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The Road to Economic Recovery
As the Bush administration sputters to an end, the official unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.5 percent in October, and the number of unemployed persons increased by 603,000 to 10.1 million -- for a total of 10.1 million unemployed -- a 14 year high. In the last year alone of the Bush administration, unemployment has increased by 2.8 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points. The news is deeply disheartening.
And these figures are conservative. They do not include workers who want a full-time job but are working part time or workers who have given up looking for work completely. The number of involuntary part-time workers rose by 645,000 last month, to 6.7 million. The figures do not include another half million workers so discouraged they have stopped looking for work. If we total these numbers, the unemployment and underemployment figures are very stark: almost 17 million Americans are jobless or unable to find the full-time employment they want.
These are very difficult times for Vermonters and Americans throughout this country. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low; while the foreclosure rate is at an all-time high. More than 100,000 Americans filed for bankruptcy just last month. Many of those fortunate enough to have a job are seeing their wages go down, while prices have been going up. Recent declines in the stock market are shattering the retirement dreams of many older Americans and forcing many more to delay their retirement plans for years to come (you can read testimonials here).
Since Bush has been president, nearly six million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; over seven million Americans have lost their health insurance; more than 4 million Americans have lost their pensions, and median income for working-age Americans has gone down by over $2,000.
In these very difficult economic conditions, doing nothing is not an option.
When the Senate reconvenes of November 17th, I intend to fight for an economic recovery program that is significant enough in size and scope to respond to the major economic crisis this country now faces.
If we can commit more than $1 trillion to rescue bankers and insurance companies from their reckless and irresponsible behavior, we certainly should be investing in millions of good-paying jobs that rebuild our nation and improve its economy.
In my view, the size of this economic recovery plan should be, at a minimum, $300 billion.
This economic recovery package should first improve our crumbling infrastructure by improving our roads, bridges and public transportation. We need to bring our water and sewer systems into the 21st century. We need to make certain that high-quality Internet service is available in every community in America. Not only are these investments desperately needed, every billion dollars that we put into these initiatives will create up to 47,000 new jobs.
We also need to make a major financial commitment to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. With a major investment, we can stop importing foreign oil in 10 years, produce all of our electricity from sustainable energy within a decade, and substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can also make the United States the world leader in the construction of solar, wind, bio-fuel and geothermal facilities for energy production, as well as create a significant number of jobs by making our homes, offices, schools and factories far more energy efficient.
In these harsh economic times, we should also make sure that, at the very least, all Americans have access to primary health care and dental care, which we can do by substantially increasing funding for the highly-effective community health center program. We should extend unemployment benefits, so that more than 1 million Americans do not run out of their benefits by the end of this year. We should assure that no one in America, in these hard times, goes hungry or homeless.
Finally, with towns and states like Vermont facing deep deficits, we must make a major, immediate financial commitment to states and municipalities. Their crisis will only grow worse as homes are foreclosed, as incomes decline, and as fees on sales of homes and motor vehicles diminish. For too long, unfunded federal mandates have drained the budgets of states and communities. The strength and vitality of our communities must be restored.
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Sen. Sanders ,
Can you stop all the Millions of Dollars that Bush is trying to send to the Religious Schools.
On average Private Religious Schools only have 400 Students who pay $ 2,800 per quarter .
How is giving these Church Schools Millions of Taxpayers Dollars going to help anyone.
It only hurts Public Schools and the Taxpayers.
Now who would have ever thought that getting rid of Regulations that required Bankers to follow rules would cause all these problems.
Don't you know Bankers all trust each other not to cheat, steal and lie !!!! lol
Regulations are good !!!!!!
Regulations make things secure and operate smoothly when greed and corruption are the problem. .
Great post Senator Sanders - I hope you bend Barack's ear big time in the next two months and beyond, he needs to aggressively pursue a populist progressive agenda and bring about the change he promised. Thank you for all you do, IMHO you are the best senator we have. One of the best things you are doing is educating people that Democratic Socialism is a good thing and life is pretty nice in Scandinavia and other European places who live under this kind of system.
Barack must not listen to people like Harry Reid who seem to still want to play republican lite by triangulating all over the place.
Part of the reason things have swung so far the wrong way over time is that we play too nice when we are in power and they don't play nice at all, when they are in power they go for it and the Hell with us. It's easy to see where this has taken us.
Get your buds together and get rid of Reid and Pelosi as majority leaders! Thank you.
"Get your buds together and get rid of Reid and Pelosi as majority leaders!"
I'll drink to that. This is a no brainer, especially the Pelosi part of the equation. How sad she will still be around. So much for change ........
On another note:
"Since Bush has been president, nearly six million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; over seven million Americans have lost their health insurance; more than 4 million Americans have lost their pensions, and median income for working-age Americans has gone down by over $2,000."
The above says it all. Actually, it doesn't. It's just the tip of the iceberg.
I have a few thoughts: (overall, stop the bleeding, move the $$ into US production, correct regulation and statistics)
First figure out the removal of all military from Iraq; these people should have first bid on new jobs for a program like ccc that others have mention.
Stop the bailout give remaining $450 billion to main street; it can now trickle up; reduce the mortgages as others have mention; use the rest to create the green economy;
Abolish the Federal Reserve; We the United States was not to have a central bank and they are the cause of our problems; allowing the interest rate to be so low and throwing out billions to insurance, mortgage and wall street;
Tell wall street and the bankers they have to show what is at zero dollar amount of their phoney derivatives on their books now;
Stop short selling and credit default swaps; detain the bankers and wall street that made billions on the credit default swaps and tax them 80%;
I also like the comment about overseas companies getting taxed their due from abandoning the US.
