Posts tagged with 'Sarah Anderson'
Weekly Audit: Why Democrats Must Focus on Jobs Now
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by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
The job market in its worst state since the Great Depression and is putting tremendous strain on millions of Americans. Without action from Washington, D.C., the unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, and almost certainly above 9 percent through the end of 2010. Public esteem for economic policymakers isn’t doing so hot either. There are several simple steps that President Barack Obama and Congress could take to create jobs, but of late, neither have shown much interest in doing so.
Jobs matter
As Tim Fernholz emphasizes for The American Prospect, one of the best opportunities to repair the job market is a piece of legislation authored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA). The bill’s strategy is straightforward: Local governments pinched by the recession can apply for federal funds to ensure that teachers, cops, and other public servants are not laid off in the name of balanced budgets. Local governments that have already let employees go could apply for funding to re-hire them.
The result would be a clear win for the economy. Miller estimates that his bill could create 750,000 jobs, while the Economic Policy Institute expects the bill could create as many as 945,000. It’s also a smart political move—Obama’s political adversaries would no doubt find some way to criticize the move (they invented death panels for health care, after all), but as Fernholz notes, voters care much more about getting back to work than they do about ideological warfare or abstract bloviations about the federal budget deficit. (more…)
Weekly Audit: More Jobs Please
By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger
One year after President Barack Obama secured passage of his critical economic stimulus package, the U.S. Senate is finally taking anther look at how to create jobs and repair the economy. These issues are more important than ever, but absurd Republican obstructionism and timid Democratic negotiation are once again threatening good public policy.
Not really bipartisan, is it?
As Steve Benen notes for The Washington Monthly, the Senate Finance Committee reached a “bipartisan” agreement to supposedly spur job creation last week. Republicans demanded billions in tax cuts for wealthy people, but kept on caterwauling about the federal budget deficit. In exchange for $80 billion to dedicate to jobs—an extremely modest figure given the state of the labor market—Republicans asked for hundreds of billions in giveaways for the rich. And that’s just to get the bill through the Finance Committee, much less the full Senate. (more…)
