As it relates to UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS I agree with former U.S. Senator SCOTT BROWN.
UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS should be slowly phased out while Pres OBAMA & Congress Focus more on JOBS.
How about FIXING THE ECONOMY & Focusing more on helping to create JOBS??
What does Pres OBAMA & CONGRESS expect Unemployed People to do??
Keep receiving UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS until Nov 2016???
I mean really!
Both Pres OBAMA & Congress are to blame for this Super Slow Recovery because None of them have done anything Constructive enough to cultivate a JOB-Friendly environment in this Economy.
Republicans on Capitol Hill pounced on President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction plan on Monday, swiftly dismissing the president’s proposal as an unserious attempt at taming the nation’s finances.
House Speaker John Boehner, whom Obama singled out in his Rose Garden address for what he called a “my-way-or-the-highway” approach on new taxes, quickly struck back and accused the president of fostering a divisive political environment.
“Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” Boehner said.
In a statement, the Ohio Republican also said Obama’s plan wasn’t a “serious contribution” to the work of the deficit-slashing supercommittee that’s charged with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also scoffed at Obama’s plan.
“Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings, and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth — or even meaningful deficit reduction,” the Kentucky Republican said. “The good news is that the Joint Committee is taking this issue far more seriously than the White House.”
One of the members of the supercommittee itself, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), sounded a more measured and receptive tone to Obama’s ideas. Toomey, a freshman senator, said the panel would consider the president’s proposals, among the many others being floated to the powerful 12-member panel.
But Toomey had his problems with Obama’s speech, too.
“I am concerned that his deficit reduction strategy sometimes seems more defined by political posturing, such as recycling tax hikes that even lawmakers in his own party have publicly opposed,” Toomey said in a statement. “With the Select Committee’s deadline looming, we do not have time to waste on political games and pushing big tax increases that will only make our economy weaker for all Americans.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate’s messaging chief, insisted to reporters on a conference call Monday that the public would ultimately go with Democrats in that fight.
“Chances are slim if we had a vote today,” Schumer said. “But many of us believe that if the president takes this to the people … the poll numbers show the American people [are] on his side.”
Though Schumer acknowledged that there would be disagreements over some specifics in Obama’s plan, such as raising $410 billion by limiting tax deductions for families earning more than $250,000 a year, he said there would be “broad agreement” on the overall proposal.
America's poverty rate is now the worst since 1993, according to a shocking report last week from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Over 46 million people are living in poverty, 2.6 million more than in 2009 and the poverty rate has reached 15.1 percent.
The outlook is grim. The recession has compounded decades of growing economic inequality, structural poverty, and urban decay. With the projections that unemployment will remain high for several years, these numbers are not likely to improve.
Making matters worse, as Ron Haskings at the Brookings Institution noted, "Safety net programs run by the federal and state governments are helping millions of families avoid poverty, but the programs could be subject to cuts at the federal and state level because of continuing deficit and debt problems."
Despite the enormity of this social problem, American politicians in either party rarely discuss the subject. Since the poor don't tend to vote in high rates or contribute much in campaign funds, they don't get a place at the table in Washington, D.C. Yet with the U.S. poverty rate being the highest in the developed world according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, this statistic marks a terrible failure for the nation as a whole.
Most Republicans have tended to avoid the question of poverty because they reject the notion that government can do anything to solve it. For decades, conservatives have railed against welfare programs for creating a cycle of dependency.
Republicans and conservative Democrats ultimately believe that the only way to reduce poverty is to grow the economy. But poverty has been a problem in good times and bad.
Democrats avoid tackling the problem because they fear the political consequences of being tagged as big government liberals. In 1996, when President Clinton signed the welfare reform act that ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), he effectively took poverty off his party's agenda.
Those who support government programs for the poor have been haunted by the political backlash against the War on Poverty.
It was during the 1960s, an era of unprecedented economic growth, that President Lyndon Johnson and allied Democrats decided to tackle the problem of poverty in this wealthy nation.
President Kennedy had started to explore an anti-poverty program in 1963 under the guidance of Walter Heller, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, but Kennedy was assassinated before he could take action.
When Johnson heard about the program shortly after taking office, he said it was the kind of initiative he could support. Johnson, who had been inspired by the New Deal and grew up amid poverty in Texas, sympathized with the plight of the poor and believed that the government could and should so something about it: "That's my kind of program. I'll find money for it one way or another. If I have to, I'll take away money from things to get money for people."
To build a legislative coalition in favor of the War on Poverty in 1964, Johnson enlisted the support of liberals in Congress as well as the conservative Democrat Phil Landrum of Georgia, who won over the votes of many in the party who usually opposed new federal programs. Landrum, and other conservatives in the party, had constituencies who struggled with economic hardship.
In his address to Congress in March 1964, Johnson said: "What you are being asked to consider is not a simple or an easy program. But poverty is not a simple or an easy enemy. It cannot be driven from the land by a single attack on a single front.
Were this so, we would have conquered poverty long ago. Nor can it be conquered by government alone. For decades American labor and American business, private institutions and private individuals have been engaged in strengthening our economy and offering new opportunity to those in need. We need their help, their support, and their full participation.
