People are suffering.
More than 20 million are looking for full-time work. More than 40 million are in poverty, the highest levels since the Census Bureau started keeping figures. More than 50 million are without health coverage. More than 40 million are on food stamps, the highest ever. About 1 million will lose their homes to foreclosure in 2010. We lost 13,000 manufacturing jobs last month, and the decline of wages and benefits for working families continues.
Meanwhile, inequality is at record extremes as the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans captured fully one-half the overall economic growth during the past 15 years.
This kind of inequality is corrosive. Families suffer, as parents work longer and harder for less, and children have less security and less hope. Society suffers, as basic investments in areas vital to our future -- from renewable energy to modern clean-water systems to safe schools -- are cut. The economy suffers, for as income gets concentrated, there is less demand for goods, the economy grows more slowly, and jobs are lost.
That is why the current debate in Washington seems like a sick burlesque. Republicans are voting against extending unemployment insurance to millions of workers who can't find work through no fault of their own unless the president and Democrats agree to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich at the cost of about $60 billion a year. Give more tax cuts to the rich or we'll block action on everything, threatens the unified Republican caucus in the Senate. Rumors are now that the president is on the verge of surrendering to this demand.
But $60 billion a year is a remarkable sum of money. According to David Leonhardt of the New York Times, it could provide universal preschool for three and four year olds, with relatively small class sizes, something virtually every education expert says is vital to educating the next generation.
Or it could provide free college -- including room and board -- for about half of all full-time students at both two- and four-year colleges.
Or it could fund a national infrastructure bank that could leverage the money into literally hundreds of billions a year to rebuild America.
Any of these would generate more jobs and more hope than giving more tax breaks to the affluent. The fact is, money is already too concentrated. So corporations rack up record profits, but don't hire. Wall Street pockets billions, but doesn't invest in the real economy. Companies expand production, but send the jobs abroad.
Enough.
We need a project for American renewal, not a holdup where the weak are held hostage. The president would be wise to abandon the back room dealmaking and take his case to the American people. Stump across the country to rallies of workers and the unemployed. Explain to them what Republicans are demanding. Democrats in the Congress -- led by the black, Hispanic and progressive caucuses -- should make it clear to the president: There is no deal. Americans need jobs and hope, not more tax breaks for the top end and more concentrated wealth.
We need mobilized people to counter the weight of organized money.
Follow Rev. Jesse Jackson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revjjackson
I went to a party at Christmas and they were quite a few professional people that have been unemployed for
about three years. America has become plagued with uneducated youth, young adults with criminal records
that if jobs were plentiful, they couldn't work....fatherless and motherless children..out of control foster care system...poor uneducated readers and writers.....poor in math, technology and science..The government was set up as a system of checks and balances. I don't see any checks and I definitely don't see any balances. Let the caucases mobilize and advise the President and congress that the job is just not getting done as Mr. Jackson is letting us know. Read the Huffington post for details. I really pray that they get it together before it's too late....God Help us All
You're forgetting one minor detail:
Obama has had the muscle to end the Bush tax cuts for nearly TWO YEARS. In fact, a third of his presidency he had a SUPERMAJORITY in the Senate, combined with a commanding majority in the House. He didn't have to wait to Bush Tax Cuts to expire. He and the Dems could have repealed the law outright.
For those of you who are less-than-fond of Obama's predecessor, ask yourself this question: What would "W" have done, if he had a SUPERMAJORITY as Obama did in Senate?
At the end of the day, the Dems kept punting this issue, hoping to use it as a platform during midterms. That plan BACKFIRED and the Dems got the woodshed whipping of a political lifetime.
As for unemployment benefits, again I say NOBODY should be on unemployment for nearly two years. That makes no sense. It's welfare personified, literally paying people NOT to work and crippling small businesses by making them give money to people that don't work for them anymore.
Sir, I know you're familiar with 2 Thess. 3:10, which says that if any man would not work, neither should he eat. I've been on unemployment and I got off it, by taking jobs that were less than stellar (fast food, telemarketing, landscaping, etc). And, as my mother told me would happen, I never got a good job sitting at home. I always obtained a good job, while working at one that...well...STUNK!!!!!
Check out the roll call?
(I have an appointment with my eye doctor in an hour)
You could pay 1.4 million people $50,000- for more than half of Americans, a good pay rate, and enough to raise a small family, if not especially comfortably (my mother raised us on about $19,000)
So the real cost of this extension, is 1.4 million decent jobs over two years.