Stimulus Package Failed Black & Latino-Owned Small Businesses: Cocaine For Monkeys

"Power Corrupts & Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely."
Winston Churchill

Due to some of my recent statements about the Obama Administration, several of my Facebook Friends think that I'm beating up on Pres. Obama & the Democrats in Congress.

I'm not. However I am disappointed.

I still plan to give Pres. Obama another chance by voting for his re-election this Fall but Congress will NOT receive that same level of my support.

Hopefully this Blog post provides an explanation for my disappointment.

While it is true GOP Congressional Members Chose NOT to Work with Pres. Obama during his first 2 years in Office, the GOP's inaction is NO Excuse for Inaction on behalf of Democrats.

Here's Why.

For almost 2 Years after Pres. Obama's Election, Democrats had Full Control of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate & the White House.

i.e., ABSOLUTE POLITICAL POWER!

They could have used this ABSOLUTE Power for Good & to enact Real CHANGE.

For Example:

The First legislation Democrats Should have passed are Comprehensive Jobs Bill, Comprehensive Small Business Bills & Included More Funding in the Stimulus Bill for Minority-Owned Small Businesses (BLACK & Latino-Owned Small Businesses).

Than they should have passed an Affordable Health Care bill with a Public Option, Single Payer Option or a REAL Health Care Insurance Exchange.

Instead they wasted it on a Stimulus Bill which turned out to be Nothing more than a Campaign Favor Payback bill.

The Stimulus Bill included less than 1% of Funding for BLACK & Latino-Owned Small Businesses.
Less than 1%!

And most of that Stimulus Money was Wasted versus Invested Wisely to Save the Jobs of Teachers & First Responders.

In North Carolina some of the Stimulus Money was even used by Gov. Bev Perdue to fund Stupid Projects like Studying the Effects of Cocaine on Monkeys.

That's Right!

Researching the effects of Cocaine on Monkeys!

That money could have been used to Save Teacher Jobs & Fund Minority-Owned Small Businesses.

Did the Obama Administration say anything about such Wasteful Spending?
NO because Bev Perdue is a Democrat!

I'm Sorry but that's Wrong!

During the 2008 General Election Democrats received 97% of the BLACK Vote, 67% of the Latino Vote.

How did they repay us?

By including less than 1% of Stimulus Funding & Gov't Contracts for Minority-Owned Small Businesses in the Stimulus Bill.

Thanks a Lot!

Congress seemed to have NO problem including Money for Food Stamps & Welfare Programs but less than 1% of Stimulus Funding for BLACK & Latino-Owned Small Businesses.

So its okay for BLACKS & Latinos to receive Food Stamps & Welfare but NOT okay for Us to Open Small Businesses?

Can any of the Democrats in Congress explain why?

And......

They passed an Affordable Health Care Bill minus a Public Option in Exchange for 2 GOP Senator Votes who demanded that an Individual Mandate be included in the bill. i.e., Another Tax!

Now the Affordable Health Care Law is up for Review by the U.S. Supreme Court which may Strike it down due to the Individual Mandate possibly being Unconstitutional.

So please don't blame the GOP for EVERYTHING that the Democrats did NOT do for American BLACK & Latino Communities since Pres. Obama's Election.

Democrats Must Bear Some Of The Blame for Demonstrating Complacency & Ingratitude to BLACK & Latino Voters.

I'm NOT siding with the GOP, however the Democrats are NOT Blameless either.

Its time the Democrats, especially BLACK Congressional Caucus Members, Accept Responsibility for Wasting an Historic Moment doing NOTHING!

So while I DO plan to cast My Vote for Pres. Obama again, I will NOT cast My Vote again for Democrats to Control both Chambers of Congress.

Just my opinion. You don't have to agree.





Minority Business Receiving Fewer Stimulus Contracts


Hispanic and black businesses are receiving a disproportionately small number of federal stimulus contracts, creating a rising chorus of demands for the Obama administration to be more inclusive and more closely track who receives government-financed work.

Latinos and blacks have faced obstacles to winning government contracts long before the stimulus. They own 6.8 and 5.2 percent of all businesses, respectively, according to census figures. Yet Latino-owned business have received only 1.7 percent of $46 billion in federal stimulus contracts recorded in U.S. government data, and black-owned businesses have received just 1.1 percent.

That pot of money is just a small fraction of the $862 billion economic stimulus law. Billions more have been given to states, which have used the money to award contracts of their own.

Although states record minority status when they award contracts to businesses, there is no central, consistent or public compilation of that data, according to Laura Barrett, director of the Transportation Equity Network. She and other minority advocates are calling for complete and publicly accessible demographic information on all contracts and jobs financed by the stimulus.

Minority businesses are often too small to compete for projects; do not have access to the necessary capital, equipment or bonding requirements; or lose bids to companies with well-established relationships. There also has been an emphasis on spending stimulus money quickly, which favors businesses that have won past contracts.

But minority advocates say that blacks and Latinos have been harder hit by the recession, and getting a fair share of stimulus contracts is key to the recovery of these communities.

Unemployment among blacks and Hispanics is much higher than among whites. And although unemployment among whites increased at a faster rate during the worst of the recession than among minorities, rates of those considered underemployed — including people who have given up looking for full-time work or people working part-time because there is no full-time work available — increased faster among minorities than whites.

Figures from the Transportation Department on highway stimulus spending — at the heart of the government’s effort to lift the economy — have further concerned advocacy groups.

Six percent of the $16.9 billion in Federal Highway Administration contract money spent by states has gone to disadvantaged business enterprises, which includes companies owned by minorities as well as women, veterans and the disabled, according to department press secretary Olivia Alair.

Out of $1.1 billion in state-spent Federal Aviation Administration contract money, 7.8 percent has gone to disadvantaged businesses, Alair said, and 8.6 percent of direct Transportation Department contract dollars have gone to those companies.

Alair said some minority companies might not be included in those figures because they are not small businesses or choose not to classify themselves as disadvantaged. Minority businesses also are eligible for stimulus grants, but those are not tracked by race.

