Jobs Not Stimulus
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Bob FertikWant to meet our members? Click 'Join' above!
As the global economy grinds to a halt, progressive "pundits" are driving me crazy by equating a Keynesian "stimulus" with jobs.
They are not the same thing.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was a $787 billion "stimulus." It was not a jobs bill.
It was supposed to save and create millions of jobs through trickle-down policies of tax cuts, unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments, and "shovel-ready" construction projects.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, in its peak year of 2010, it increased the number of people employed by between 1.3 million and 3.3 million. Most of those jobs were saved, not created.
And if you calculate the cost per job, the results were ridiculous - somewhere between $119,000 and $303,000 per job/year. Did any of the workers earn $119,000 to $303,000? Of course not.
The money wasn't stolen, it just wasn't spent on jobs. Consumers used their tax rebates to pay off credit card debt. Contractors marked up worker salaries and pocketed the profits.
As a result, the expensive "stimulus" bill had a modest impact on unemployment at a ridiculous cost. And because it was so inefficient, it fed the fury of the Tea Party, which took over the House and forced its fanatical budget-cutting agenda on President Obama and Senate Democrats.
In other words, regardless of its economic impact, it was a political disaster. So why are progressive "pundits" calling for another one?
America needs jobs. There are 14 million unemployed, another 12 million underemployed or hopeless.
In response, we need an Emergency Jobs Bill, in which roughly 100% of the funds go into paychecks - starting immediately.
Our proposal for Teacher's Aides would put 3 million Americans to work in September for $55 billion per year, less than $20,000 per job/year.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky's bill would put 2.2 million Americans to work for $113 billion per year, around $51,000 per job/year. (Her proposal is more costly than ours because it creates new government programs.)
These are the kinds of ideas progressive "pundits" should be supporting instead of a "stimulus."
As Rep. Schakowsky likes to say, "if you want to create jobs, create jobs!"
If we all raised our voices together, President Obama might hear us.
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How the stimulus / bailout should be
We take taxpayer money in the form of bailouts/stimulus and we get the same thing from "trickle down economics" NOTHING!!! If we are to have another stimulus/bailout this is how I would purpose it: The Government goes to these banks and looks at their mortgage notes for primary mortgages only. Then gives the banks no more than $100,000 to be applied to the social security number listed on that mortgage. If your mortgage is $75,000 you get $75,000 that is applied to that mortgage, if your mortgage is $250,000, you get $100,000 applied to your mortgage, not one red penny more. You then can refinance the balance of the $250,000 for a lower mortgage payment or keep paying the current agreement.
Now what happens is this:
People now have more money in their pockets and can buy either that new appliance they wanted but couldn't afford, buy a new car, maybe invest in their homes now that they don't have a huge payment to make. This puts a demand on supply and will create jobs. The banks get their money, people stay in their homes, and the economy grows from the ground up, not this trickle down nonsense. Chances are that the cost of this would be less than what was spent on the stimulus package. It's not rocket science that we are dealing with, this would work if Government will allow it to. It's our money the taxpayer, if you just give it to the banks without any obligation to the taxpayer, the bank takes our money and turns around to foreclose on us.
Hi folks, here’s a link
Hi folks, here’s a link www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/23/1009887/-“Americans-Elect”-Third-Party-Movement:-Is-it-a-Trick-Sure-Smells-Like-One to a blog of mine at Daily KOS about the suspicious new “political” movement called “Americans Elect”. While painting themselves as a non-partisan alternative to business-as-usual in the 2012 election, there are some significant warning signs that “Americans Elect” is just another conservative attempt to steal an election.
Keep your eyes open about this one. More later as things develop…
We Need a Primary
The current president is more like LBJ and less like FDR. There is not going to be a jobs program.
We desperately need a primary where we run a progressive. Even if he loses it might pull LBJ back to the center; since he started out as the bankers' choice and has moved rightwards continously since the disastrous midterm election.
Bernie Sanders, are you out there? Dennis K?
Jobs passion & McClatchy random sample
I entirely agree, Bob, about the need to focus more on jobs so I'm delighted to see the Obama administration apparently beginning a primary focus on jobs. Seems to me the problem with the economy is there is not enough growth because there is not enough demand for products, because American consumers don't have jobs and enough money to buy products. If people are not unemployed or underemployed, there will be more need to hire more workers and money will MOVE instead of staying stagnant. Did you see the passionate speech that VP Biden made?--really dynamyte I thought. Also saw our Sececretary of labor, Hilda Solis, very passionate in an interview--she might as well have been in front of an audiance on the campaign trail--she had that sort of cadence in her voice. Did you see Hoffa blasting the tea party and urging support for President Obama?--also a lot of passion there. Its not really President Obama's style to raise the volume & get red-faced like Biden & Hoffa were, but he was pretty ramped up in Ohio recently also. The majority of the American people are with them, the labor unions of course are, the American Dream movement is, the groups in the states trying to recall legislation or legislators are, it goes on & on--so why in the world shouldn't they get passionate & yell at the top of their voices? I am hoping the state governors in the states hit by earhquakes/hurricane on the eastern seaboard & even the national governors association will really support the move to fund infrastructure projects--because states are now more in need of infrastructure than before. It isn't unreasonable to wonder if after an earthquake followed by an hurricane there might be some cracks/damage to bridges besides the obvious visable damage & to want to maintain them so that they can withstand future natural disasters in those states (and in any state--since in the rest of the country we hear our infrastructure is crumbling). Infrastructure is NOT a partisan issue, since Republicans and Dems. may both be killed if a bridge collapses--these extremists in the Congress are making yet another non-partisan issue into a partisan one. Is that annoying, or what?
Here's something else really annoying me right now--(besides the fact that these new House Republicans were elected to create jobs & instead they have been working on damaging women's reproductive rights & causing the country's credit to be downgraded), I keep hearing Republicans say they are talking with business leaders and these business people are telling them that fear of higher taxes or governmental regulation is what is keeping the so-called "job-creators" from hiring. Nope, wrong, No-Jobs Breath! Here's some hard evidence as opposed to Chamber of Commerce comments (which is who the Republicans are talking to because the Chamber is giving them huge amounts of undisclosed campaign funds)--here is a cut and paste from McClatchy newspapers:
Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation.
McClatchy reached out to owners of small businesses, many of them mom-and-pop operations, to find out whether they indeed were being choked by regulation, whether uncertainty over taxes affected their hiring plans and whether the health care overhaul was helping or hurting their business.
None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/01/122865/regulations-taxes-arent-killing.html#ixzz1XEOnD9VQ