Through this program we offer new incentives and new opportunities for cooperation, so that all the energy of our nation, not merely the efforts of government, can be brought to bear on our common enemy."
The War on Poverty claimed some notable accomplishments. According to the historian Michael Katz, "Between 1965 and 1972, the government transfer programs lifted about half the poor over the poverty line." Many programs, such as Head Start, became popular across the nation and perceived as integral to the well being of struggling Americans.
Even as the policies were making great strides, Republicans attacked the War on Poverty as a waste of federal money that only helped elected officials.
Many Democratic urban machine politicians lambasted the Community Action Program—a part of the war on poverty that put money into the hands of local organizations to shape anti-poverty initiatives--because they felt the dollars were winding up in the hands of left-wing organizations who then opposed them. Many groups representing the poor felt the War on Poverty did not go far enough.
For decades afterward, attempts to reduce levels of poverty through government action were unpopular. Indeed, AFDC, a product of the New Deal commonly known as welfare, became the focus of conservatives who called for eliminating the program and younger Democrats who felt it needed to be reformed. Reforming welfare gained more attention than the problem the program was originally meant to solve.
Today's silence about poverty is striking. Very few presidential candidates ever bring up the issue. There have been a few in each party, such as John Edwards for the Democrats and Rick Santorum for the Republicans, but in general this is the cause that has no champion.
The new data from the Census Bureau, comes at a crucial time, with government programs on the chopping block as Washington focuses on cutting the budget deficit.
Candidates running for office in 2012 should be forced to confront this issue and explain what they intend to do about it.
Proposals such as public jobs, education reform, and tax incentives to rebuild blighted areas must be discussed. There must also be strong consideration given to protecting -- and even expanding --state and local services for the poor despite the current obsession with budget cuts.
Unless voters and the media help to make this an issue in the campaign, the problem will likely only become worse.
You know who's really mad at Washington? Corporate America.
Led by Howard Schultz of Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500), more than 100 CEOs have signed a pledge to halt all political campaign contributions until lawmakers, as Schultz puts it, "stop the partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C."
Last week, he mounted a one-man bull rush against a political culture that has "chosen to put partisan and ideological purity over the well being of the people."
Schultz said he was going to stop writing checks, and he asked other CEOs to join him.
They have.
AOL's (AOL) Tim Armstrong, Frontier Communications' (FTR)Maggie Wilderotter, Zipcar's (ZIP) Scott Griffith, Whole Foods' (WFM) Walter Robb and Intuit's (INTU) Bill Campbell have all signed up.
The goal is to hit lawmakers right where it hurts: the pocketbook.
"All it seems people are interested in is re-election," Schultz told CNNMoney last week. "And that re-election -- the lifeblood of it is fundraising."
Schultz's own political donations, as chronicled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, skew heavily Democratic. Out of a total $183,650 in donations, only $1,000 went to Republican candidates.
Schultz has said his breaking point was the contentious debate over raising the debt ceiling -- and the failure to reach a long-term solution to lower deficits.
"[Lawmakers] have stirred up fears about our economic prospects without doing anything to truly address those fears," Schultz wrote in a letter sent to his fellow CEOs.
He said politicians can still make it right by coming together and reaching a compromise deal that would lift the cloud of uncertainty that has hamstrung the economy.
"It means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall," the letter said. "It means considering all options, from entitlement programs to taxes."
The amount of money spent to influence elections has been steadily climbing.
During the 2008 election cycle, more than $5.2 billion was spent by candidates, political parties and interest groups, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics
In 2010 -- a year that did not include a presidential election -- $3.6 billion was spent. Of course, 2012 has the potential to break all records.
It's unclear exactly how much of an impact -- if any -- Schultz's CEO pledge might have. But a relatively small number of Americans do wield an outsized influence when it comes to political donations.
Only 0.04% of Americans give in excess of $200 to candidates, parties or political action committees -- and those donations account for 64.8% of all contributions.
Republican leaders on Wednesday named fiscal conservatives for their six picks for a new congressional "super" committee charged with crafting a plan to cut the country's deficit.
In separate announcements, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filled out the GOP spots on the 12-member bipartisan panel created in last week's debt ceiling deal that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Boehner, R-Ohio, chose Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Dave Camp of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan, while McConnell, R-Kentucky, picked Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio.
All six are known for conservative stances on economic issues. Hensarling is the Republican Conference chairman and will be co-chair of the so-called "super" committee with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, who was appointed Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"The debt crisis is a legitimate threat to our nation's future, and the American people cannot afford to wait any longer," Hensarling said in a statement after his appointment. "Everyone can agree that we must stop spending money we don't have, and the time to act is now."
He added that the committee "will not be able to solve the crisis in a matter of months, but we can work together to tackle these challenges in order to bring back jobs, hope, and opportunity for the American people."
The committee will follow up on negotiations that started last year with the bipartisan debt commission appointed by Obama, then continued in Congress including work by the so-called "Gang of Six" senators -- three Democrats and three Republicans. Both debt commission and the Gang of Six recommended comprehensive packages that included tax reform, changes to politically sensitive entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and spending cuts.
Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who co-chaired Obama's debt commission, told CNN on Wednesday that the new special committee has plenty of information to work with and shouldn't need a lot of time for further collecting or analyzing of issues.
Committee members "don't need to sit around here and gather more information," Simpson said, adding that the actual negotiating is "going to be tough."
Among the choices announced Wednesday, Camp is the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, while Upton chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Upton has taken some moderate positions in the past, including attempts to decrease tax cuts in the George W. Bush administration that remain contentious today.
In a statement Wednesday, Upton said "much more needs to be done to bring down health care costs, promote economic growth, and begin to tame runaway government."
"No one believes this is going to be easy," he added.
On the Senate side, Kyl is the No. 2 Republican behind McConnell, while Portman is a former White House budget director in the Bush administration. Toomey, who joined the Senate in January, sits on the Senate Budget and Banking committees. Kyl is a staunch advocate for the military, which is targeted for deep spending cuts if the special committee fails to come up with an agreement that passes Congress by the end of the year.
A day earlier, Reid appointed Murray, Max Baucus of Montana and John Kerry of Massachusetts with his three Senate Democrat picks.
In a joint statement after their appointments, the three Democratic senators said that Americans want the committee to operate without "the red hot partisanship and brinkmanship of the last months."
"This is not going to be easy. Our challenge is to find common ground without damaging anyone's principles. We believe we can get there. This committee was designed to require bipartisanship, and we are going to work hard with our Republican colleagues to attain it," their statement said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has yet to announce her three House Democrat choices.
She has until August 16 to complete the committee that will have six Democrats and six Republicans, equally divided between the House and Senate.
The committee will try to work out $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, after an initial round of more than $900 billion in spending cuts in the debt ceiling agreement. It is required to complete its work by November 23, and Congress then has until December 23 to vote on the proposal, with no amendments permitted.
A simple majority on the panel -- seven of 12 members -- is needed to approve whatever package it comes up with, meaning that it will take a lone member of either party to push something through by voting with the other side. The committee's proposal would then need a simple majority in each chamber of Congress to make it to Obama's desk.
If the committee fails to reach agreement or Congress fails to pass whatever package it recommends, a trigger mechanism will enact further across-the-board cuts in government spending, including for the military.
According to a new CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday, 63% of respondents say the so-called "super committee" should recommend increased taxes on higher-income Americans and businesses, with 36% disagreeing. By a 57-40% margin, respondents say the committee's deficit reduction proposal should include major cuts in domestic spending.
However, further cuts in defense spending get a mixed review, with 47% favoring them and 53% opposed.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents oppose major changes to Social Security and Medicare, while nearly nine in 10 don't want any increase in taxes on middle class and lower-income Americans.
Months of rancorous negotiations on deficit reduction have failed to resolve a fundamental dispute between Republicans and Democrats involving the size of government and whether to raise revenue while cutting spending. Obama is pushing for a comprehensive plan that included spending cuts, increased tax revenue and entitlement reforms, while Republicans seek to shrink government by proposing spending cuts and entitlement reforms without increased revenue.
An impasse over the tax revenue issue led to the debt ceiling agreement, which imposed the initial round of spending cuts and set up the special committee to work out further deficit reduction. The agreement also enables the federal debt ceiling to be increased through 2012, allowing the government to borrow what it needs to meet its obligations.
The brinkmanship of the negotiations, with uncertainty over whether the government might default if no deal was reached, was one reason why Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday.
One of the main Republican arguments against tax increases on the wealthy is that they would inhibit job creation. The poll results showed that only a third of respondents agree with that stance, while 62% say taxes on the wealthy should be high so the government can use the money for programs to help lower-income Americans.
The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from August 5-7, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey was conducted both before and after Friday night's announcement of the S&P downgrade. The poll's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
In announcing his choices for the special committee, Reid said in a statement that Murray would be a co-chair.
"As the events of the past week have made clear, the world is watching the work of this committee," Reid's statement said.
Late Tuesday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus slammed Reid's choice of Murray and asked the Senate leader to withdraw her appointment.
"Harry Reid's appointment of Patty Murray to co-chair the Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is absolute proof that Democrats are not serious about deficit reduction," Priebus said in a statement. "As chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Murray is the Senate Democrats' fundraiser-in-chief. The Select Committee is no place for someone whose top priority is fundraising and politics."
Now GOP Leaders Are Claiming That Pres. Obama "Went Beserk" During Yesterday's Debt Ceiling Negotiation Talks.
I Don't Believe It. Frustrated Yes. "Beserk"? NO!
Since Pres. Obama's Bid For The Oval Office & His Election, GOP Leaders Have Desperately Tried To Crack His Calm Veneer.
For 2 1/2 Years They've Been Itching To Portray Him As An Out-Of-Control, Radical, "Angry Black Man".
Well After Yesterday's Debt Ceiling Talks GOP Congressman Eric Cantor ("Tea Party King") Falsely Proclaimed Pres. Obama Lost His Temper, Basically Went Beserk & Than Left The Room.
Baloney Cantor! We Don't Believe You!
Boy I Bet Obama Regrets He EVER Went Out Of His Way Attempting To Appease These Idiots!