Still, “these numbers are far too low,” especially when compared with state and federal goals,” Barrett said. “The businesses and communities that need federal dollars most are seeing the least.”

The Obama administration has taken steps to address minority concerns. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote governors in December urging them to work with disadvantaged businesses. LaHood suggested unbundling large contracts to make them more accessible to small businesses, and emulating a Missouri contracting project that made community groups and openness part of the process.

LaHood’s department has pledged $20 million in subsidies to help disadvantaged businesses pay bonding premiums and fees, and has established a short-term loan program that lent $4.9 million in 2009. Last month, LaHood announced $9.9 million in grants to help businesses owned by minorities and women compete for federal contracts.

Federal agencies held more than 300 events nationwide to educate minority businesses about stimulus opportunities, said White House spokesman Corey Ealons. He also said there is a backlog of awarded contracts that have not yet been entered into the tracking database.

The White House also pointed out that about $21 billion of the $46 billion is guaranteed, and the rest are options. Latino-owned businesses have received 3.7 percent of the guaranteed total, and black-owned businesses 2.4 percent.

The founder and chief executive of one of the nation’s largest black-owned construction companies, Richard Copeland of THOR Construction Inc., said minority-owned companies usually employ 60 percent minorities.

“If we can’t get on these jobs,” he said, “we can’t hire our people from our community, so poverty and drugs and crime and unemployment and welfare become habitual.” His company has done a small amount of weatherization work through Minnesota stimulus contracts.

He said many minority businesses can’t develop the capability to do government work because a “good old boy” network shuts them out of contracts.

Copeland’s company has its headquarters in Minneapolis, and has 200 full-time employees and offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Atlanta. He said he abandoned highway work years ago to focus on erecting buildings.

“These big highway contractors try to keep you off the project, and when you get on, they try to make sure you don’t come back,” he said. “We hear about this all across the country.”

That’s what Samuel Foley Jr., a lawyer for the black-owned construction company Holley Enterprises, says happened to his client.

Holley was subcontracted by James J. Anderson Construction to perform demolition and salvage operations on a subway station repair project in Philadelphia. This enabled Anderson to meet contract guidelines for minority participation, but about two months later Holley’s contract was unfairly terminated, Foley said.

Anderson Construction said in a statement that Holley violated the terms of the contract. Anderson said it did not perform any of the work itself and gave the contract to another disadvantaged business.

Foley, chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce Construction Committee, said many companies “play games to get rid of the minority contractor.”
“This is not a unique situation,” he said. “For the past 30 years in Philadelphia it’s been this way.”





Stimulus funds pay for monkey research in N.C.


Monkeys are getting high for science in North Carolina.

An analyst at the Civitas Institute seized on that image when selecting a cocaine addiction study at Wake Forest University Medical School as No. 1 on a list of the "10 worst federal stimulus projects in North Carolina." Civitas' Brian Balfour takes swipes at projects, writing that they "seem completely unrelated to avoiding an economic 'catastrophe,' but rather an ad hoc satisfaction of countless dubious wish lists."

So, what is the $71,623 federal stimulus grant paying for?

Well, a job, said Mark Wright, a spokesman for the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

"It's actually the continuation of a job that might not still be there if it hadn't been for the stimulus funding. And it's a good job," Wright said. "It's also very worthwhile research."

The study is examining the effects of cocaine on a particular neurotransmitter among monkeys who have had a long-term addiction to cocaine.

The medical school boasts a significant body of work studying addiction. Ultimately, the study could lead to better treatment for recovering cocaine addicts.

Balfour also cited another Wake Forest study. This one is studying whether yoga and other non-pharmaceutical therapies such as wellness classes can help alleviate hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause.

"How does this study help revive the economy?" Balfour asked.

Well, again, jobs, said Nancy Avis, a professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health policy at the medical school. The funding, more than $147,000 over two years, will contribute to the salaries of six people.


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Sources: CBS News, Fox News, McClatchy Newspapers, Nationalbcc.org, Newsone, The Grio, Youtube, Google Maps

Pat McCrory vs Anthony Foxx: Foxx Should Seek Congressional Office Instead

POLL: How would you rate Bev Perdue's term as N.C. governor?
Excellent: 5%
Good: 12%
Fair: 17%
Poor: 67%
Total Votes: 2,042
SOURCE: Charlotte Observer




As it relates to Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx (D) campaigning to become North Carolina's First BLACK Governor, I don't believe he could pull it off right now. He should instead finish his term as Charlotte Mayor & then seek Congressional Office.

Now Before you bash me or tell me I'm being negative, please allow me to explain why I believe this Political theory may be beneficial to Anthony Foxx. Bev Perdue's GOP Challenger former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory served as Charlotte's Mayor for 14 Years.

He ran against Bev Perdue in 2008 but only lost due to Pres. Obama's Outstanding Nationwide Campaign. As Charlotte's Former Mayor, Pat McCrory did a lot to help Black-Owned Businesses emerge in Charlotte, thus he created a lot of BLACK Charlotte Supporters.

Pat McCrory is NOT a Tea Party Republican.

Instead he's a Moderate & he's NOT Hateful or Mean to BLACK people. After losing to Bev Perdue in 2008, Pat McCrory spent the next 3 years preparing for a rematch.

This Man (Pat) has money in the bank & a HUGE amount of Supporters across the state of North Carolina.

While serving as North Carolina Governor, Bev Perdue Wasted I do mean WASTED Billions in Stimulus Money, Fired Thousands of Teacher, did NOT let those Teachers receive Unemployment Benefits, Used Former NC Revenue Chief Ken Lay Then Threw him under the bus, Stepped on BLACK Voters who helped to Elect her & cut Medicare/ Medicaid for Low Income Seniors but gave Millions in Tax Payer money to North Carolina's Wealthy Coastal Residents.

In addition several of Perdue's 2008 Campaign staff members were Indicted for Campaign Finance Crimes. There was NO WAY Bev Perdue would have been re-elected!

No Way!

In fact She would have hurt Pres. Obama in North Carolina.



She's an Alleged Crook & a Racist! That is why she dropped out! Notice how she dropped out.

