Sometimes a very limited exchange of words captures well a much greater issue. This was the case last Saturday during the weekly presidential radio broadcast and the Republican rebuttal.
The GOP commentary was delivered by Congressman Adam Kinzinger. He went right on the attack about the wrongheaded policies that are at to be blamed for high unemployment and left no doubt about whose fault it is. He stated:
There's been a lot of talk this week about how our economy isn't creating enough jobs. I can tell you that here in the president's home state, every day, we hear about a company that's looking at leaving or is already on its way out the door. And why? Because taxes are too high, regulations are too burdensome, and the government won't stop spending money it doesn't have.
Why? The congressman added, because Obama broke all the promises he made: that the stimulus would work, that unemployment would be kept below 8%, that 90% of the jobs would be in the private sector. Typically, the Republicans also argue that the reason is that the economy is overregulated and overtaxed.
The president was strictly defensive -- and asked for patience. "Too many folks are still struggling to get back on their feet. I wish I could tell you there was a quick fix to our economic problems. But the truth is, we didn't get into this mess overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. It's going to take time." He then curtsied to the private sector. "Now, government is not -- and should not be -- the main engine of job-creation in this country." He acknowledged that the government could do a few things -- such as getting the National Manufacturers Association to give a stamp of approval to credentials given by community colleges, a minor move at best.
The president typically did not mention that the GOP forced Congress to cut a $12 billion program that would have beefed up the community colleges in a big way into a mere $2 billion program. The president than disclosed that "On Monday, I'll travel to North Carolina, where I'll meet with my Jobs Council and talk about additional steps we can take..." and some more such look, see, I am moving, with very little substance.
Granted, it is good for the president to show that he cares. And it might be true that announcing lots of mini-steps will make it look like he is knocking himself out to tackle an issue that until very recently did not seem to be his main concern. Also one may argue that if Obama puts together a major job drive that would entail a retraining program many times larger than the small one he launched and included major grants to states to hire more teachers, police, and public construction jobs, the GOP would block it in Congress. However, then it would become clear who has a major job-creation program and who is sabotaging it. Then the president could stop playing only defense and also go on the offense, making clear who is to blame not only for how we got in this predicament, who caused the massive job loss to begin with, but as well who stands in the way of getting the economy picking up speed, just when it started to take off.
Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor at the George Washington University and the author of New Common Ground (Potomac Books, June 2009).
Drew Westen: The Three Wings of the Republican Party
Clarence B. Jones: It's Still "The Economy, Stupid!" Revisited: An Open Letter To The President
Dan Rather: Looking for Jobs in All the Wrong Places
www.progressiveparty.org
It does not take corporate cash and has elected members of the Vermont Legislature.
it should go national.
But don't worry, I'm sure he can identify a lot more "shovel-ready projects" for us.
Well done.
Any notion that rampant greed is self regulated by any market is so naive as to be a criminally insane act by whoever utters it.
Can anyone point out where capitalism has created a paradise for anyone but millionaires? Can anyone point out where at least 50% of corporate entities have behaved honestly, ethically, morally & straightforwardly in their dealings with their customers and the public?
Greed never brings out any good in humanity, It brings forth the lowest, most venal parts of our characters.
Not regulating industry has never brought forth anything other than corruption in our elected officials who can be bought cheaply and easily. There is also the misery such corruptions bought and paid for by corporations has always created.
Lets not regulate anyone on anything. Lets stop issuing drivers' licenses. Forget about social security, military service, marriage licenses, business licenses. Lets trust our citizens to be altruistic and well behaved. In fact why should we have a police force, fire departments or even an insurance industry. Lets eradicate all building codes and all that road maintenance really should be paid for by the guys who use the roads. We can hire a for profit corporation to maintain the roads based on using some coercive collection method whenever a person is seen using the
Can anyone point out where at least 50% of politicians have behaved honestly, ethically, morally & straightfoÂrwardly in their dealings with their customers and the public?
