Put off cap-and-trade, immigration reform, and other agenda items

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Put off cap-and-trade, immigration reform, and other agenda items.

Create 5 million make-work jobs at $10.00/hour. Don't worry about whether these jobs create green-energy or advance some other agenda. Just hire 5 million people to pick up trash in the park or help old ladies across the street, read to the blind... free car-washes... whatever.

Unemployment cut in about half before election day 2010. Parks cleaner. Old ladies get where they're going faster. The blind better informed. Cars cleaner.

And everyone's wages and employment security are sturdier. A tighter labor market helps everyone with a job.

Cost: call it $150-200 billion/year.

Chump change.

Hold down losses in congress in 2010 elections.

Work on agenda in 2011.

[hughee99]

1. So these people will have no health insurance,

no place to work, no means of transportation while on the job, and no equipment to work with?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Fair point. I will edit the OP.

You are right that overhead would be substantial, as with any hiring. I doubled the projected cost, which is high but makes the point that it is a surprisingly small sum for short-term unemployment relief.

But your point goes too far... health insurance? Why? The idea is not to create dream jobs, it is to reduce unemployment roles. Lots of jobs in that wage range don't have benefits... perhaps the majority of such jobs. Materials, places of employment... nice, but not necessary.

I am serious... if necessary, pure make-work. It's no more wasteful, as a class of expenditure, than unemployment benefits are. But not everyone gets unemployment benefits and folks at the bottom are least likely to qualify.

[TheKentuckian]

3. Good call. We aren't going to pass anything comprehensive in any area anyway

Lower unemployment, hope losses are reduced, and that the worst of the blue dogs take whatever hit comes.

[Jennicut]

4. No one I know will work for $10.00 an hour. Rather just keep taking unemployment

for however long it takes.$10.00 an hour in CT is nothing. I worked a job once for $12.00 an hour, 10 years ago when I was 24.

[Hello_Kitty]

5. $10 an hour beats the hell out of my UI.

I'll take it right now.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. That is assuming they are eligible for unemployment

I have worked a lot of types of jobs and never been eligible for unemployment benefits, as far as I know. But I have mostly lived in fairly backward states.

I couldn't afford to work for $10/hour but there are millions of people who would be delighted to. Fast food places seem to be fully staffed.

The point of providing essentially infinite employment at the lowest end of the scale is that nobody will quit their private sector job for a government make-work job. It puts a floor under the employment market... nothing more.

The Humphrey-Hawkins full employment act specified that the federal government operate at the low end of the wage scale, and I think it's sensible.

[Jennicut]

10. It would work in states where the standard of living is lower but to buy a house in some towns here

is $250,000 or more. To rent an apartment it can be $750 to $1000 a month and that is in some city areas. It does get ridiculous but it is the access to NYC that drives up the prices here, the closer to NY the higher the prices can get. I am glad I live in Northern CT.

[Hello_Kitty]

14. Yeah, but what about a young adult living with his/her parents?

I know a number of 18-25 year olds who loll about the house all day playing computer games and raiding the fridge. If they could make $10 an hour it would help their families greatly.

[Jennicut]

26. LOL! Most stay at that age (I moved out at 24) to save for a house or apartment.

Most of my friends did the same. My best friend did not move out until 26 because buying a house until recently is just out of the price range for people in their twenties these days. Now two years later she finally owns a house with her soon to be husband.

[Hello_Kitty]

12. It's what they do in Japan

The gov't finds work for anyone who wants it. Which is why they weathered their deep recession in the 90s with low unemployment and practically no poverty.

[TheKentuckian]

11. In right to work states that's pretty good for a non-professional

That's about double the supposed poverty line for a single person. Meadian income is about 33k which is like $15.15 or something. I'd like this idea at 12-13/hr more but $10 is a functional minimum wage in fly over country.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. I was picking a round number. You wouldn't want people quitting real jobs for govt. make-work, so

minimum wage might be the right wage level, economically.

That would not directly help most folks but it's systemic. If everyone can get minimum wage with no skills at all then McDonald's has to pay a little more, and so on up the ladder... the way things are supposed to work in a functioning labor market.

So $11/hr jobs drift up to $12... etc. (And if it introduces a little inflation, as wage pressure often does, that's actually something we need. We are printing money around the clock and still projected to fall short of our 2% inflation goal for 2010.)

Eliminating unemployment at the bottom bubbles up through the whole job market. (Better than trickle down)

[spiritual_gunfighter]

27. I hope you aren't serious n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

7. I'm sorry but my heart sank when I saw that immigration reform is up next

WTF are they thinking??!? We've got high unemployment and they want to bring in more workers from other countries willing to work for less. Unbelievable.