She made this announcement late in the Campaign Season knowing it would be difficult for another Democrat to run in her place. I'm telling you Bev Perdue is DIRTY!

North Carolina is still a VERY Racist State! There is NO Way Anthony Foxx (a BLACK Man) would be able to raise the Money or garner enough State Wide Support in 9 Months to run Successfully against Pat McCrory!

If he had more time then Yes. But NOT in 9 Months!

Thus Anthony Foxx should remain as Charlotte Mayor & then run for Congress in 2 years. i.e., Mel Watt's Seat. Mel Watt (D) is TIRED & NO Longer Effective anyway.

He does NOT Care about his BLACK North Carolina Constituents unless they are in his Fraternity or Sister Sorority. So word to Anthony Foxx just keep serving as Charlotte Mayor & then go to Congress.

He could do more for North Carolina on the Federal Level anyway, then on the State level because the State Of N.C. is still a mess for BLACK Citizens!
Peace!



Could it be Charlotte mayor vs. Charlotte ex-mayor in N.C. governor's race?

Could two Charlotte mayors face off for N.C. governor?

That possibility emerged Thursday when Democrat Anthony Foxx said he's considering a race that suddenly opened up with Gov. Bev Perdue's decision not to seek re-election.

Foxx's predecessor, Republican Pat McCrory, plans to launch his own long-anticipated campaign Tuesday, but in a landscape dramatically different from the one he expected.

"He's got a completely different race today than he had last night," said Republican strategist Carter Wrenn. "The world just changed."

Perdue's surprise decision - less than three weeks before candidate filing opens - sent Democrats scrambling. Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton of Rutherfordton was the first to announce his candidacy. State Rep. Bill Faison of Chapel Hill expects to announce soon.

Among those leaving the door cracked was Foxx.

"I remain focused on Charlotte and the substantial work ahead," he said in a statement. "I will spend the coming weeks talking with my family and friends about how I could best serve our city and state, and I ask the public and media for some patience as I work through those conversations."

In his own statement, McCrory said, "My message has been and will continue to be that we must fix our broken government and broken economy and put our North Carolina resources back to work."

Neither Foxx nor McCrory could be reached.

Both would join a long line of Charlotte mayors who have sought statewide office. Each of the last five mayors - back to then-Democrat Eddie Knox in 1984 - have run and lost.

The last was McCrory. Charlotte's only seven-term mayor fell to Perdue in 2008.

McCrory vs. a fresh face

Since then he has prepared for an expected rematch. He has traveled the state in support of other Republicans and promoted GOP causes. And campaign reports due today will show him with around $2 million in the bank.

He has consistently led Perdue in polls. Now that she's out, supporters say the outlook is even brighter.

"We're seeing that literally today with Pat's phone ringing off the hook with people who were on the fence or had not yet gotten involved and wanted to be helpful on the fundraising side," said McCrory strategist Brian Nick.

As an incumbent, he said, Perdue essentially froze out donors who might otherwise have given to McCrory. "Now, he added, "that ice has thawed."

In addition to his war chest, McCrory has another advantage: name recognition. A survey last fall showed him leading Dalton, Faison and even three-term Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper in hypothetical matchups.

But that may not matter, said Wrenn. "I expect it'll make it a tougher race for (McCrory)," said Wrenn, who ran former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot's 2000 campaign for governor.

"Bev carried a lot of baggage and a lot of negatives ...So a fresh candidate may help the Democrats and make life a little more complicated for Pat. He's still in pretty strong shape, but a fresh face might be harder to beat than Perdue."

Tom Jensen, director of Raleigh's Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, said surveys suggest McCrory's strongest Democratic challenger would be Charlotte's Erskine Bowles, a former White House chief of staff and president of the University of North Carolina system.

"Democrats have a better chance no matter who the candidate is, but especially if Erskine can be coaxed into the race," he said. "It just changes the whole calculus."

Bowles could not be reached.

Charlottean vs. Charlottean?

Foxx's entry would change it even more.

After two terms on Charlotte's City Council, he became the city's youngest mayor in 2009 at age 38. During his first term, he developed a working relationship with President Barack Obama, was a frequent guest at the White House and played a key role in landing this year's Democratic National Convention.

Though untested statewide, he would bring a strong base. Charlotte is home to almost one in 10 N.C. Democrats.

Foxx is also a proven fundraiser. During two mayoral bids, he raised more than $1.3 million from a national fundraising network.

Their time leading Charlotte could create disputes over who is most responsible for various accomplishments.

Foxx would have served three years. McCrory was Charlotte mayor for 14 years.

During Foxx's last campaign, Republican opponent Scott Stone charged that some of Foxx's touted accomplishments - such as bringing 14,000 new jobs to the city - were in part due to McCrory's earlier efforts.

Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, said a divisive primary could hurt Democrats against McCrory.

"Ideally they would want someone picked (in the primary) so they can start making amends, start solidifying the base and get ready to go into the summer and the fall," he said.

Andrew Taylor, a political scientist at N.C. State, said Foxx - like most other would-be Democratic candidates - would have to work to become known statewide. If he did run, and did win, it could set up a race between two Charlotteans.

"There is this rather absurd argument that you can't elect someone from the Charlotte area as governor," Taylor said. "What we think of as our economic capital to a certain extent would all of a sudden have more political clout than it's had for a while."



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WCNC, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

Ben Bernanke & Obama's $600B Bond Inflation "Stimulus" Monstrosity

The Fed’s Big Gamble: What Could Go Wrong

The Federal Reserve is about to take a huge risk in hopes of getting the economy steaming along again. Nobody is sure it will work, and it may actually do damage.

The Fed said Wednesday it is committing to buy $600 billion more in government bonds by the middle of next year in an attempt to breathe new life into a struggling U.S. economy.

Economists call it "quantitative easing." It gets the name "QE2" — like the ship — because this would be the second round. The Fed spent about $1.7 trillion from 2008 to earlier this year to take bonds off the hands of banks and stabilize them.

