Robert Reich: This is not a recovery. It's a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action

Better Believe It

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Fri Dec-03-10 04:34 PM
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Robert Reich: This is not a recovery. It's a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action

Edited on Fri Dec-03-10 04:53 PM by Better Believe It

The American Jobs Emergency Requires Action
By Robert Reich
December 3, 2010

This is not a recovery. It’s a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

What must be done

Extend unemployment benefits. Not only do unemployment benefits help families who are hurting; they also put money into their pockets that they’ll then spend — and their spending will keep other Americans in jobs.

Create a new WPA and National Infrastructure Bank. Not only do we need extended unemployment benefits. We need a new WPA, modeled after the WPA of the Great Depression, to put jobless Americans to work. We need a national infrastructure bank to rebuild our crumbling highways and water and sewer systems, thereby putting additional people back to work.

Cut payroll taxes and enlarge the EITC. We should exempt the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax, thereby putting more money into the pockets of lower-wage workers — which they’ll spend. We should extend the Earned Income Tax Credit — a wage subsidy — upward through the middle class, and reduce taxes on everyone up to $80,000 of income.

How to pay for this. Not in 70 years has so much of the nation’s income been at the very top. Pay for all of this with a 2% surcharge on incomes between $1 million and $2 million, a 3% surcharge on incomes between $2 million and $5 million, and a 5% surcharge on all incomes over $5 million. Add in a .5 percent transaction tax on all financial transactions.

Read the full article at:

http://robertreich.org/post/2082971308

Good ideas. But President Obama said just this past September 8th "I've never believed that government's role is to create jobs or prosperity"
BBI

Excerpt:

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release September 08, 2010
Remarks by the President on the Economy in Parma, Ohio
Cuyahoga Community College West Campus, Parma, Ohio

"Now, we have a different vision for the future. See, I’ve never believed that government has all the answers to our problems. I’ve never believed that government’s role is to create jobs or prosperity. I believe it’s the drive and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs, our small businesses; the skill and dedication of our workers -- (applause) -- that’s made us the wealthiest nation on Earth. (Applause.) I believe it’s the private sector that must be the main engine for our recovery.

I believe government should be lean; government should be efficient. I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others. (Applause.)"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/08/remarks-president-economy-parma-ohio

Now I understand why the Obama Administration won't lift President Reagan's ban prohibiting direct WPA type federal jobs programs. President Obama believes it's not the governments role to lead this nation out of the Great Recession by creating useful public works jobs and demand. Government must slim down and stay out of the way in order to allow Wall Street and corporate America perform their magic.

Some magic.

Well, they did make almost 10 million jobs disappear.

BBI

Excerpts from two articles by Alec MacGillis -

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009 and
Monday, November 9, 2009

Why has a White House that talks so much about boosting employment steered clear of the most direct strategy that could keep Americans on the job? .... aside from a small summer employment program for young people, it has not sought to create jobs on the public payroll, something the country did in the 1930s and 1970s.

President Richard Nixon gave jobs programs another go in the doldrums of 1973-74 with the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).

The program withered under President Ronald Reagan, who added prohibitions against public service employment (except for summer programs and natural disasters) that endure today. That the Obama administration shows little indication of lifting this taboo is a sign of how free-market tenets persist even when financial turmoil has called them into doubt, said John Russo, co-director of Youngstown State University's Center for Working-Class Studies.

As for direct job creation: there's a real nervousness about setting up anything that looks like a WPA-style jobs program. It's that reluctance that my piece is calling into question -- after all, is it really more politically damaging to be seen as doing a jobs program than to be facing double-digit unemployment?

.... we had direct job creation programs in place throughout the '70s, as my article recounts. It was called CETA, and it ramped up under Nixon in '73-'74 recession. Reagan ended the program, and implemented a new federal restriction against federal jobs programs, with exception for summer youth programs and national emergencies.

The Labor Department does have various job training programs in place, such as Job Corps. But the federal government is prohibited against doing direct jobs-program style hiring a ban that Reagan put in place and that the Democrats so far have balked at trying to lift.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601900.html?sid=ST2009110604712

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/11/06/DI2009110603214.html