Please Allow Me To Ask This Important Question:
Why In The World Would Anyone On Capitol Hill In Their Right Minds Try To Intentionally Crash & Sink The ENTIRE Unites States Economy Just To Run A Man Who Happens To Be BLACK, Out Of Public Office?
When Pres. George W. Bush Was In Office NOT One Member Of Congress Ever Said A Thing About Balanced Budget Amendments, Spending Cuts, Entitlements, The War In Iraq & Afghanistan!
Including Racist, Fake "Christian" Michelle Bachmann ("Tea Party Queen").
Instead Like Obedient Children & Lambs Being Led To The Slaughterhouse, They Just Continued To Raise The Debt Ceiling Each Time Bush Asked Or Demanded.
In Fact NOT Only Did GOP Leaders Vote To Raise The Debt Ceiling Limit 19 Times Under George W. Bush's Southern Conservative Reign, But Strangely Enough GOP Leaders RARELY Challenged Or Spoke Out Against George W. Bush's Policies.
It Is Perhaps Because George W. Bush Was WHITE?
Let's See George W. Bush Did Whatever He Wanted, Yet NO GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill Including Racist, Fake "Christian" Michelle Bachmann ("Tea Party Queen"), EVER Mentioned Nary A Word.
Since George W. Bush's Policies & Tax Cuts To Protect The Rich Were Far From Perfect, Then Is It Safe To Conclude That He Was NEVER Challenged Due To Him Being A WHITE Man?
YES!
If Anyone Thinks I'm Exaggerating Then Will Someone Please Show Me Just ONE Account Of GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill & Republican Governors Openly Defying George W. Bush Or Speaking Out Against Him?
And Show Me Just ONE Account Of Congressional Leaders Attempting To Hold The Debt Ceiling Hostage While George W. Bush Was In Office.
Just ONE Account?
What's That I Hear?
Crickets?
I Thought So!
So Is It Safe To Say Congress Allowed Bush To Do Whatever He Wanted Without Drama ONLY Because He Was WHITE?
YES!
However Suddenly.....
When A BLACK Man Is Elected President, GOP Congressional Leaders Begin To Care About Federal Deficits, Balanced Budget Amendments, Spending Cuts, Entitlements, The War In Iraq & Afghanistan, etc.,
Such HYPOCRISY!!!
What I'm About To Say Next May Seem Appalling & Sound Cruel, However I'm Going To Say It Anyway.
If The GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill, Including Racist, Fake "Christian" Michelle Bachmann ("Tea Party Queen") & Her Frequent Inferior References To SLAVERY, Thinks That GOD Almighty Himself isn't Watching How They Have Mistreated Pres. Obama Since His Election, ONLY Due To The Color Of His Skin NOT His Policies As They Have Pretended, Then It Should Come As No Surprise When ALL Of Them Reap What They Have Sown For Intentionally Mistreating Another Human Being.
A Black Human Being Made In The Image Of God!
By The Way God Is NOT White, Nor Black.
He's GOD!
Attention All White, Hateful, Racist People Who Hate Pres. Obama!
You WILL Reap What You Have Sown.
Just As ALL White, Hateful, Racist Slave Owners Did During The Civil War.
God Almighty Is NOT Racist!
God Almighty Is NOT Stupid!
Instead God Sees Everything & He Says That Vengeance Is Mine. He SHALL Repay!
The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday of a “huge financial calamity” if President Obama and the Republicans cannot agree on a budget deal that allows the federal debt ceiling to be increased. Moody’s, the ratings agency, threatened a credit downgrade, citing a “rising possibility” that no deal would be reached before the government’s borrowing authority hits its limit on Aug. 2.
And the latest bipartisan negotiating session on Wednesday evening ended in heightened tension. Republicans said Mr. Obama had abruptly walked out in an agitated state; Democrats described the president as having summed up with an impassioned case for action before bringing the meeting to a close and leaving.
Across Washington, officials were weighed down with a sense that they were hurtling toward a crisis. Grim-faced lawmakers spent the day shuttling from meeting to meeting in search of a way out of the fix.
The stakes are high, for the economy, the financial markets and both parties. But the pressure was particularly intense on Republican leaders, who only weeks ago seemed to be on the offensive and in a strong position to extract major concessions from Mr. Obama and the Democrats.
For months, the Republican leaders have emphatically pledged that there will be no increase in the federal debt ceiling absent huge cuts in government spending and fundamental changes in popular social programs, all without the whiff of a tax increase.
Now, with negotiations stalled and a potential default by the United States government just over the horizon, they are being held to those promises by their own rank-and-file, leaving them in a bind that is defying easy resolution and putting them at risk of being blamed if things end badly.
Behind closed doors and by phone, they groped for a solution and struggled to assert some kind of control over the situation as rank-and-file Republican members, especially in the House, grew more confrontational.
Panic had not yet set in, but the worry and tension were evident as seasoned lawmakers of both parties whose experience told them that Congress always finds a white-knuckle way to avert disaster wondered if this was going to be the time when it did not.
“Our problem is, we made a big deal about this for three months,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
“How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I am not going to raise the debt limit,’ ” said Mr. Graham, including himself in the mix of those who did so. “We have no one to blame but ourselves.”