Here's how it's supposed to work this time: The Fed buys Treasury bonds from banks, providing them cash to lend to customers. Buying so many bonds also lowers interest rates because demand for Treasurys leads to higher prices and lower yields. Interest rates are linked to yields. Lower rates encourage people to borrow money for a mortgage or another loan.

At the same time, lower interest rates make relatively safe investments like bonds and cash less appealing, so companies and investors take the cash and buy equipment or other investments, like stocks. The S&P 500 takes off and Americans celebrate with a shopping spree. Businesses see a rise in sales and begin hiring again, and a virtuous cycle of more spending and more hiring ensues.

But many analysts and even supporters of the plan see dangers. It could make the weak dollar even weaker and lead to trade disputes with other countries. It could lead bond traders to believe that higher inflation is on the way, and they could derail the Fed's efforts by pushing rates higher. Many investors argue that it may create bubbles as hedge funds and other speculators borrow cheaply and make even bigger bets on stocks, commodities and markets in developing countries like Brazil.

"It's a desperate act," says Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of the investment firm GMO. Grantham says it's a clear message from the Fed to the rest of the world: "The U.S. doesn't care if the dollar weakens."

Here is a look at the ways the Fed's strategy could backfire:

Dollar drop

As word trickled out over recent months that the Fed was planning a new round of bond purchases, the dollar sank. It hit a 15-year low to the Japanese yen Nov. 1. Why? In the simplest terms, a country that cuts interest rates makes its currency less attractive to the worlds' investors. The interest rate is also the investors' yield, the payout they receive. When that yield falls, the world's banks move their money into countries with higher rates. They may exchange U.S. dollars for Australian dollars then invest the money in higher-paying Australian bonds.

"The Fed aims to push up the prices of stocks, bonds, real estate, and you name it," says Bill O'Donnell, head of U.S. government bond strategy at the Royal Bank of Scotland. "Everything is going to go up but the dollar."

A drop in the dollar can help companies like Ford that sell their products abroad. When the dollar weakens against the euro, for example, one euro buys more dollars than before. Foreign customers notice the price of the Explorer they've been eyeing is lower in their currency, yet Ford still pockets the same number of dollars for every sale.

The downside is that a weakened dollar pinches people in the U.S. because anything produced in other countries becomes more expensive, like oranges from Spain or toys from China.

"Look around you," says Thomas Atteberry, a fund manager at First Pacific Advisors. "How many things can you find that were made in the U.S.A?"


Blowing bubbles

Buying bundles of Treasurys knocks down interest rates, making borrowing cheap. But it also motivates investors to move out of safe investments into riskier ones in search of better returns. The stock market, for instance, rises in value and everyone with some of their savings in stocks feels wealthier. Ideally, it produces what what economists call a "wealth effect": People who feel better off spend more.

The problem, according to some critics, is that cheap borrowing costs and buoyant markets make a fertile environment for bubbles, which eventually pop. "The effort to help the economy sets up another more dangerous bubble," says Grantham, who warned of Japan's surging real estate and stock markets in the 1980s, soaring Internet stocks in the 1990s and the housing market in the 2000s.

Stocks in developing countries are a likely candidate for the next bubble. Cash from Europe and the U.S. has plowed into emerging markets, such as Brazil and Chile, since the financial crisis, largely because these countries have less debt and faster economic growth than in the developed world.

Another concern: Hedge funds borrowing cheap money can magnify their bets, taking a loan at 2 percent to buy a security that's rising 10 percent. They sell the security, pay off the bank and pocket the rest. That's true whenever interest rates remain low. Falling rates allow speculators to borrow larger amounts. In the extreme, losses from hedge funds and other borrowers can put their banks at risk and leave governments to clean up the mess.

The game only works as long as the investment keeps climbing. When the bubble breaks, the fallout can devastate an economy.

"I think bubbles are the main villain in this piece," Grantham says.

Cheap debt provided the fuel for the housing bubble, allowing home buyers to take out larger loans on the belief that somebody else would buy the house at a higher price. Fed chief Ben Bernanke's answer, Grantham said, is to start the cycle over again by blowing a new bubble. "All they can do is replace one bubble with another one," he said.






QE2: Fed Pulls The Trigger


In its latest move to jump start the sluggish recovery, the Federal Reserve announced it will pump billions into the economy.

The central bank will buy $600 billion in long-term Treasuries over the next eight months, the Fed said Wednesday. The Fed also announced it will reinvest an additional $250 billion to $300 billion in Treasuries with the proceeds of its earlier investments.

The bond purchases aimed at stimulating the economy -- a policy known as quantitative easing -- will total up to $900 billion and be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2011.

Ever since the Fed first signaled back in August that it was considering a second round of monetary stimulus, dubbed QE2, investors have been preoccupied with speculating on how much the Fed would buy.

Now the verdict is in, and is roughly in line with forecasts. Mainstream estimates had predicted a total between $500 billion and $1 trillion.

"It was all largely as expected," said Calvin Sullivan, chief strategy officer at Morgan Keegan. "The markets are responding as one would expect."

Stocks seesawed between gains and losses, as investors digested the news. The real surprise was in the bond market, where yields on the longer term 10-year and 30-year rose, after traders realized the Fed's plan called for 91% of its purchases at shorter maturities than expected.
Read the Fed statement

The Fed also reiterated its bearish view on the stalling economy, saying "the pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow."

Amid sluggish consumer spending, businesses have been reluctant to hire and the economy has grown at a snail's pace. At the same time, inflation is dangerously low, causing some economists to warn that the United States may even be flirting with deflation -- a debilitating drop-off in prices and demand.

The Fed has already kept the federal funds rate, a benchmark for interest rates on a variety of consumer and business loans, at historic lows near zero since December 2008. The Fed said Wednesday that it would continue to hold the rate at "exceptionally low levels" for an "extended period."

The federal funds rate is the central bank's key tool to spur the economy and a low rate is thought to encourage spending by making it cheaper to borrow money.

When already low rates failed to get consumers and businesses to spend, the Fed decided to resort to the more unconventional tool of quantitative easing, to lower interest rates even further.