[grantcart]

16. immigration reform is about regularizing long time workers who are here

not about bringing in more workers.

All of the bipartisan bills included measures to continue to enforce border security as a part of the reform.

[Hello_Kitty]

19. Yeah, wait'll you see what happens

When Big Bidness and the Chamber of Commerce get a whack at it. Mark my words. They will push for, and get, an increase in H1B visas and a "guest worker" program. If it were just amnesty and a path to citizenship for the people already here that would be fine. But it won't stop there. Believe that.

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. Create 5,000,000 $10 an hour jobs without immigration reform?

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Hopefully the govt. is capable of limiting hiring to citizens and legal immigrants

And if not... hey, unemployed undocumented aliens are as big a problem as unemployed citizens. They both depress everyone else's wages, commit more crimes, etc.

[Clio the Leo]

15. He can do more than one thing at a time Sen McCain. ;-) NT

[TheKentuckian]

18. Congress can't nor can they do anything approaching right

Their best effort just makes me want to kick them in the mouth til my foot falls off.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

21. If his involvement is similar to the HCR effort I imagine he can do a dozen things at once...

Snark aside, the question is not President Obama's available man hours. It is how much change congress will stomach in an election year.

I think a dramatic left-leaning jobs attack has better prospects than any other dramatic left-leaning effort because it has the wind at its back.

And it would be good politics. The other stuff is, however important, bad politics for this moment in time.

IMO.

[grantcart]

17. split the difference

2 million jobs and do immigration next.

Immigration reform will alter the election balance in the future with an additional + 5 million democratic voters making future fights easier.

Also changing to a post carbon based economy should start as soon as possible and be kept at the highest possible level creating even more judges.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. A counter...

The environment for immigration reform is probably more sensitive to economic insecurity than any other big agenda item.

When people are out of work immigration reform--no matter the particulars of the reform--will be a rallying point for the worst of the worst and will drag a lot of independents to the RW in it wake.

Of course it is good for Dems long-term, demographically. But this is an awful environment for it.

Fix mega-unemployment and the public will look far more favorably on the concept.

Shorter Version: I believe it is political suicide. A decision must be made whether we are trying to get some stuff through before losing congress or trying to not lose congress. So my suggestion is, atypically for me, hopeful. I am trying to figure how we don't get crushed.

[grantcart]

22. we don't get crushed because the Republicans won't have a message

The Republicans will be in a full out war between the evangelical and establishment factions.

Without a clear leader their messaging will be all over the place and the Democrats will be surprisingly unified.

Of course employment is the one variable that would have the greatest impact and I actually would support a couple hundred billion in getting people back to work now.

[grantcart]

23. OK so I have been thinking alot about the basic premise of your thread

Which happens with a lot of your threads, you get to the center of a problem.

Of course we usually end up at different ends of the logical extensions but you frequently make me wonder about the basic problem.


Let's assume two things:

1) The Obama administration wants to do the right things for the right reasons

2) The Obama administration is smart enough to also try and calculate the best political strategy for #1) above.


So why would they focus on immigration. We all know that for a long term strategy it is a killer for the Republicans but it will take years for those prospective voters to get to the ballot box. It is true that the latest gallup showed a huge jump in support of Hispanics (in fact the 9 point jump in one week from 68 to 77 either is an outlier or a correction from underreporting) but that's not the reason.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to NPR as I was driving and Lindsay Graham was being interviewed. To my surprise he let down his bullshit shield and they got him talking like a real person, and he was a lot more reasonable than I thought possible. They were asking about why he would go bipartisan on the climate change issue.

Basically he said that after the HCR bill was passed you were going to see Republican "Bipartisanship" break out all over the place. His point was that to keep saying "no" would be to commit the greatest political sin possible, to become boring. Also by continuing to say no on everything would undermine their position against health care. Finally he said if the American people are going to choose between believing that Obama was trying to be Bipartisan and the Republicans not cooperating or the Republicans trying to be bipartisan and Obama not cooperating people just aren't going to buy the latter.

So, he said, every Republican will be going out of their way to find something that they can reach across the aisle on.


So why would the administration pick immigration?

Well you pointed out that there will be less public support now than when things are good. Now think teaparty on steroids.

If the administration comes out WITH THE EXACT SAME BILL that Bush/McCain/and other Republicans supported before then a wonderful thing will happen. The Democrats will be completely unified and the Republicans will be facing the one issue that will cause the most INTERNAL conflict in the Republican Party. Republicans in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California must support this bill or kiss their huge hispanic block gone for a generation. And yet the crazies in the Republican party will go fucking nuts and start primaring every one of them.

Think about it. John McCain probably will not survive a primary challenger.

