"In order to prevent both actual and apparent corruption, Congress aimed a part of its regulatory scheme at corporations. The statute reflects a legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation. While 441b restricts the solicitation of corporations and labor unions without great financial resources, as well as those more fortunately situated, we accept Congress' judgment that it is the potential for such influence that demands regulation. Nor will we second-guess a legislative determination as to the need for prophylactic measures where corruption is the evil feared. As we said in California Medical Assn. v. FEC, the 'differing structures and purposes' of different entities 'may require different forms of regulation in order to protect the integrity of the electoral process...
...The governmental interest in preventing both actual corruption and the appearance of corruption of elected officials has long been recognized...and there's no reason why it may not in this case be accomplished by treating unions, corporations, and similar organizations differently from individuals."
As Justice Stevens noted in his dissent, referring to the NRWC case, “
We have unanimously concluded that [Congress placing special limitations on campaign spending by corporations] ‘reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process…and have accepted the legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation…”
This is a huge blow to the integrity and fairness of our democracy. Citizens should not take it lying down. We must make clear to our leaders that we'll tolerate no more Supreme Court justices who believe corporations have the same free speech rights as citizens.
Take action here.
Check out David Stockman's great op-ed in today's New York Times about President Obama's proposed bank fee:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/opinion/20stockman.html
Then sign our letter asking Congress to support the fee here.
Check out Paul Krugman's typically incisive column on the embarrassing performance of our nation's biggest banking tycoons in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission--the 9/11-style commission charged with sussing out exactly how our financial system nearly collapsed into ruins.
And, then sign our letter to Congress supporting President Obama's plan to get all of our bailout funds back from these huge banks.
Willie Sutton said he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” Well, the banks have a lot of our money right now. Let’s take it back so we can use it to create jobs and invest in a 21st century economy.
Wall Street banks brought our financial system to the brink of collapse. Taxpayers spent hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out. Now these mega-banks are poised to announce $150 billion in executive bonuses—these folks truly have no shame. [1]
Yesterday, President Obama announced a plan to get our bailout money back—with a fee targeted to the biggest banks who took on the most risky debt.
This proposal must be approved by Congress, and we know the mega- banks will do everything in their power to fight it. They’ll bring out the big guns, and spend millions lobbying so they can keep their billions in bonuses.
We’re launching a letter to Congress that says, “Support President Obama’s plan to get our bailout money back from the Wall Street banks.”
Click here to tell Congress to pass President Obama’s plan to get our money back from the banks.
45 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson said this about the state of voting rights in this country: "Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes."
Despite all the progress we've made and the dedicated work of thousands of activists over the years, we're still living in a word where although people of color have equal voting rights, they're consistently disenfranchised and prevented from voting.
As we prepare to honor the memory and monumental contribution of Martin Luther King, Jr., it's important to also acknowledge how far we still have to go. Dr. King spent his life working tirelessly for equal opportunity for people regardless of color, and was one of the key proponents of the Voting Right Act of 1965. What better way to celebrate his life and accomplishments than to register voters in communities of color on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day?
If you're in Denver, please join us and the Community Voters Project at the MLK Day Marade and other city wide events to register voters. We'll meet up at 10:30 for a training and go until 2:30 PM.
If you're interested in joining us, email us at info@progressivefuture.org or call Meshawn at 323-791-0581.
The Guardian reports that a new study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) finds that U.S. banks that spent more money on lobbying against sensible financial regulations made more risky loans and had worse bottom line performance.
Interesting development that underlines the case for sensible regulation of Wall Street.
Thanks to Uriah at Center for Responsible Lending for the pointer.