But critics of QE2, including some Fed members, believe that too much monetary stimulus might lead to runaway inflation that could derail the economy, or future asset bubbles that could endanger economic stability over the long term.

The most outspoken voting member of the Fed, Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig, was once again the lone dissent among policymakers, saying he believed the risks of additional securities purchases outweighed the benefits.

Other opponents have argued that it simply won't work. The Fed already made nearly $2 trillion in similar purchases during the Great Recession, and current low interest rates have not jolted spending, they say.

"I don't think this is going to make any difference at all," said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist with Capitol Economics, who feels the plan is too small. "This is a slippery slope. Once you're on it, it's very hard to get off."

He predicts a repeat of what happened with the first round of quantitative easing two years ago. The Fed initially announced a $600 billion program in November 2008, but then four months later, increased that to $1.8 trillion, when it wasn't enough.


Sources: CNBC, CNN, MSNBC

WPA Jobs Program Needed For 2010, 2011 & 2012

Job Creation Idea No. 8: Time For A New WPA


There is, of course, a precedent for the country facing a massive, sustained unemployment crisis.

There is also a precedent for solving it.

So why won't President Obama at least try to do what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did during the great Depression?

Back then, of course, the federal government directly employed millions of Americans, most notably through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Government paychecks went to men and women who planted trees, constructed state parks, created great works of art and built bridges, dams and other structures that remain to this day among the nation's finest and most inspiring public works

Today's WPA could do some of that -- as well as turn abandoned neighborhoods into urban parks, clean up the Gulf region, care for senior citizens and young children, bury utility lines, kill kudzu and tutor students.

Anecdotally, at least, there seem to be plenty of people who would relish the opportunity to get back to work doing something -- maybe even anything -- for a government paycheck.

Given today's deadly political dynamics, of course, such a plan would face dim prospects in Congress. But Obama hasn't even tried. He hasn't proposed anything remotely that ambitious. Nor has he put much effort into changing those political dynamics.

By contrast, the scale of the problem is simply immense.

In a previous installment of my America Needs Jobs series, I wrote about ideas for putting young people to work. There are 4 million people ages 16 to 24 who are considered officially unemployed -- plus another 1.5 million or so who have given up the job hunt entirely. That's a total of 5.5 million. Americorps, the closest thing we have to the CCC right now, only has room for 75,000.

When you include older workers, the total number of unemployed rises to nearly 15 million, plus another nearly 11 million too discouraged to even look for work.

That's a lot of jobs that need creating.

So, as Yale economist Robert J. Shiller writes in the New York Times:

Why not use government policy to directly create jobs -- labor-intensive service jobs in fields like education, public health and safety, urban infrastructure maintenance, youth programs, elder care, conservation, arts and letters, and scientific research?


Would this be an effective use of resources? From the standpoint of economic theory, government expenditures in such areas often provide benefits that are not being produced by the market economy.

"If the private sector can't put people back to work, then the public sector must," reasons the Economic Policy Institute. As part of its five-point plan to stem the unemployment crisis, the progressive group calls for spending $40 billion per year for three years on a public service jobs that would put one million people back to work. Among the details:

During the first six to nine months, the program would fund fast-track jobs. Projects would be limited to a discrete list of activities in order to allow for quick implementation and large-scale employment. This fast-track authority should be carefully defined to prevent abuses. It should be limited to four areas that reflect national priorities and demonstrate a high potential impact for aggregate job creation: neighborhood/community improvement, child health and development, access to public services, and public safety.


Fast-track jobs might include, for example:

• cleaning up of abandoned and vacant properties to alleviate blight in distressed and foreclosure-affected neighborhoods;
• staffing emergency food programs to reduce hunger and promote family stability;
• working in Head Start, child care, and other early childhood education programs to promote school readiness and early literacy;
• renovating and maintaining parks, playgrounds, and other public spaces.

University of Texas economist James Galbraith favors "a Neighborhood Corps to protect, maintain and revitalize (or as necessary demolish) distressed housing, and a Home Care corps to provide services to the elderly in their own homes." Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, likes the Neighborhood Corps idea because "you get young people to work, you give them some skills, and your raise housing values in neighborhoods that are getting hammered" by the financial crisis.

Former CEO Leo Hindery argues on behalf of "community-based job creation programs for restoring the environment, providing child care and tutoring, cleaning up abandoned buildings, and maintaining parks and public spaces." He also wants to create a "Teacher's Aid Corps."

A New Policy Institute working paper calls for a "series of big, aspirational regional projects." The massive, still-nascent Gulf recovery plan "offers a working laboratory to think and work at this scale," the report suggests.

And speaking of scale, architecture critic Justin Davidson calls for "a Calatrava over the Hudson" -- by which he means some sort of stunning structure designed by Santiago Calatrava. Davidson argues:

In 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, much of the country was making do with Victorian bridges, horse-and-buggy roads, and improvised sanitation. FDR began binding the country together with sinews of concrete and cable. We need to do for the 21st century what FDR did for the twentieth--invest in worn-out highways, our frail electrical grid, our public transit, brittle bridges, and water supplies. A new New Deal, equipped with an Obama-era version of the Works Progress Administration, could put millions back to work, modernize the country, nudge the economy towards recovery, and produce a barrage of working monuments.

HuffPost readers, who have been emailing me in droves, seem particularly enamored of the idea of New Deal-style direct government employment.

Reader John Rings writes: "A very quick way to get Americans back to work is to clean up America. Throughout this country there are structures that are vacant and will never be used again but they are abandoned. There are old factories and storefronts and city block after block of uninhabitable houses.... We could put people to work right away doing demolition of these structures."

Greg Tompkins of Portland, Oregon, writes: "Put young and old alike on projects like eradicating invasive species, replanting native species in their place and making trails! Maybe even put the masses to work laying out the smart grid and placing solar panels atop every large building in America? Put the older folks to manage projects so they don't have to do something too physical. Can you imagine how great it would be to make a huge dent in the invasive species problem alone? I'm unemployed myself and am 35. I wouldn't mind at all to help in such an endeavor."