The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, said Thursday that President Obama had shown great patience in the negotiations and listened respectfully to everyone.
“The president has more patience than Job,’’ Ms. Pelosi said. “I don’t compete with him in that regard.’’
While the president still wants “a grand bargain,’’ Ms. Pelosi said, “it’s time to freeze the design’’ of legislation and codify areas of agreement. “Let’s get on with writing the bill,’’ she said.
Ms. Pelosi said it might take a sharp drop in the stock market to galvanize Republicans to lift the debt ceiling.
“I don’t need to see markets drop 400 points,’’ Ms. Pelosi said. “But Republicans may need to see markets drop 400 points.’’
Potential last-minute options were being gamed out around Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans were pushing their counterparts in the House to deliver some legislation, which could take the form of a balanced budget plan due on the House floor next week. A bipartisan group that had been working on a major deficit-cutting plan in the Senate was trying again to produce a proposal.
And Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and procedural maestro, was pushing his plan that would allow a debt limit increase to clear Congress without Republican fingerprints — and without the guaranteed cuts many in his party are demanding. He would establish an elaborate process where Congress would vote to disapprove instead of approve a debt limit request. That would allow the president to raise the debt ceiling via a successful veto of the disapproval if it came to that.
Despite resistance from conservatives and the initial unease many lawmakers expressed at such a slippery approach, the McConnell gambit was gaining credence as the best escape hatch. Senate Democrats went virtually silent on the idea for fear of jinxing it. While the White House said it was not the preferable option, it was viewed inside the West Wing as a real option nonetheless, even if it would transfer to Mr. Obama and his party all the political responsibility for a debt limit increase.
Some of Mr. McConnell’s colleagues were coming around to it as the reality of a possible default began to sink in.
“I strongly support Senator McConnell’s efforts to avoid a default on our nation’s debt, and the last-case emergency proposal he outlined yesterday to ensure that Republicans aren’t unduly blamed for failure to raise the debt ceiling,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.
But with House Republicans showing little to no appetite for Mr. McConnell’s plan, top lawmakers in both parties were looking for ways to sweeten the deal, perhaps by adding required spending cuts or somehow forcing consideration of a deficit-reduction package. Mr. McConnell portrayed his proposal as a last-stand way to spare Republicans from being blamed for a default if no alternative plan could be approved.
Recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the following year, Mr. McConnell said any impasse that drove down the nation’s credit rating and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for Mr. Obama.
“He will say Republicans are making the economy worse,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview with the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. “It is an argument that he could have a good chance of winning, and all of the sudden we have co-ownership of the economy. That is a very bad position going into the election.”
After the meeting at the White House, Republicans and Democrats offered differing versions of what by all accounts was a tense session.
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said he raised the idea of taking what savings could be achieved now — roughly $1.4 trillion — and then having additional votes to raise the debt limit again before the elections in November 2012, with Republicans ultimately seeking a total of at least $2.4 trillion in cuts with no tax increases.
At this, Mr. Cantor said, the president “got very agitated, seemingly.” Mr. Cantor quoted the president as saying: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.”
Then, Mr. Cantor said, “He shoved back and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out.”
“I was a little taken aback,” Mr. Cantor added.
Democrats said that Mr. Obama’s departure was not abrupt, but that he had forcefully made a case that Republicans had been unwilling to compromise. “Enough’s enough,” one Democrat familiar with the talks quoted Mr. Obama as saying.
Democrats said Mr. Obama had set a deadline of Friday for the two sides to determine whether they could reach a broad budget deal. If not, he said, they will turn to finding an accord over how to raise the debt limit without agreement on taxes and spending.
In Asia, Moody's threat to downgrade the United States' credit rating dragged down the U.S. dollar. The dollar was set for its steepest two-day loss against the euro in five weeks, Bloomberg reported, declining 0.3 percent in Tokyo by mid-afternoon Thursday, and hit a fresh four-month low against the yen.
Investors also rushed to buy assets seen as safer, like gold, which hit a record high on Thursday at over $1,589 an ounce.
It’s been over three months since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and strengthened their caucus in the Senate. The central premise of the GOP midterm campaign was that it could create badly needed jobs—the Republican National Committee drove a bus through the lower 48 states emblazoned with the slogan: “Need a Job? Fire Pelosi!”
Now, after focusing its initial legislative efforts on repealing “ObamaCare,” pushing Tea Party-backed dreams like a balanced budget amendment, and fighting to strip regulatory agencies of their authority, the GOP has finally released a job plan…that consists of a balanced budget amendment, the repeal of Obamacare, and several assaults on regulatory authority.
Freshman Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who headed the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, released the official Senate GOP jobs plan yesterday. The unveiling received a surprisingly scant amount of media attention. Surely the ongoing bin Laden saga helped overshadow the announcement, but the complete lack of any new ideas might also have been a factor. Beyond the aforementioned goals, the GOP job plan advocates expanded off-shore drilling, steep tax reductions, medical malpractice reform, and other well-worn conservative policy tropes.
