Some 300,000 teachers face layoffs this coming year. Congress hasn't even had a vote on legislation that would keep them employed. Teenage employment was at record lows last year -- when the stimulus bill funded some summer jobs. It is June, the school year is ending, and a $1.4 billion bill to provide 500,000 jobs for the summer hasn't gotten a vote. More than 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and the economy barely produced any private-sector jobs last month. And yet, the bill by California Democrat George Miller to put people to work can't get a vote in the House.
What is Washington thinking? Losing a job is a human calamity. Families buckle under the pressure. Divorce, spousal abuse, child neglect soar. Homelessness increases along with malnutrition. Crime, drug addiction, depression, rising rates of suicide follow. Skilled workers lose their skills. Our society becomes more unequal, and far more brittle, as middle-class families descend into destitution. Our 10 percent unemployment is a national emergency, not an acceptable condition.
The situation is dire. Youth unemployment is at its highest levels since the Labor Department started tracking figures in 1948. One in six blue-collar workers has lost his or her job in the downturn. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. And 120,000 are filing for bankruptcy every month.
Yet Congress doesn't act. Republicans, with virtual unanimity, oppose jobs programs as part of an ''out-of-control spending spree.'' But they also oppose paying for jobs by ending the tax break for hedge-fund millionaires that has them paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. They oppose allowing Medicare to save hundreds of billions by negotiating bulk discounts on prescription drugs.
Blue-dog Democrats don't want to do anything without ''paying for it.'' This didn't seem to be a factor when they voted to bail out the banks, or when they voted another $60 billion for the war in Afghanistan. It doesn't restrain the Federal Reserve from transferring trillions to private financial institutions without even a vote of Congress. The pledge to make jobs ''issue No. 1'' this year has yet to translate into action.
Pundits warn that our deficits, slated to be more than $1 trillion this year, will turn us into Greece and move us to the edge of default. But the reality is that America is still the safe harbor. The euro is sinking as worried investors take their money to the U.S. Our deficits are high, but the demand for our bonds is higher.
It is time to put people to work. States and localities are cutting teachers and police and firefighters in the face of $360 billion in projected deficits in 2010 and 2011. Sending money to the states to forestall those layoffs will sustain good jobs and vital services. Spending money on summer jobs for teenagers is a no-brainer. Creating urban and rural corps -- or green corps to clean our cities or to clean the oil off the Gulf Coast -- simply makes sense.
And at the same time, we should push hard now to finance work that must be done. Our roads, bridges, mass transit, sewers and clean-water facilities are literally falling apart.
Instead, we seem to be lurching back to the same trickle-down economics that has proved so disastrous in the past. Bail out the banks and watch them capture 30 percent of all corporate profits and rising. Slash vital services from schoolteachers to public health facilities. Sit back as jobs are shipped abroad, and our trade deficit is back to more than $1 billion a day and rising. Let bankers pay themselves million-dollar bonuses, and do little as another 3 million families lose their homes to foreclosure this year.
Thirty years of trickle-down economics led this economy over the cliff. It left this country more unequal, with working Americans less secure and more indebted. We can't go back to that old economy. Nor can we accept a new economy in which the inequalities are worse, the unemployment and poverty greater, the misery wider. We're still a staggering 7.8 million jobs short of where we were when the Great Recession began. It is time for action on jobs.
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Marian Wright Edelman: Young People Falling Behind Economically
congress works for those who pay it. - And if I have to tell You after all that has happened that it is not the people that pay it you are a LOT lower than I think You are.
The more people are out of work the less the corporations can get away paying people. It's as simple as that.
And lo and behold the auto industry just this day demanded that workers can be paid lower wages.
You think that is a coincidence?
As long as there are many out of work the workforce has to accept lower income. The connection is clear and has been proven time and again.
And as members of congress take money from the industry they will SAY they fight joblessness but ACT in the interest of those paying them. And that means keeping people out of work.
You're focusing on this is wasting energy. We need more focus on where the stimulus is spent. There are still billions to get out to the projects. It is up to you to make sure some of that gets where the out of work are. More focus upon getting legislation that is not tampered with by the Republicans is what we really need. The scam is not all of Congress, the scam is the ideology of political manipulation to make the Dems look bad. Republicans, via Karl Rove and their neocon masters have known this for a very long time. Manipulate and dismantle the bills for progressive taxation, progressive jobs, progressive anything they can strip away support. They can make it appear that none of it works, because they strip it of the meaningful parts.
Specifically recall that the stimulus originally had twice as much aid to states, and that the Republicans demanded it be cut in half, and then tax cuts replace it. They got their demands in the name of bipartisanship and that was a huge mistake. Dem leadership is just plain stupid.
Government needs to protect our land from invaders (illegal immigrants is a good start). Support infrastructure such as roads and utilities.
We need to take back those big raises Obama gave to federal agencies that raised the average civil servant salary up to nearly six figures.
I did not happen to serve in the military but the pay and benefits they receive is well deserved.
First, the average civil servant salary is NOT nearly 6 figures. Most do make a decent wage and have the best benefits. But, misinforming about this focuses attention away from the truth. This is one of the lies that neocons foment to incite dubious responses from followers such as yourself.
Second, the government has been protecting the land for more than 200 years. How you think otherwise shows a basic lack of context. The influx of illegals is not the entirety of the Federal govt. protecting our land. I'm sure you take into account terrorism, but also real invasion has been a factor. Like when Japan attacked us. When you mention infrastructure and utilities, you're contradicting yourself about shrinking government.