Reader Patrick Kubin writes: "The depression did not end until the government made jobs; think CCC. Do the same thing now: how about Noxious Weed Eradication programs? Every state has a weed problem: kudzu in the south, blackberries and scotch broom in the NW, saltcedar in the SW. This is unskilled labor.

"The fed gov pays $10 per hour, 40 hours per week to employ people to chop, dig and spray weeds. The REAL incentive is that the whole family of the worker gets Medicare health coverage. They will line up for miles for these jobs. And lots of new college grads will be employed mapping weed eradication locations. Only US made tools may be used."

J. William Thomas of Hartford, NY, writes: "The government can also start a huge program of placing all utilities underground. This will create jobs and reduce the exposure of our utilities to the elements during storms. That will also reduce cost to corporations ultimately and we should realize those savings over the years."

Nick Taylor, the author of American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work, writes in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed that Obama truly does face an FDR moment.

"Obama's experience so far resembles FDR's first uneven stabs at job creation," Taylor writes. Soon after Roosevelt took office, with the unemployment rate at 24.9%, he created the Civilian Conservation Corps, his first jobs program -- but it wasn't nearly enough.

His critics accused him of socialism and fretted publicly that large deficits would ruin the country. They insisted that workers would grow so accustomed to public jobs that they could never be weaned off the government's largesse.


But despite his vocal opponents, in January 1935, FDR announced his intention to launch the massive jobs program that became the Works Progress Administration.

The president's promise that the country would "see the dirt fly" was realized that fall, more than two years after he took office. The WPA addressed a range of long-standing infrastructure needs, including roads and bridges, hospitals and water treatment plants, and airports. Its workers fought floods and forest fires and cleaned up after hurricanes. Its sewing rooms made clothing and blankets that went out to disaster victims. The WPA also employed nurses, doctors, teachers, librarians and artists. By the fall of 1936, 3.3 million people were on the WPA payroll. The stimulus provided by those jobs buoyed the economy. By the spring of 1937, after Roosevelt's landslide reelection, the country's unemployment rate had dropped to 14%.....

The WPA helped create a modern country and produced physical and cultural legacies that are still appreciated. Obama could use his considerable eloquence to re-create that vision. An America prepared today to meet the future will be applauded long after this recession is consigned to the history books. It's a vision he hasn't given us so far.


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Sources: Huffington Post, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Stimulus Job Losses Expected To Increase Unemployment Numbers

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Job Loss Looms As Part Of Stimulus Act Expires

Tens of thousands of people will lose their Jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion Stimulus Act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in Government, at Non-Profit organizations and at many small businesses.

In rural Perry County, Tenn., the program helped pay for roughly 400 new jobs in the public and private sectors. But in a county of 7,600 people, those jobs had a big impact: they reduced Perry County’s unemployment rate to less than 14 percent this August, from the Depression-like levels of more than 25 percent that it hit last year after its biggest employer, an auto parts factory, moved to Mexico.

If the Stimulus program ends on schedule next week, Perry County officials said, an estimated 300 people there will lose their jobs — the equivalent of another factory closing.

“It’s very scary, because there’s just No Work,” said Brian Davis, a 36-year-old father of four, who got a Stimulus-subsidized job with the City of Lobelville after he lost his job of 17 years at an auto parts plant that shed hundreds of jobs. Now he faces the prospect of unemployment again.

“This was a huge help,” Mr. Davis said. “The way the economy’s been and the way people are struggling, you’re worried about putting food on the table for your children and keeping the electricity on.”

The money that pays Mr. Davis’s salary, and the salaries of tens of thousands of other people around the country, will dry up after next Thursday, when the welfare program in the stimulus act that pays the bills for those jobs is set to expire. While the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress want to extend the program, they are meeting stiff resistance from Republicans, many of whom oppose all things stimulus.

If the program has encountered hostility from Republicans on Capitol Hill, it has been embraced by some Republican governors who have used it to create jobs in their states.

In Mississippi, an innovative program used the money to pay private companies to hire nearly 3,200 workers, and to pay their salaries on a sliding scale so that the employers would end up paying the entire amount after six months.

Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, described the initiative there as “welfare to work.” Mr. Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said in an interview last winter that he hoped the program would be extended past this month, since it took so long for the state’s program to get federal approval.

The Federal program has helped employ nearly 130,000 adults and has paid for nearly an equal number of summer jobs for young people, according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy institute in Washington.

If the program is allowed to lapse, up to 26,000 workers in Illinois will lose their jobs in the coming weeks, along with 12,000 workers in Pennsylvania and thousands more in other states, according to LaDonna Pavetti, the director of the center’s welfare reform and income support division.

“I think that given what we know about the number of people that have been impacted by the Recession and the limited jobs available, this has been a lifeline for many families with kids who would otherwise not know when their next rent payment or meal would be coming in,” Dr. Pavetti said.

The money came from a pot of $5 billion that was included in the Stimulus package as an emergency fund for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the main cash Welfare program for families with children. Of the $4.3 billion that has been approved so far, $1.4 billion has gone toward basic assistance, $1.8 billion has been used to help families pay one-time emergency expenses like rent and utility bills, and a little over $1 billion has been used to subsidize jobs.

Some economists consider subsidized jobs one of the most cost-effective ways to stimulate employment: there is no overhead or profit, as there is when firms win bids to perform work for the government.

Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat who championed the idea of creating jobs in hard-hit Perry County and other places with high unemployment, said he would like to see the program extended because it had a more direct impact than other components of the stimulus act, like infrastructure projects and tax cuts.

“I thought we were able to make very efficient use of these funds,” he said in an interview on Friday, “with the money not going off into the ether to create jobs on a spreadsheet, but going where you could go find people who had jobs today who did not have them before.”

There are success stories in Tennessee. After the Armstrong Pie Company hired 12 workers with stimulus money, it was able to expand its production, add delivery routes and increase sales, said Dalyn Patterson, who owns the company with her husband, Bert. The business increased enough that she said she expected to keep 11 of the 12 workers.

