We Need a Jobs Package, Not a Stimulus Package

[waiting for hope]

by: Mike Lux
Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 16:00

This seems like Framing and Political Strategy 101 to me, but since few other people are talking in this way, let me just lay out a basic idea: all this talk about doing a stimulus package versus not doing a stimulus package is fundamentally besides the point. What we need is a comprehensive policy package that is very simply focused on one thing and one thing only: jobs.

I know the policy wonks on Capitol Hill may be confused by that paragraph because, they would say, well, a stimulus program would create jobs. Well, yeah, that is the idea of stimulus. But my point is this: the politics of a second stimulus package are a dead end. The politics of having a debate about a policy package that will create jobs is a helpful thing. Announcing a second stimulus package gets Democrats into a defensive crouch about why the first one failed, and gets us into that same "can we get to 60" dance with Ben Nelson, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins that caused the first stimulus bill to be pared back and rendered less effective.

Voters don't know what it means to say you are going to stimulate the economy, but they do know what a job is. And right now, what we need is jobs sooner rather than later. My point here is not to just rename the stimulus bill the jobs bill. In fact, there are quite a few things the White House and Congress can do to focus on jobs that don't involve just spending more, although more money will certainly need to be spent. Here is what I would include in a comprehensive package:

1. Take on, far more aggressively than now, the currency manipulation going on in China. Our balance of trade problem and big losses in our manufacturing sector will not be solved without aggressively dealing with the country that we have by far and away our biggest trade deficit with, and China's policy of currency manipulation is a huge part of the problem.

~Snip~

So much more at link

With an overall unemployment rate at 9.5% - a number I believe to be much higher, we can not continue this flushing of money down the toilet and into the hands of AIG execs and their bonuses... check out the remainder of the article, Lux makes a very good case.

[XemaSab]

1. Amen

The "stimulus" in this area is merely a roads project.

Does that really create jobs?

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[OhioChick]

3. Damn Straight. No Jobs, No Recovery. n/t

[lindisfarne]

4. A modern day CCC/WPA to fix infrastructure: roads, sewers, parks, campgrounds, trails, etc. Provide

jobs and health insurance for all those unemployed willing to work.

[Cant trust em]

8. Well it didn't work for FDR so...

oh wait. It did work for FDR.

[Oceansaway]

5. K&R...n/t

[Demeter]

6. Exactly So

Any fool could see that. Guess the guv'mint ain't full of fools after all.

[tridim]

7. I'm so sorry, I hit unrecommend by accident.

Damn. Maybe add and "are you sure" dialog?

[waiting for hope]

9. I agree with Lux - here are the rest of the points:

2. A serious industrial policy that helps emerging industries grow. Every other industrialized country in the world has an industrial policy that helps emerging industries quickly grow and create new jobs. Yes, it does mean picking winners and losers, but we need to get over our reticence about doing that so that we can help the industries with the most potential for producing big numbers of good jobs.

3. Force every big bank that was propped up during the financial collapse- which is pretty much all of them when you include the Federal Reserve dollars sloshing around the system- to actually make loans to businesses so that they can create jobs. This "money for nothing and your kicks for free" philosophy has to end. The big banks need to understand very clearly that we expect something more from them, after all they have been given, than merging with other banks and giving record bonuses to their executives.

4. Direct the Justice Department to actually use existing antitrust law (and then beef it up where necessary) to break up the big banks and other mega-corporations stifling small business and competition. Promoting real competition in these industries will produce real jobs.

5. Fundamentally restructure the corporate tax system to incentivize American job creation and dis-incentivize the outsourcing of jobs.

6. Consistent with what every other industrialized country in the world, and consistent with existing WTO rules, have our federal purchases (20% plus of the economy right now) buy from companies producing goods in America. Big business and media elites will scream protectionism, but it would just be doing what every other economic power does.

7. And yes, spend some more money- on infrastructure, on green jobs, on state revenue sharing. On all those things that were foolishly cut in the last stimulus package by the Nelson/Specter/Collins/Snowe cabal. But this time, just add the money into the federal budget so the job-killing Senators can't screw things up with a filibuster.

I lost my job at the end of March to this economy - and have not seen any indicator that things are getting better - I just talked to the CFO of the company I worked at for three years and he, along with two of the partners were just going into their third week without pay ... if they go for a third stimulus, I really don't see any improvement because the first two didn't do squat but hold up the jobs of those at the top.

[FredStembottom]

13. A certain amount of inefficiency is a good thing.

As each category of economic activity consolidates into just 2 or 3 mega-players - not only is competition destroyed but the economies of scale simply un-employ too many millions of people ( I realize that this is a distinction w/o/ a difference but that's my point.

Efficiency can be overdone.