They do nothing for the masses of repubs unless they are rich and powerful, but those politicians get them everytime with one lie and scare tactic after another. It is disgraceful. Already millions of Americans actually believe the economy should have turned around in 90 days after Obama was in office so clearly 2.5 year is simply inexcusable. How unintelligent, how mis-informed and how lazy our electorate is in not educating themselves on the realtiy.
We don't live in a dictatorship but a republic! The president does not craft legislation he signs it. The repubs promised to focus on jobs day one and have yet to do it six months later. That is the reality. Don't forget that Americans!
What is there about conservatives which leads them to believe that the GOP is benevolent towards the common American man when it is only benevolent towards the uncommonly rich ones?
If wish you may point out to America which legislation the GOP has originated and passed that stood with the average american against the wishes of the rich ones? You may cover the past 50 years. Don't hesitate to search far and wide.
I did not enjoy a recession that Bush had warned us about and which was exacerbated by 9/11. I did not enjoy the eruption of a 30-year housing bubble built on government collusion with banks and topped off with the reworking of the credit derivatives market into the mess we have today by the very man who is now in the President's cabinet as the Secretary of the Treasury.
I'm not interested in standing "against the wishes of the rich" because they are people, too. My freedom is their freedom. And I don't think dividing American citizens into classes and using legislation to set them against each other is going to make the country better. Curiously, I always thought this was the ideology of the progressive mindset. Apparently it's just that their prejudices are different.
Let the Chinese buy the very bonds that will put our unemployed back to work and help rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. The positive benefits to our economy will more than outweigh the additional interest that we pay on these bonds.
If it makes sense and it helps, they cannot allow it. It would only server to get Obama re-elected and enable the Dems to regain control of Congress. They just cannot allow that to happen. It would signal the end of their party and the end of the party for the plutocrats and evangelicals supporting them.
In short, he & his out-of-touch with reality Clinton cadre of "trusted advisers" have fiddled while the economy burned up, have ignored big issues & wrongly talk compromise when what they do is capitulate.
The only non-jobs program that's worse than the POTUS' is the GOP "destroy all jobs" for poltical gain strategy that they have implemented since Obama was inaugurated.
Business 101: Business grow when people spend money on the things the sell or provide. Full stop. People spend money when they have money to spend. Jobs, with their wages and salaries, provide that money to them to spend on goods and services business are trying to sell to the market. High speed rail creates jobs, provides income, and enables the cash flow into the economy to help businesses.
That is, unless those businesses then take those monies and employ folks outside the US are buy the goods for the project from outside the US.
High speed rail would require jobs in the US and the materials and services would also be US stationed.
What, in that, do you see as non-productive? You have been listening to FOX or some other GOP propaganda network too much. You need to broaden your understanding.
Tell me, Professor - - - can you re-read your own post again, and let me know - - WHY aren't you a conservative republican?
Spin it anyway you want. The HOUSE is to come up with legislation that passes and moves through the senate before the President signs. You repubs were going to concentrate on jobs on day 1 in January....6 months later you have yet to move. Because it would be to the detriment of your power grab. I will never let you repubs forget that reality.
We don't live in a dictatorship. So Obama couldn't do it on his own. There are 3 houses of government and you repubs control the one that you will use to attempt to steal the whitehouse...even if you destroy Americans in the process...because you are so anti-American!
Have you noticed that the overwhelming majority of the right wingers who chime in to assert that Obama is failure have virtually no fans? I wonder why that is? Could it be that you only make sense to those who are as addlepated as you are?
said Friday that it will keep its headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville after the state promised the company $100 million in tax breaks
city of San Francisco.... The mayor and other city officials are offering the micro blogging company a big tax break to stay
California's entertainment industry for five more years, approving up to $500 million in additional tax credits to help keep movie-making jobs in the state.
The California Film and Television Tax Credit Program enacted in 2009 has already helped keep some $2.2 billion in film and television production and 25,000 crew jobs in California, said Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, a Sylmar Democrat, arguing for the extension