The Case for Spending to Save Our Economy

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/20/the-case-for-spending-to-save-our-economy/

by James Parks, Nov 20, 2008

At a conference earlier this week on “Real Investment in America” sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), some 100 members of Congress, congressional staff, union leaders, academics and other experts urged the incoming Obama administration to act boldly to create fundamental changes in the economy that provide for long-term growth. The cornerstone of the economic package should be a massive investment in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, they said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x-HJSOZbUs

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker opened the conference by laying out the case that the best way to revive the economy for America’s workers is by investing in the nation’s infrastructure and its people. Holt Baker said:

America needs a job. We can create millions of good jobs and good “green” jobs by investing in developing new sources of energy, and by investing in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure.

But we also know that regardless of what else we do, workers will never share in economic growth unless they regain the power to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits. This is a key to rebuilding the middle class. Workers with a union make 30 percent more than those without a union and are much more likely to have benefits. We will work with the Obama administration to ensure that his economic recovery program includes the Employee Free Choice Act.

In conjunction with the conference, the CAF released a new report, The Investment Deficit in America, which details a plan for a major recovery program to lift the economy. In the introduction to the report, CAF research director Eric Lotke, who authored the report, says:

Our post-World War II infrastructure is starting to decay, and we aren’t replacing it. We are lamenting the loss of jobs rather than hiring people to renew and build. Direct public investment—in new energy and conservation, in modernizingour infrastructure, in education and training, and research and development—should be the centerpiece of any recovery plan. That is not only necessary to lift the economy in the short run; it is a vital down payment on the sustained public investment that we need to sustain a competitive and decent society in a global economy.

FULL story at link.