[truedelphi]

17. I'll rec on your behalf - okay?

Hopefully I won't klutz it and un rec it also!

[bertman]

10. This is obviously too simple and easy for our Congress and Presidential financial advisors

to grasp, so maybe the President himself will cajole and coax them into going along just for laughs.

Excellent article and potential solutions to our dire situation.

Thanks for posting this, waiting for hope.

Recommend.

[waiting for hope]

11. Your welcome. Sometimes

the hardest thing seems to be the simplest. But I think Greed is the constant evil here - The new forest that blocks the view of the trees.

[Wednesdays]

12. K&R

:kick:

[ucfacde]

14. More Tax Cuts for the Rich will Stimulate the Economy

Republicans ran the country and now they are crabbing about Obama and a stimulus to pay for the years of disgraceful leadership

The Bush Years.

During a recent press conference, a reporter asked Ari Fleischer if the President believed that ‘deficits did not matter', given the huge size of the tax cuts pushed through in this administration. The press Secretary replied that the President believed that his tax cut proposal was the best way to ‘create jobs'. At the present time the Republican Administration is pushing these tax cuts as an ‘economic stimulus package' as well as a measure to ‘create jobs'. Here we have an old policy being dressed up in new propaganda. The policy has not changed but the sales pitch certainly has.

http://www.awitness.org/journal/great_depression.html

8 Years of Republican Power has brought the USA to the edge of demise with republicans running everything from wars to the economy. Bush 2001 said, President Bush used his weekly radio address to defend his administration's latest budget predictions, which show the federal surplus has fallen 44 percent since April. The president said that is a result of a slowdown in the U.S. economy, but still leaves plenty of money to cover government spending. "A new budget report, released this past week, shows that despite the economic slowdown that began in the third quarter of last year, the federal budget is strong, healthy and in balance," he said. "In fact, the 2002 budget surplus will be the second biggest surplus in American history

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2001-08/a-2001-08-25-25-Bush.cfm?moddate=2001-08-25

More Tax Cuts for the Rich will Stimulate the Economy, Heck with Jobs. It takes money to make money, give more to the Rich.

[seabeckind]

15. We need to scream this everywhere

Earlier today I posted on a couple of similar threads. One of my comments was:

The problem is that we need JOBS in this country. Most of the stimulus money I've seen is going to fixing roads and "transit" infrastructure. What, so we can get to Walmart to buy more imported stuff easier?

What about that refrigerator factory down the road sitting on land that has been devalued to the point where it's worth hardly anything? You know, the one with the "For Lease" sign out front that the corporation keeps there so it'll stay on their books for tax writeoff purposes.

How about some REAL jobs like the ones that built our energy infrastructure in the 30's? The one we're now selling to a foreign equity firm?

What about that job tomorrow? We don't need more money thrown at the problem...we need to fix the attitude that created the problem. And our fearless leaders -- ALL of them -- aren't working on the problem. How about some eminent domain to take an empty factory back and putting people back to work.

And to continue:

The repubs are saying the stimulus isn't working cause Obama's spending too much and they get to say that because the ship of state isn't moving -- or at least not perceptively. It gives them a chance to talk about direction cause there isn't perceptive movement.

To find out what is happening on transportation infrastructure we have to go to some obscure web site or read some nonsense in a right wing paper or hear some blather from some pundit telling us what's happening -- and all of them are usually making stuff up. The media is controlling the message.

How about sticking some signs up in the hinterlands saying "Future Home of High Speed Rail, Your Tax Dollars at Work"? Instead of a 10 second bite of some local idiot in a hardhat with a shovel filling a pothole.

I saw a report of a small company in Portland that was going to build street cars. Great idea. Why doesn't our president get in front of some closed GM factory and say "Now that we own it, we are going to build highspeed train cars right here!".

Then the repubs can argue about why we can't do it and they look like the assholes who are keeping us from having jobs. And hel, if no one complains we'll have some high speed train cars.

And I don't want to see people complaining about Reagan giving away the railroad right of ways when I see a great big wide median on I90.

Thanks for giving me the chance to repost these things. I'll do it tomorrow and the next day if I can. I also put it in my local papers. Everybody has to start yelling for jobs.

[waiting for hope]

16. Thank you for your response -

and yes, I agree, we need to scream this everywhere.

[ucfacde]

19. Buffett: Second Stimulus Might Be Needed for Economy

.Buffett: Second Stimulus Might Be Needed for Economy

Buffett, the billionaire founder of Berkshire Hathaway , said Americans suffered "a shock to the system" from the economic difficulties in the final quarter of last year but had started to rebound.