Aside from being unoriginal, few of these measures could be said to have even an ostensible effect on jobs. “It is very hard to see this as much of a jobs bill,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The first part of the plan attempts to attack the federal deficit. It outlines three provisions: a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, a statutory spending limit that “provides a budget strait-jacket so that Congress is forced to make difficult decisions each year to live within its means,” and immediate spending cuts.
This method of job creation by way of government austerity was, of course, the preferred path of Herbert Hoover in 1932. The GOP plan asserts that “out of control spending spree creates uncertainty in the economy and stops the investment,” but economists have long since dispensed with what Paul Krugman calls the “confidence fairy”—the idea that the only thing preventing companies from hiring is a lack of confidence in the government’s long-term fiscal health. Slashing federal spending often has the exact opposite affect—countries like Ireland, Latvia, and Estonia enacted steep spending cuts in the recent global downturn, and each saw subsequent slumps in output and employment.
Quite paradoxically, the plan immediately moves on to a series of proposed tax cuts, which would of course make the federal deficit much larger. It calls for a reduction of the corporate tax rate to 25 percent along with lowering individual rates, reducing taxes on capital gains, and making tax credits for research and development and small business investment permanent.
Baker said the R&D tax credit might have a “modest positive effect” on job creation—but Congress has voted to extend it every year since the early 90s anyhow. Otherwise, the idea that jobs are created by reducing tax rates for big corporations and individuals is widely discredited. (See Bush tax cuts and job growth, 2001-08).
The GOP “jobs” proposal also calls for a broad assault on what the government is allowed to regulate. It advocates passage of the Reins Act, which would allow Congress to veto almost any regulation imposed by the federal government, and also once again demands the EPA lose its ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Losing that authority may be a precondition for the next part of the GOP jobs plan: expanded offshore drilling for fossil fuels while allowing “greater access” to federal lands for energy exploration.
Once again, it’s very hard to see how these provisions—which are harmful in their own right—have anything to do with job creation. Baker acknowledged that expanded oil drilling “may lead to a small number of additional jobs in the oil industry,” but would also “almost certainly lead to more environmental damage, which will cost jobs.”
The gulf between the GOP “jobs” plan and reality was evident even in Portman’s rollout. Last week he previewed his party’s blueprint at Lincoln Electric in Euclid, OH. “What we’re trying to do is to create an environment for companies to succeed and, right now, America’s tax policies, our energy policy, the regulatory policy, the legal policy is making it harder for us to create jobs here in America,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is to create more certainty, to create a more pro-growth, pro-jobs policy framework and companies, like Lincoln, will benefit directly.”
Portman noted the company added 50 production jobs in the first part of this year. But he didn’t mention one of the company’s major new projects: assembly of the largest wind turbine in northeast Ohio. The GOP plan calls for nuclear energy subsidies, but no green technology investments.
Additionally, federal and local governments helped fund the turbine project. Funds from the 2009 stimulus provided $1.12 million for the project, and the Cuyahoga County government kicked in another $350,000 loan.
(Finally, Lincoln Electric might not be the best place to push for reduced EPA authority. USA Today reported in 2008 that Lincoln emits a wide array of toxic chemicals that affect five nearby elementary and middle schools).
So nobody can now say the GOP doesn’t have a jobs plan. But nobody can really say it would create many jobs, either.
Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.
Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.
What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?
The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.
But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem. The budget deficit, not jobs, has been dominating the conversation in Washington. Unlike the hard-pressed in, say, Greece or Spain, the jobless in America seem, well, subdued. The old fire has gone out.
In some ways, this boils down to math, both economic and political. Yes, 9.2 percent of the American work force is unemployed — but 90.8 percent of it is working. To elected officials, the unemployed are a relatively small constituency. And with apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting.
Nor are they voting — or at least not as much as people with jobs. In 2010, some 46 percent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 percent of the unemployed, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. There was a similar turnout gap in the 2008 election.
No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.
It wasn’t always so. During the Great Depression, riots erupted on the bread lines. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, angry workers descended on Washington by the busload.
“There used to be a sense that unemployment was rich soil for radicalization and revolt,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of labor history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “That was a motif in American history for a long time, but we don’t seem to have that anymore.”
But why? It’s partly because of the greater dispersion of the unemployed, and partly because of the weakening of the institutions that previously mobilized them.
Unemployment doesn’t necessarily beget apathy, Mr. McDonald says. Rather, demographic groups that are more likely to be unemployed also happen to be the same groups that are less likely to vote to begin with, such as the poor and the low-skilled.
Even so, numerous studies have shown that unemployment leads to feelings of shame and a loss of self-worth. And that is not particularly conducive to political organizing. As Heather Boushey, an economist at the liberal Center for American Progress, puts it, rather bluntly: “Nobody wants to join the Lame Club.”
That’s not to say that disillusionment about the economy will just fade away. But unless something changes, the unemployed seem unlikely to gain real political potency soon.
“There’s an illusion that grass-roots activity just begins spontaneously, that people get mad and suddenly say, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore!’ ” says Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University. “But that’s not how it happens.”
Intellectuals used to play a big role in organizing labor. In the 1930s, Communists and socialists were a major force. Later, labor unions stepped in.
But today’s unions are not set up to serve the unemployed; they generally organize around workplaces, after all.
