Has President Obama Betrayed American Workers on Jobs And Economic Policy?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/13896

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on July 21, 2010 - 3:34pm
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By Doug Cunningham

President Obama has betrayed American workers by failing to follow through on his promises as a candidate to put jobs and the recovery of the middle class at the top of his list when he got to the White House. That’s the opinion of Leo Hindery, Jr., Chairman, U.S. Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation. Hindery says America needs to create 22 million jobs to both recover from the recession and achieve full employment. And he says Obama could lead a successful effort to do it if his administration had the political will to do it.

: “As daunting as that number is, the reality is that we could fill most of that burden within a year’s time if we had the political will and the leadership to do it.”

Hindery says to rebuild the working middle class fair trade must replace free trade policies that have cost millions of American jobs. He says a serious jobs program to rebuild three trillion dollars worth of crumbling infrastructure needs to be implemented using American sourced materials. A youth employment initiative to put five million young people to work can and should be done, Hindery says, and we need an industrial policy to support manufacturing employment of at least 20-25 percent of the U.S. workforce. Hindery says candidate Obama’s promises were not deeply held convictions, but rather “thoughts in formation.”

: “And he compounded that when he got to the White House by putting in an economic team who on the record has said a job is a job, that this recession is over when we know for millions and millions and millions of Americans it’s so far from over. And that we as an economy can be successful if a handful of very rich people stay very rich, such that we measure on average the success of the economy and ignore the reality that there are 30 million women and men effectively unemployed.”

[Mimosa]

1. ITA: fair trade must replace free trade policies that have cost millions of American jobs n/t

[dkf]

2. The only politician I've heard talking about creating jobs is my republican candidate

for Governor. I think the Dems know it is too late for the midterms so they are going to ignore it and crow about subsistence level unemployment extensions. Where are the thinkers in our party? MIA?