"We're not in a freefall, but we're not in a recovery either," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "We were in a freefall really in the last quarter of last year, starting in the financial markets and spreading to the economy, and we had this huge change in behavior."
Buffett, a supporter of President Barack Obama during last year's election campaign, said a second economic stimulus package might be needed. The Obama administration says it does not see a need for a second stimulus yet.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31828467

The Oracle of Omaha knows what’s best, not the far right media, infrastructure should be 75% of the funds the other 25% loan out to the industrial complex to update factories, then let the cards fall as they may.

[seabeckind]

22. Sorry, got to disagree with Jimmy -- no wait,,,other one

I never disagree with Jimmy. :)

How much has/will Buffett make from the stim money? He might just have a dog in the fight.

I think infrastructure, at least the infrastructure the locals have come up with so far, is a waste of money. We need NATIONAL infrastructure and not one related totally to the car-heads. Instead of widening highways, how about ripping some out? My county just reopened a washed out bridge that a couple hundred cars a day will use. It saves them maybe 5 miles. What a waste of a few million. Meanwhile they cut out Sunday bus service cause it costs too much. And we're laying off firefighters.

Next stim project is a road to nowhere -- a future industrial park 20 miles outside town. What industry? And only way to get there is by personal auto. And we have maybe 60-70% occupancy in buildings within 20 blocks of the downtown -- but county gives more tax incentives than city.

How about some high speed rail, medium speed regional rail on same platform but less capable tracks, rural communications backbone (hel, everywhere), reopen our factories, etc, etc. What? making a shoe or a teevee too complicated for us?

[truedelphi]

18. You are so right on. Do you know that

Not one job was brought to my county by this first stim bill.

And the nearest jobs that were created are down in the city Of Napa, Calif.

Every job listed in Napa is related to water pumps and installing waters pumps.

I know that is a good thing - Napa has suffered through some tremendous flooding. It needs those pumps. But how is a laid-off teacher going to get a job doing that? Or a fire fighter? A social worker?

California is going down the tubes, while over the last twelve years it has shouldered the expense of taking in millions of people from all over the world - not just newly arrived Hispanics, but people from China, Eritrea, Iran, The Eastern European bloc. The Fed government owes this state so many billions that we have never been able to collect. The Fed government always stalls on those payments.

Yet now we need help and isntead of simply settling up on monies owed this state, we get this ill conceived stim package.

[balantz]

20. We need all kinds of jobs in this country.

The way this administration has taken part in throwing money at the banksters you'd think some of them banksters were actually working in the administration or something!

Oh yeah, they are...

[waiting for hope]

21. Geithner and Summers ...

What a pair.

[AdHocSolver]

23. The ONLY stimulus that will help the U.S. economy is to rewrite the trade and tax laws to....

bring jobs, especially manufacturing jobs, back to America.

When most of what Americans buy goes to pay wages to other Americans, then the economy will correct itself. That is why the New Deal worked. It gave income to Americans, who then purchased goods made by other Americans.

When the stimulus money goes to pay for goods made in China (it seems like everything in the stores is made in China), then our tax dollars are going to support Chinese industry, not Americans.

The economy works like the cooling system in a car. A "water" pump in the engine pumps coolant heated in the engine through a radiator hose to the radiator where it is cooled and then flows through another hose back to the engine to absorb more heat, and repeat the cycle. It works because it is a "closed" system. The coolant is recycled.

If one of the hoses breaks, the coolant leaks out, the engine overheats, and eventually stops running.

The money supply acts as the coolant in the economy. It must continue to circulate WITHIN the American economy. If the money "leaks" out, by going to China to pay for all our purchases, eventually the U.S. economy will seize up and we will wind up in a depression.

The U.S. corporations have been supporting this unsustainable model by selling off U.S. assets to foreigners, and the government has been in collusion by borrowing money amounting to trillions of dollars. Foreigners are balking at continuing this scam, which is more like an international Ponzi scheme.

For the U.S. economy to be sustainable, at least 80 percent of the goods and services we purchase should be "Made in the U.S.A.".

The so-called "free trade" model touted by the corporations is not "free". In fact, it isn't any economic model at all. It is a totally invented phrase to bamboozle the public. Trade agreements like NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and others are corporate cartel agreements designed to exploit the American consumer and foreign workers, and destroy American labor.

You do not pay less for imported goods compared to American-made goods. Aside from the fact that American corporations have not passed along savings from cheap labor to consumers, the devaluing of the dollar due to the enormous U.S. debt has actually made currently imported goods more expensive than U.S.-made goods were 25 years ago. Couple the inflation to the drop in income of most Americans over the past 25 years, and it is beyond comprehension that many Americans still think they get any benefit at all from offshoring jobs to low-wage countries.

[midnight]

24. This sounds like a much wiser approach and a positive way

to help make the money start to flow.