Just ask Rick McHugh, who worked in Michigan as an employment lawyer for the United Automobile Workers from the 1980s through the 1990s. He represented workers who were appealing denials of unemployment insurance benefits. The union footed the bill for people he represented who were not, and had never been, U.A.W. members.
Today, however, many unions are fighting for their own survival. They no longer provide such support for nonmembers. “They just don’t have the staff and the resources to support these programs and the recipients like they used to,” says Mr. McHugh, now a staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project.
Workers have also become suburbanized. Back in the 1960s or even the 1980s, the unemployed organized around welfare or unemployment offices. It was a fertile environment: people were anxious and tired and waiting for hours in line.
“We stood outside of these offices, with their huge lines, and passed out leaflets that said things like: ‘If you’re upset about what’s happening to you, come to this meeting at this church basement in two weeks. We’ll get together and do something about this,’ ” recalls Barney Oursler, a longtime community organizer and co-founder of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee in the early 1980s. “The response just made your heart get big. ‘Oh, my God,’ they’d say, ‘I thought I was alone.’ ”
The Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, which is based in Pittsburgh, helped organize workers in 26 cities across five states, simply by hanging around outside t unemployment offices and harnessing the frustration.
Today, though, many unemployment offices have closed. Jobless benefits are often handled by phone or online rather than in person. An unemployment call center near Mr. Oursler, for instance, now sits behind two sets of locked doors and frosted windows.
In other countries, workers have mobilized online. Unions here, too, have reached out on the Web. They include groups like Working America (the community affiliate of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.) and UCubed (created by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers).
But many Web sites geared toward the unemployed aren’t about mobilizing workers. Many instead provide guidance about things like posting résumés online, or simply offer the comfort of an online community.
It’s not clear why this is the case, when social networks have been so essential to organizing economic protests in places like Britain and Greece, not to mention political movements in the Middle East.
“You have to remember that technology is not independent of social structures, motivations and politics,” Mr. Kazin says. “People can feel like they have their own community online, which is useful emotionally, but they also have to have the desire and demand to do something about their situation first before they start using that online presence to organize anything in person.”
To the extent that frustrations are being channeled at all, they are being channeled largely through the Tea Party. But the Tea Party is mostly against devoting government resources to helping the unemployed.
Tea Party activists, for example, are more likely to believe that providing benefits to poor people encourages them to stay poor, and to believe that economic stimulus has made the economy worse.
Why populist anger over the poor economy is leaning right, rather than left, this time around is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is because Democrats, traditional friends of labor, control the White House and the Senate.
Mr. Lichtenstein, the historian, notes that it took awhile for the poor to mobilize in the Great Depression. Many initially saw President Roosevelt as an ally and only later became disillusioned. As Langston Hughes wrote in a 1934 poem, “The Ballad of Roosevelt”:
The pot was empty,
The cupboard was bare.
I said, Papa,
What’s the matter here?
I’m waitin’ on Roosevelt, son,
Roosevelt, Roosevelt,
Waitin’ on Roosevelt, son.
For the moment, jobless Americans are waiting on President Obama. If unemployment stays as high as many expect, and millions exhaust their benefits, they may just find their voice in 2012.
Why Is The GOP Working So Hard NOT To Negotiate With Pres. Obama On Raising The Debt Ceiling When They So Easily Did It For Former Pres. George W. Bush TWICE Without Any Drama?
Because They Want To Slow Down The U.S. Economy In Hopes It Will Destroy Pres. Obama's Chances At Being Re-elected And...
To Stop President Obama From Raising Taxes On America's Wealthiest Citizens.
Nothing Else!
How Sad That Most Of Our Republican Friends Are Willing To Risk Playing With The Lives Of American People Just For Political Gain.
Facing a possible future downgrade of America's credit rating, President Barack Obama on Tuesday told the first of three town hall-style meetings this week that a "big philosophical divide" exists between his approach to deficit reduction and how Republicans think.
The hour-long event at Northern Virginia Community College brought few challenging questions from a mostly student audience that cheered Obama and applauded his major policy statements.
Given such free rein, Obama delivered campaign-style messages that emphasized what he called his balanced approach to reducing federal deficits and bringing down the national debt versus a Republican proposal that the president characterized as unfair to middle-class Americans and vulnerable communities such as senior citizens.
"I don't want to lie to you: there is a big philosophical divide right now," Obama said, going on to say that he believes "America wants smart government, it wants a lean government, it wants accountable government, but it doesn't want no government."
He repeated criticisms raised by Democrats and interest groups that a House proposal would double how much the elderly pay for health care, reduce student loans and strip needed investment for much-needed repairs and rebuilding of roads and bridges. In particular, Obama noted that the GOP plan would double the health care costs of senior citizens on Medicare, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
It's not hard to save the government money if your solution is to say, 'Here, you pay for it,'" Obama said in characterizing the Republican philosophy.
Instead, he emphasized what he called a balanced approach that both cut spending and increased revenue by ending tax cuts for the wealthy; maintained or increased spending in education, research and infrastructure development; and continued reforms launched in last year's health care bill of the Medicare and Medicaid government-run health systems for senior citizens and the poor and disabled.