Demand that the government start being transparent in their statistics; make them redo all the stats and have available on government websites;
And my favorite suggestion: We all deserve the Healthcare that all senators and Representatives get; best to be non-profit eventually; making profit on someone's else illness is basicly SICK.
Thank you for sharing with us, Senator. I have only one problem with your plan- the size of the bailout. If we can give a trillion dollars to millionaires and big businesses that subsequently lay workers off, we can afford at least half that to create actual jobs. Also, bankruptcy judges should be given the power to reset bad loans at lower interest rates. When we can give jobs to underemployed and out-of-work Americans and allow them to pay off their mortgages instead of being tossed to the curb, the economy will recover.
I have every confidence that we can fix what's wrong. But, personally, I'm tired of Republican administrations coming into power and stealing from the treasury. I would like for the country to figure out how to prevent the upward redistribution of wealth that always occurs with Republican policies. We have completely abandoned the simplest, most fundamental compacts with working Americans, such as pensions. While CEOs make millions, sometimes billions of dollars, even in the wake of failure. This is wrong.
A pension plan should be a contract, not a pot of $$ to loot if the corp is sold.
Yes, please, and Senator, while we're at it, let's ask congress to ask Bushco why they put $12 billion in CASH on an airplane and shipped it to Iraq, where $8 billion of it immediately "disappeared."
Senator; We could have solved the Sub Prime Mortgages crisis by simply resetting these mortgages at a fixed rate of 6.25% and then the lenders would have made money not lost it, and the vast majority of borrowers could have stayed in their homes and not one dime fo tax payers money would have been needed for that.. not one dime..!
Sadly Bush and Paulson were waving these huge bail outs of hundreds of billions before the bankers eyes..so why would they ever consider something as fair and reasonable and good for America as that..
As we all know those on Wall St. and the huge brokerage houses never put America First only their own pockets and unbridled greed comes first...always and Bush and Paulson fed this greed and plundered our Treasury for the sake of it...
I just finished watching Kevin Phillips on Bill Moyers and he predicted the Wall St Meltdown
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11072008/profile.html
He predicted "difficulty" ahead for Obama. The key is for all of us posting online and that voted, worked for the campaign, etc, we need to make sure that we hold Obama to his promise and be the wind at his back, because these nutcases on the Right are going to continue to believe they can come back in 4 years, name Obama's time in office a failure and they have a "new idea" which would be the real "Lipstick On a Pig" of Free Markets and No Regulation.
Cabinet appointments are not nearly as important as handcuffing them from doing anything stupid stuff in Congress. We all want HR 676 for example, well let's push for that. It would help the Auto Makers as what did GM say was a drag on their capital.
I agree GM has the most fuel frugal fleet in America but many Americans have drank the Kool Aid of Toyota and Honda. The truth is, GM is making competitive cars and with the Volt will launch a game changer ahead of both Honda and Toyota. But Honda will counter with a $20K Insight sedan, so its important for GM to reduce the "sticker shock" of the Volt and this is a chance for the Government to step forward and give the direct tax discounts for buying this car.
This very dry economist has been correct in all he has predicted since the 70s....seems like he should be an advisor to somebody...as droll as he is..he wouldn't win an audience..but he is smart and he is honest and he is blunt. I also enjoyed the two people prior to Mr. Phillips last night. Moyers has very knowlegable and articulate people on his program...one of the best.
"we need to make sure that we hold Obama to his promise "
So true. Read what Naomi Klein, bless her heart, has to say about this ...
Naomi Klein: " The question now is whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call "the middle" (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address.
*** Now that the election has been won, this movement's new missions should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal."
full article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21166.htm
What I am worried about is, because of the 800 billion dollar bailout, congress less willing to support a bailout for main street. Sanders hit the nail on the head. We should be investing in things that benefit the majority, not a select few of wall street billionaires.
Yep. There were two Rethugs on CNN tonight talking about Obama's stimulus plan for middle income families and whining, "But what about the deficiet? We have to be fiscally responsible."
Funny how they haven't been worried about spending $$$ like d. r. u. n. k. e. n. sailors for say... oh... EIGHT YEARS.
Senator Sanders, I'm not from Vermont but would you be my Senator? The ones I've got don't seem to care about me very much. Would Vermont take Senator Kyl and Senator McCain in a two-for-one trade?
as another Arizonan (actually Baja Arizonan) Please some body take Mccain and Kyle...
We can't afford them anymore...
We could throw in Rick Renzi, J. D. Hayworth, and a couple of Goldwaters... Whatever it takes, Vermont.
The intentional negligence of the Bush administration these past eight years is staggering. Thousands of Americans are dead because of the lie called the Iraq war. All the while, our true enemy grows stronger.
Here at home, millions of homes are in foreclosure and still Bush does nothing but bail out those who caused it all.
This is where gross incompetence, no oversight and a philosophy of total greed gets you. The Republicans call it "small government.".
There was NO incompetence by the Bush admin. They knew exactly what they were doing. The take over of Iraqs oil and mineral rights. The take over of their banking system. The looting of Iraqi history and national pride as a people...
The world MUST rid itself of the international private bankers that own the corporations and most of the world. A good start would be to overturn the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and rid ourselves of the privately owned banking corporation in America. They own America and its citizens thru debt owed them, by some 11 trillion dollars and counting.
All that still leaves plenty of room for incompetence. Corruption and ineptitude aren't mutually exclusive.
Thank you for your service.
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