It may not be chess but it is thinking 8 moves down the road.

Anyway the more I think about it the more ingenious it looks. Republicans coming under more and more pressure to be bipartisan will face the one issue that promises to bring full civil war to their party.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20091227/OPINION06/912240350/Justin-Akers-Chacon--Up-next--overdue-immigration-reform

edited to add this which makes my point

Congress should move quickly from health care to immigration reform. But to succeed, it will have to beat back specious anti-immigrant claims.

On Dec. 15, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act.

The bill is the first effort to pass federal immigration reform under the Obama administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress after several failed attempts during the Bush era.

The Gutierrez proposal and a forthcoming Senate counterpart reflect the Democrats' efforts to fulfill a campaign promise that turned out large numbers to the polls in their favor.

It also reflects the growing clout of Latino and immigrant voters, a rising force in U.S. politics.

There is broad public support for immigration reform that would provide a path to citizenship.

A May Pew Research Center study revealed that 63 percent of the population supports a legalization program, with 73 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans in favor.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

24. You make some good points, but we see the political environment differently

I agree that on past history immigration is more divisive for Republicans, but that's because Republicans were in power and proposed it.

The question is whether pugs today would support exactly what they supported a few years ago.

HCR has shown us that even centrist Dems don't always support what they supported two weeks ago. (Lieberman, Baucus, et al)

The prior immigration battle was the base versus the white house. There was an incentive for some pugs to side with the WH.

I do not see any incentive for any pug to walk the plank for Obama. And I doubt there is any congressional district where immigration reform will be decisive in the positive. There are probably some heavily hispanic districts where reform is quite popular, but we already hold those seats.

Funny thing about Lindsey Graham... despite being gross he is one of the more reasonable pugs, just as his BFF McCain was one of the more reasonable pugs. (And other BFF Lieberman is also one of the more reasonable pugs.)

What Graham is peddling will be bought by no one, including--when push comes to shove--Graham himself.

There is zero incentive for any pug to vote for any Dem proposal--no matter how popular--in 2010. A revulsion election is not about issues or even about candidates. Dems have won big twice in a row. People are unhappy. They will pull the other lever.

In the logic of 2010 (not national third party) it's a zero-sum game and the pugs can be despised and still make big gains.

The leadership understands that and the rank and file will follow.

Two observations about 1994, and the real nature of Newt Gingrich's evil genius:

1) You mentioned that the pugs will not have a message in 2010. I agree. I do not, however, think one is needed. The Contract on America was not a means to win, IMO. It was a pre-spin of what the "mandate" would be when very crude non-policy factors got Dems creamed in 1994.

2) The grand coup of 1994 wasn't the contract with america. It was the congressional bank scandal (sic) where congressmen made perfectly legal use of checking account over-draft protection. It was an absurd scandal.

When going into it Gingrich realized that almost as many pugs as Dems would be swept up in it but he didn't care. He realized that to take over congress required that congress be despised as an institution. If everyone hates congress and hates the Dems and hates the pugs it redounds to the benefit of the out party... even if they are an equal partner in why congress is despised.

It was shrewd. He wanted to be speaker of the House, not necessarily speaker of a popular House.

I honestly cannot see any reason for any pug to vote for anything. Any bipartisanship is a striking political error. Will some try it? Sure. People make mistakes.

But pugs will not pay for obstruction. If they make Dems look ridiculous by making themselves look ridiculous people will still vote for them. Nationalized Congressional elections play out as crude referenda on the in party, not choices between two options.

IMO.

I think this is an agree-to-disagree because you and I have have somewhat different ideas of the dynamics of nationalized elections. You may be right, predictively, but if you are I think it will be a deviation from the norm. And then I will add that event to my model.

[grantcart]

25. But there are real constituencies for Republicans on immigration reform

You are thinking of Gingrich and a unified national strategy of congressional political strategy - that is the exception not the rule.

Two sets of Republicans are going to vote for immigration reform.

1) Those in the agricultural sector. Republican farmers with labor intensive operations will walk across the street and go to a dance with a communist if it meant that they could legalize their outlaw operations. Given a choice of another tax break or finally getting a legal answer to their labor problem they will chose the later.

2) Southern tier states with huge hispanic populations ( and other states that have lots of hispanic voters). They already stepped into it with Sotomayor and they may disagree with a point or two on any legislation but they are not going to come out and campaign against it, especially those in statewide offices.

Texas, Arizona, California and even Nevada have both sets in spades.

[BreweryYardRat]

28. Hell, $10 an hour is $2.00 over minimum wage here in Florida.

It'll keep a roof over your head and put decent food on your table...if you're single.