But if the program was supposed to act as a bridge to keep people working until the economy started adding jobs in large numbers again, officials in Tennessee said that it was ending a bit early. And many of the 300 workers who are set to lose their stimulus jobs in Perry County may not be able to collect unemployment benefits. So while people there are grateful for the program, they are nervous about what comes next.

“It was very much a Band-Aid,” said Mayor Robby J. Moore of Lobelville, Tenn. “And now the Band-Aid is coming off.”


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Sources: CNBC, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC, NY Times, Recovery.gov, Whitehouse.gov, Google Maps

Charlie Crist To Defect GOP, Campaign As Independent (Stimulus Fight)

Crist To Bolt GOP, Run For Senate As Independent


Florida's Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to bolt the GOP and run for the United States Senate as an Independent, a Republican source tells ABC News.

The source tells ABC News that Crist has started calling his major donors to tell them of his decision to run as an Independent.

The source says that virtually all of his political staff will leave.

"I'm sure they already have their boxes packed," said the source, who was granted anonymity to encourage candor about the still-evolving situation.

The Crist campaign is not confirming his plans to leave the GOP and is encouraging members of the media to stay tuned for a Thursday afternoon press conference the governor is planning to hold in his hometown.

One staffer who is expected to stay on board is Crist's finance director, Dane Eagle. Crist will need him if, as expected, many donors ask for their money back when Crist bolts the GOP.

The source says that a long-time Crist supporter from Tampa named Greg Truax is helping him assemble a new staff.

Republicans in Washington have been bracing for Crist to leave the GOP. They tried -- apparently in vain -- to persuade him to remain with the party.

GOP officials are nervous that an Independent bid by Crist could upset the chances of the former Florida House Speaker, Republican Marco Rubio, a favorite of Tea Party activists who has gone from underdog to prohibitive frontrunner in Florida's GOP Senate primary.

"If Charlie puts his self-preservation ahead of party, it has the potential to create an upset for the Democrats," said a Republican operative who was granted anonymity so he could be more candid in his assessment of the race.

An April 13th Quinnipiac public opinion poll in Florida asked people how they would vote in a three-way race with Crist as an independent. The poll showed a tight contest: Crist with 32 percent, Rubio with 30, and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek with 24.

A second Florida Republican source, who claimed not to have been notified personally of Crist's plans, tells ABC News that the internal polling Crist got back this week showed that the only possible path for him to win the Senate seat was to run as an independent. This source was told by Crist's campaign manager that he anticipates Crist will announce an Independent bid for the U.S. Senate Thursday.

Democrats quickly moved on Wednesday to make hay out of the expected Crist announcement.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine held a roundtable with reporters this afternoon in Washington and said the Crist move would rebound to the benefit of the likely Democratic nominee.

"If Gov. Crist announces that he's running as an Independent, the individual who is probably going to be happiest is going to be Congressman Meek," said Kaine. "That is going to be a huge plus for his campaign. Already a proven elected office holder and candidate running a good campaign, but that is going to be enormously helpful to him."

Kaine also said the GOP is in the midst of a "Civil War."

"On the Republican side we do see an internecine civil war that is pretty corrosive right now," said Kaine, a former Virginia governor. He pointed to the Florida Senate race and the Texas gubernatorial race as two key contests where a bloody GOP primary has created what he sees as a better opportunity for Democratic candidates than would have existed without the intra-party GOP battles.

The idea that Crist would have to leave the GOP is remarkable turnaround for a Republican who harbors presidential ambitions and who began his Senate race as a heavy favorite. He began to fall in the polls last year when he embraced President Obama's stimulus package.

If Crist leaves the GOP, he will become the second high-profile Republican to leave the party after backing the stimulus. Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, a long-time Republican senator, left the GOP one year ago and became a Democrat after this pro-stimulus vote made it all but impossible for him to win the 2010 GOP Senate primary against former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Penn.

Under Florida law, Crist needs to make a decision by Friday because that is the state's deadline to file officially as a Republican or to enter the race without a party affiliation. He said on Tuesday, however, that he had set Thursday as a personal deadline to make up his mind.

Crist's decision is fraught with political considerations: Washington Republicans have been warning him that his career in the GOP would be over if he decided to run on a third-party line.

"He would lose all Republican support if he were to run as an independent," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell during a Sunday appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."

Crist is also being urged not to run as an Independent by the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"I would never support it if he ran as an independent," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the NRSC chair, told Politico earlier this week. Cornyn is ready to get behind Rubio and work against Crist, even though he had originally jumped at the opportunity to endorse Crist's primary bid.

Crist is a well-known figure in Florida politics and he has a sizable campaign war chest.

Republicans are warning, however, that he would suffer in November if he was not able to rely on the get-out-the-vote operation of the state Republican Party. He also would not be able to benefit from the grassroots infrastructure which will be created by the NRSC's investment in the state GOP's "Victory" operation.

Some inside of Crist's own camp became convinced that the Florida governor had given up on winning the Republican primary when he crossed GOP leaders by vetoing a merit-pay bill that had passed the Florida legislature.

Although the GOP establishment has been bracing for Crist to run as an Independent, Republican officials were still holding out hope as recently as Tuesday that the governor would forego a 2010 Senate race and begin laying the groundwork to run in 2012 when Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., will be up for re-election.

Crist's likely Democratic opponent, Rep. Meek, is hoping that a three-person race will help him become more visible.

"The only thing that will change in our race if he does decide to run as an independent is accelerating the surfacing, the public surfacing of my candidacy," Meek recently told ABC News. "Then I will be included in all of the debates and I will be considered if you're going to pull the candidates together."


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Sources: ABC News, Slate, Top Line, Google Maps

Charlotte Leaders Waste Road Paving Funds In Wealthy Communities

Here's further proof Charlotte's Leaders are ONLY using Taxpayer money & Federal Funding to maintain the city's Wealthier communities versus helping to improve Quality of Life for ALL of Charlotte's residents.

Now City Leaders are repaving roads in some of Charlotte's more affluent neighborhoods when the streets in those areas don't even need it.

In fact residents in those more affluent communities are questioning why precious money is being spent on their roads in a looming Recession when it isn't necessary?

