For most of the last two-and-a-half years, since President Obama first came to office, we've been repeating the mantra of "Jobs, jobs, jobs" as the biggest single problem facing our country. While President Obama has made measurable headway in bringing the country back from the Bush recession, America still isn't back where we'd like it to be.
If you were looking to see any GOP presidential candidate seriously address the issue of how they'd bring more jobs to the U.S. economy, at the Republican Presidential Debate on CNN last night, you wouldn't have heard any answers coming from that bunch of presidential hopefuls. Complaints, yes. Criticizing, yes. Legitimate plans on how to fix the problem? No.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the U.S. Senate have been screaming at the President to focus on job creation, as we pointed out in the links section of yesterday's Daily Felltoon. Yes, the President did meet with his Jobs Council in North Carolina yesterday - and the President did present a plan for more high-tech jobs, unexpectedly calling to extend the payroll tax break for workers. But those meager measures are far from the explosive and far-reaching efforts that the top economists have been calling for. Even former White House aide Lawrence Summers, an economist who has been both revered and reviled, said this past weekend, "There is no time for fatalism or for traditional political agendas."
We're more than willing to admit our skepticism a week ago Monday, when we doubted House Democrats who claimed they were going to push for more infrastructure spending. We were even more surprised last week when Senate Democrats presented an actual plan for infrastructure investment which would create more jobs in our economy.
What truly floored us, however, was when the White House said the jobs bill that Senate Democrats were proposing was too expensive.
As writer Richard Eskow pointed out last Friday, the Senate Democrats' plan was only an additional $600M in public works spending over the next three years. In the scope of the Federal budget, a $600 million dollar investment in something we need anyway is practically small change. And as Mr. Summers pointed out, deferring infrastructure maintenance and replacement - which creates jobs - at this point is insane. We have unemployment rates in the construction field of nearly 20%, and interest rates for 10-year bonds (standard in infrastructure financing) at an insane 3 percent rate.
In short, it will likely never get cheaper for America to invest in itself again.
We're not sure of how else to say it to President Obama - and anyone else who wants to succeed in politics between now and November of next year. So we'll simply do in words that which they should be carrying out in action, and go a bit overboard.
Push the damn investment policies, sir. All the way, one hundred and twenty thousand percent. Quit being afraid of making moderate voters mad. Y'know what REALLY makes voters mad? Being unemployed for years at time.
Mr. President, quit worrying about what the Republicans and Tea Partiers are going to say and do. Many of them will NEVER vote for you. Quit trying to make nice with them - they can go to hell. As a recent Pew poll points out, sane Americans have begun to tune out the liars on the extremist right on the topic of Obama and Israel. If you stand up and show America you are willing to go to the mat for working people, Mr. President, it's likely more Americans will ignore the other lies those on the extremist right have also been spewing.
Who cares if you - or Democrats - put forward one proposal or one million proposals to put Americans back to work, that House Republicans will never, ever pass? The action of throwing yourselves on that sword again and again would at least make VERY clear, Mr. President, that you are on the side of Americans who want to work and can't find jobs - and those who oppose those efforts are not.
In short, Mr. President, what do you have to lose? If America doesn't have significantly more jobs by November 2012, you'll likely be joining the ranks of the unemployed, anyway.
It's time to go all out, sir.