"Those blessed with high income can afford to pay a little bit more," Obama said of his plan to restore the tax rate for families earning more than $250,000 a year to higher rates from the 1990s. "Not that much. Just go back to when Bill Clinton was president. That's not that long ago."
As the audience applauded, Obama said he wanted a society where "the American dream was affordable to everybody."
Obama will hold similar events at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, on Wednesday, and then Reno, Nevada, on Thursday to take questions on the economy.
The president's blitz comes as Congress faces two major fiscal issues in coming months: passing a budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins October 1, and raising the federal debt ceiling so the government can continue meeting its obligations.
While the issues are not necessarily linked, Congressional Republicans are demanding significant fiscal reforms, such as a balanced budget amendment and mandatory spending caps, in exchange for their necessary support to raise the debt limit.
Democrats respond that the debt limit issue should be separated from politically inspired fiscal mandates because any question of whether the government can pay its debt will bring damaging repercussions from markets and the international community.
The first evidence of such a reaction came Monday, when Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook for the nation's long-term debt.
While reaffirming its top-tier rating for the U.S. economy, S&P lowered its outlook for America's long-term credit rating to "negative" from "stable" based on the uncertain political debate around the nation's fiscal problems. It said resolution of major issues was unlikely ahead of the 2012 elections.
The change means that there is a one-in-three chance that S&P could downgrade the nation's "AAA" credit rating within two years. That would make it harder for the U.S. government to borrow money to fund its activities.
Standard & Poor's is one of three major agencies that evaluate public and private debt issues. Their ratings are key to measuring an investor's risk in buying the debt, an important factor in determining interest rates.
The S&P report sent stocks tumbling Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average sinking 140 points. On Tuesday, stocks rose on positive earning reports by Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson.
While news of the S&P report dominated headlines and broadcasts, there was no mention of it at Tuesday's event by either Obama or any of those who questioned him.
Obama and the White House want to separate the debt ceiling and fiscal reform issues to avoid spooking markets and trade partners, arguing that such a vital issue should be free of any possible political drag.
"The issue is, the debt ceiling has to be raised, and it cannot be held hostage to a process that is very difficult and very complicated," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday. "We cannot make it conditional."
Calling the possibility of a U.S. default on its debt obligations "unthinkable," Carney said congressional leaders from both parties have indicated that the debt ceiling will be raised and said Obama "takes them at their word."
While opposing a direct linkage between raising the debt ceiling and fiscal reforms, the White House concedes that simultaneous steps are needed to reduce mounting deficits and the national debt.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said Monday that the S&P report underscores the need for immediate reforms to ensure America's fiscal health.
Republicans will not move forward on a measure to raise the country's debt ceiling unless "it is accompanied by serious reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and end the culture of debt in Washington," Cantor said in a statement.
The U.S. debt is expected to hit the country's $14.294 trillion ceiling next month, though congressional leaders say the Treasury can take steps to put off the deadline until early July.
On the broader fiscal reform issues, Obama noted Tuesday that both his proposal and the House Republican plan acknowledge the problem posed by expanding deficits and the growing national debt, and that both call for $4 trillion in deficit reduction in the next decade or so.
The House plan would overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, cut non-military discretionary spending and reform the tax code to lower rates and eliminate loopholes.
The goal is leaner government without the unsustainable cost increases currently plaguing Medicare and Medicaid, along with lower tax rates to stimulate economic growth.
Obama's vision, unveiled last week, includes ending the tax cuts for the wealthy, further reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, and cutting military spending. The House Republican plan would leave military spending untouched.
Vice President Joe Biden's office announced Monday that his first meeting with legislators to try to work out a fiscal reform deal will take place May 5. Obama proposed the talks when he outlined his policy last week, and Republican leaders announced Tuesday that Cantor and Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona would represent them.
At the same time, a bipartisan group of senators known as the "Gang of Six" is nearing consensus on its own comprehensive reform plan based on the report issued last December by a deficit reduction commission appointed by Obama, one of the participants, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, said Sunday.
No details have been made public, but the Bowles-Simpson commission's report in December included reforms of entitlements including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while also calling for revenue increases through tax reform and spending cuts, including in the military budget.
"We are very close," Warner told reporters of the backroom talks involving fellow Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, as well as Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. "We have been working for months on a plan that takes on entitlement reforms, tax code, and put us back on a path toward fiscal sustainability and recognizes that we need to still grow the economy."
Warner challenged the House Republican plan put together by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, "because he won't even look at the question of revenues, and because he won't even look at the question of how much money we spend on defense."
"That means most of his cuts have to come out of health care, frankly for seniors, and it is an enormous additional burden to seniors," Warner said. "What we are proposing is an approach that says let's put revenues, let's put defense spending, let's put the entitlement programs -- all of these on the table."
However, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is not part of the Gang of Six, rejected any tax increase on wealthy Americans -- as proposed by Obama and Democrats.
"Everyone agrees that the entitlement reform is necessary, and I don't think the tax increase is acceptable, especially right now, when our economy is this weak," Lee told reporters. "If we're going to talk about simplifying the tax code, about eliminating some loopholes, then that's one thing. But if we are talking about raising rates, that's off the table on my book."
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