Constituents in those wealthy neighborhoods are suggesting Charlotte City Leaders instead use those funds on streets with potholes, sunken pavement, etc.,

You know areas like Charlotte's forgotten Corridors:

East, Northwest, Southwest and West Charlotte neighborhoods.

In case your wondering if wealthier constituents in Charlotte-Mecklenburg pay higher Taxes thus they "deserve" better services, WRONG!

Please know that affluent residents in this region haven't seen a Property Tax increase in 7 years, while Lower Income & Middle Class residents have recently experienced several.

As Charlotte's Leaders continue to stubbornly mistreat this region's Lower Income & Middle Class citizens, the more God will expose it.

Perhaps this explains why so many of North Carolina's Lower Income/ Middle Class residents are NOT returning their 2010 Census forms.

Why should they cooperate when City & County Leaders are ONLY going to invest money in Wealthier, Pre-Dominantly White neighborhoods anyway?

Gotcha Charlotte City Council!

God doesn't like ugly!

See you at the polls in 2011.

Check out the video & articles below of residents in Charlotte's wealthiest communities basically rejecting having their roads unnecessarily repaved and regarding slow 2010 Census form response from North Carolina's poorly treated Minority citizens.






Wealthy Charlotte Neighbors Question City's Decision To Unnecessarily Repave Roads


"Please do not repave our street!"

Those are words you typically don't hear, especially with local streets filled with potholes after a rough winter.

But that's what some Park Crossing neighbors say when it comes to a repaving project about to start on Park Crossing Drive.

Jason Lindenberg saw the sign at the entrance to the neighborhood, which says repaving is less than two weeks away.

"There's nothing wrong with the road. There's not a single pothole in it," he said.

The Charlotte Department of Transportation says the repaving will cost $80,000 to $90,000.

Lindenberg says the road has a few cracks here and there, but nothing major. He says other roads need repaving more.

"I just think the money could be better spent elsewhere," Lindenberg said.

But the city said looks can be deceiving and just because you can't see something on the surface of the road doesn't mean there's not a problem underneath.

That was resident Jean McDaniel's concern as she walked her dog Tuesday.

"I have seen places that look like they are developing into kind of potholes," she said.

CDOT last repaved Park Crossing in 2001. Since then, CDOT says it has deteriorated to a failing grade, blamed in part by the constant freeze and thaw cycle from winter.

While researching this story we found out the city gets several calls from people saying, "Pave someone else's road, not ours." To that, CDOT says it wouldn't spend the money if the work didn't need to be done.

So, Lindenberg is getting the newly repaved road he doesn't want.

"I'll still like it, still love the neighborhood, but I'll be wondering what else that money could have been spent on," he said.

CDOT says most of the repaving money comes from a gas tax and that money is earmarked only for road projects and repairs.

"I should probably be the first one excited the road is being repaved, nice new blacktop road," Lindenberg said.








North Carolina's Poor Responding Slowly To 2010 Census


North Carolina's Poor, Pr-edominantly Minority neighborhoods lag their more affluent counterparts when it comes to returning 2010 census forms, and with a looming May 1st deadline approaching, the U.S. Census Bureau is making a last-minute push to round up as much paperwork as it can.

Syndicated radio host Tom Joyner on Wednesday visited a Walmart near Raleigh neighborhoods with low return rates as part of his 14-city census tour. A census marketing campaign has been counting down the days to Friday, the cut-off day for mailing the forms. The census will help decide how $400 billion in federal money is spent each year.

People who don't mail their census forms in on time risk not having their forms processed in time and may be visited by census workers, who will begin canvassing neighborhoods May 1. Often it is minority neighborhoods that need the most attention.

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In some neighborhoods, workers will have plenty of homes to visit. In the central-city census tract that includes the Hayti Heritage Center, only 42 percent of the forms had been mailed back by Wednesday afternoon. According to Demographics Now, a data-gathering company, two-thirds of residents in the tract are black, and the median household income is just under $20,000 a year, less than half the citywide median.

About seven miles northwest, in a tract that includes most of Cole Mill Road, the response rate of 84 percent was one of the highest in the Triangle. Demographics Now estimates its population to be 70 percent white, with a median income of about $83,000 a year.

The statewide mail participation rate as of Wednesday was 69 percent, two points higher than the national rate.

The census this year is making a special effort to reach out to minority communities, said Tony Jones, a census spokesman based in Charlotte. Recent immigrants can be unfamiliar with the census, and members of minority communities are sometimes distrustful of government.

So the Census Bureau finds "trusted voices," people who it believes can best convey the importance of being counted. They include Joyner, one of the country's best-known black broadcasters.

"He's very influential in the African-American community," Jones said.

Differing Demographics

In neighborhoods near Durham's Fayetteville Road, where boarded-up houses sit next to homes decorated with "no trespassing" signs, census employees have a tough job ahead of them. People often move in and out, said Fred "Pop" Bennett, director of operations for the John Avery Boys and Girls Club.

The people who live in the neighborhood are often young, said Bennett, who has worked two decades at the youth center. More and more Spanish speakers are also moving in.

It's a different story along Cole Mill Road, where older, more modest homes mix with newer, grander subdivisions.

Charles Tingle, who lives in the Whitehall subdivision, filled out his form a couple of days after receiving it. Tingle, who is 65, said his neighborhood includes a mix of ages, although there are very few young children. He figures the neighborhood's mature demographic probably influenced the census response rate.

Tingle, who shares the home with his wife, Deborah, sent back the form because "I realize it's my patriotic duty to do it."

A 2010 Census celebration

In Raleigh, as hundreds gathered to catch a glimpse of Joyner, census workers passed out free ball caps, which the radio host happily signed during breaks.

Frieda J. Artis of Wake Forest brought three of her children to see Joyner and try to get a census form. Although one of her daughters said a form arrived at home, it's now missing.

With the area growing so quickly, it's important for everyone in the community to be counted, Artis said. After learning that forms weren't available at the Joyner event, she took off to get one.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, 2010 U.S. Census, WCNC, Whitehouse.gov, Google Maps