Last, as to social security, medicare and health reform, I wonder which of these you're on, or whom you know that is using these? I wonder where you heard that a jobs bill is the last thing we need? What economics expert spoke or wrote to this? Which have you studied. What do you think drives the economy? Let me explain it to you, it's demand.
2.get a job (if you can't find one, start your own business)
3.cut government taxes and regulation -(it makes starting your business easier)
4.subcontract all those current government jobs to you, the private sector.
5.the wages, benefits, and pension you earn will be your own (and not subsidized by "you"- the taxpayer).
6. Big Government creates Big Business (and less competition to them, we need a bunch more of small businesses, that earn, save, and provide for their own employees, without excessive tax and regulations !).
2. Again, starting a business should be so easy. If you're going retail you need a lot of start-up money and the courage to accept total failure, as the odds are you will lose your shirt. If you want to do contracting like myself, then realize the cyclical nature of the business and if you lack capital or equity then you'll not have enough money to hire help. You need a lot of insurance and a lot of accounting expertise to follow your state and federal tax and insurance laws. If you want to be a vendor, then you have to know the city and state fees and license requirements. You'll need a supplier or you'll have to spend an equal amount of time obtaining the vended product as you do selling it. If you run up against anti street vending laws (and you will), then you have to get acquainted with possible vendor sites. Expect competition to be steep.
Continued.
4. Have you ever tried doing this?
5, What are you blathering about here? This makes no sense.
6. There is nothing excessive about the tax. Small businesses are not taxed out of existence. This nation still has a thriving small business structure and where you've decided it has to have vast growth in this sector is beyond me. Big Business has to be regulated. Small business has to be regulated too. No business has the right to do whatever it desires to make a profit. You can't dump toxins, you can't accept carpet and pad to recycle and store it in a giant barn (never to be recycled), you can't do a startup without a business plan and show revenue viability, you have to have regulation to make sure the crooks don't take the public to the cleaners.
Why isn't the Obama administration getting down right FDR ballistic on putting people to work?
We need a public jobs program NOW. Obama could do it with an executive order and worry about the flack from "congress" later. But will he? Are you listening to the American middle class President Obama?
Very sadly, I don't think he is, or something would be getting done much faster.
This administration does not understand the EXECUTE part of being the EXECUTIVE branch.
I am becoming utterly disappointed in the lack of ability in this present administration, we voted for action and execution of ideas, not status quo. And this is an election year, if that doesn't motivate the leader of the Democratic party I don't know what will? From the gulf reaction, to jobs, to the war effort, I don't see a solid plan being implemented. I say, fire Rahm Emanuel as he has failed the President drastically, fire Robert Gibbs he is a joke at public relations, fire Robert Gates for not coming up with a Victory, and any other staff members that aren't performing and start getting this change show on the road. 2012 is just around the corner.
extending Unemployment is not the answer however it what is needed. the Answer is to create jobs, which will take Congress to place hire taxes on any company that out sources jobs over seas, higher taxes on any funds leaving the US and higher tariffs on imports.
Until then we have to pay out unemployment for the failure of our leaders.
Support unemployment here, it is one of Change.org highest all time petitions.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/the_99ers_need_a_tier_v_added_to_unemployment_benefits
Republicans and their neocon media masters have spent more than a year forcing diatribe against the stimulus down our throats. Yet the first year was barely a beginning for the stimulus. It didn't begin to take any meaningful effect until Nov. 2009 and is supposed to have its greatest impact over the last three quarters of 2010. So, here we are in the last part of the second quarter and it's decided the stimulus is a total waste of effort?
Why? Because you buy it!
What more do you need for evidence that the entire problem sits in the laps of Republicans and their malfeasance? If you don't think obstruction is wrong doing, then what is?
TO: generalizers of the stimulus,
Do you enjoy and revel in that knowledge? Do you pat yourself on the back for making this scam possible? Do you think you've made your own life safer and better for the near and far future? Do you think your family or those your related to are going to be better off because the Republicans stripped down the stimulus of 2009?
Let alone how the neocon media has ranted and raved with emotional vehemence toward the stimulus and our current POTUS. It's a disgrace that you post your baseless generalizations.
As for the societal breakdown he mentions, put yourself in the situation of someone desparately poor - why wouldn't you sell drugs, steal, or do whatever to get some $$? The game is rigged against you anyway, why would you play nice?
A good example: Tischman Speyer is allowed to default & walk away from their purchase of the Stuy Town housing development in NYC. It was apparently "over appraised" and not worth what they paid, so, "goodbye!" But pity the poor homeowner who attempts the same thing (without claiming to be a real estate pro). Since the Supremes have now granted corporations the rights of individuals, might not individuals be entitled to the rights of corporations? I would advise anyone buying a home to incorporate as a business and put the home as a business asset. Then you too can walk away scot-free when things go sour.
Has anyone heard of a lawsuit that would use the reverse logic of the Supremes' decision to secure coporate rights for individuals? I would gladly add
"but still not on the agenda in Congress"
This is not correct. The Dem controlled Congress has tried repeatedly to bring forth progressive changes. It is the Republican members, and their crony blue dog Dems who are creating this scam.
If you will but consider how this is politically manifested it becomes clear. By stripping everything of meaning that works, and by stripping away bills that could make change, and by stopping votes, the Republicans and blue dogs are making the real change look bad. This politically motivated scam to promote the bad, especially making real change from current Dems, has been over looked by all.
It's obviously out of the play book of the big-scammer Carl Rove. He's laughing at us for making it look like all of Congress is the problem. When it is specifically the Republicans and their cronies the blue dogs.