This week may feel busier than usual - and not just because it's a shortened week for many Americans due to the Labor Day holiday. There's a lot going on this week, both politically and personally. Of course, the second of two GOP debate events this week is tonight - and the President's address to Congress on jobs is tomorrow.
Millions of American kids also returned to school this week, and those schools that began their semester before Labor Day are now truly digging into the material. They're getting down to details - and that's EXACTLY what every candidate at EVERY level should be thinking about right now.
As a former Capitol Hill staffer pointed out to a fellow journalist this week, the average voter doesn't care about specifics. An American voter who spends more than five minutes thinking about which Congressional candidate to vote for, is more thoughtful than most of his or her fellow citizens.
That doesn't negate the truth: to be better, to have a better nation, we must rise above the seductive simplicity of the five-minute, slogan-voting mindset.
That means getting specific, this week, about jobs.
To his credit, the jobs plan that Mitt Romney announced on Tuesday is more specific than anything that anyone else has put forward so far. In a 160-page booklet, Romney's plan calls for tax cuts of almost every tax you can think of, more oil and natural gas drilling, protectionist trade policies, and even deeper cuts to federal spending and federal aid to states. To his detriment, his jobs plan does NOTHING to solve the biggest single problem facing American businesses - the massive lack of demand at all levels.
Don't look to Rick Perry for better specifics.
Paul Osterman, an economist at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, recently proved this by examining, in depth, the supposed miracle of Texas job creation. Rick Perry may have created millions of jobs in Texas - but they are some of the worst paying jobs in the nation.
We'll have plenty of chances to hear the specifics from the GOP contenders tonight - and we certainly hope they'll actually provide some specifics on their jobs plans, instead of merely attacking President Obama or one another while mouthing talking points and platitudes.
The President himself will also have to give us more specifics than he has in many of his speeches over the last two and a half years. If Mr. Obama writes down his specific proposal, and presents that to Congress, there will be little chance for those who oppose him at every turn to say he isn't being specific enough. Sadly, though, we highly doubt that any proposal, no matter how specific, would satisfy a Republican Congress that is increasingly disrespectful to both Mr. Obama and the office of the President. Right now, even the psychological specifics say Republicans are likely to vote against ANYTHING President Obama suggests, simply because he's suggesting it.
Even the latest specific polling data backs this statement up. In category after category, by solid majorities and pluralities, Americans agree with the specific economic POLICIES President Obama continues to support.
What they don't support are the results of those policies so far - policies that have been specifically stymied and stopped by the Republican Congress.
The single biggest specific question that every candidate for President in 2012 needs to answer is this: If Congress stops you at every turn, how are you going to bypass them, and still get the work of the American people accomplished?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Cowards And Heroes
Make no bones about it; the focus this week will be on two topics - jobs and heroes. They are fitting subjects in a week that began with the Labor Day holiday, and which ends with the tenth anniversary of the disasters of 9/11.
On Monday, a handful of 2012 GOP Presidential candidates held the first of TWO debate-like events this week - without Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who flew back to Texas to posture but not really do anything about the wildfires ravaging his state. Not surprisingly, at the forum hosted by Tea Party poser Sen. Jim Demint of South Carolina, the five Republican candidates attacked the President - though they also increasingly went after each other.
Meanwhile, the REAL President Obama - or at least the version of him that won the election in 2008 - gave a rousing speech at an AFL-CIO Labor Day event in Detroit, Michigan. His message was positive, upbeat, and didn't include discussions of the debt, deficit, or "shared sacrifice." Instead, the President addressed the war on workers, as well as the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party.
The President said, "I know it’s not easy when there's some folks who have their sights trained on you. After all that unions have done to build and protect the middle class, you’ve got people trying to claim that you’re responsible for the problems middle-class folks are facing. You’ve got Republicans saying you’re the ones exploiting working families. Imagine that."
For once, the President didn't back down on his criticism of Congressional Republicans and their plan to bog down the country's business for the forseeable future - and he told Congress they MUST pass a jobs bill and they needed to give tax breaks to working class Americans, if they were going to give them to anyone at all.
"We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party," the President said. "You want -- you say you’re the party of tax cuts? Well then, prove you’ll fight just as hard for tax cuts for middle-class families as you do for oil companies and the most affluent Americans. Show us what you got."
His speech was good - but we sincerely hope he backs it up with action for a change.
There are a great many things the Executive Branch of the U.S. government cannot do alone - including save the economy. While President Obama may have presided over eighteen straight months of meager but positive PRIVATE job sector growth, the lack of Congress in doing anything meaningful on jobs or the economy has lead the public sector - local, state, and federal governments - to cut jobs so hard any private sector growth has been cancelled out. The lack of participation by Congress is the biggest single reason everything the President has tried so far to help spur our economy has ended up returning only half-baked results.
There are 535 voting members of Congress and nine Supreme Court justices, as well as over 210 million voting-age Americans (but no voting corporations) who are all part of this government. Millions of these same Americans need jobs that corporations and businesses - who are sitting on billions of dollars in cash - have yet to create, at least not in this country.
We don't expect the President's speech on jobs this week to magically create massive demand in the marketplace - the REAL reason private companies and corporations have remained siting on the sidelines for so long. Even if private sector growth exploded, until we correct the gaping loopholes in our tax code that the rich and corporations fly through all the time, the public sector still won't have the money it needs, and America will continue hemorrhaging public sector jobs.
We also don't expect Congress - especially the Republicans in Congress - to do anything on the jobs front. Most of the cowards on both sides of the Congressional aisle were too afraid to even have town hall meetings with their constituents last month. They sure as hell aren't likely to upset their corporate campaign donors by pushing for a more just tax code in an election year.
What we do expect this week, from both President Obama, as well as his Republican challengers, is some hard details on how they plan to enlist the millions of Americans who have been waiting to become heroes in our own economic recovery.
What those details and plans will reveal is just who is ready to lead this country forward, towards progress. Those millions of Americans who have been without work for far too long are watching closely, and will surely remember this week come election day 2012.
On Monday, a handful of 2012 GOP Presidential candidates held the first of TWO debate-like events this week - without Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who flew back to Texas to posture but not really do anything about the wildfires ravaging his state. Not surprisingly, at the forum hosted by Tea Party poser Sen. Jim Demint of South Carolina, the five Republican candidates attacked the President - though they also increasingly went after each other.
Meanwhile, the REAL President Obama - or at least the version of him that won the election in 2008 - gave a rousing speech at an AFL-CIO Labor Day event in Detroit, Michigan. His message was positive, upbeat, and didn't include discussions of the debt, deficit, or "shared sacrifice." Instead, the President addressed the war on workers, as well as the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party.
The President said, "I know it’s not easy when there's some folks who have their sights trained on you. After all that unions have done to build and protect the middle class, you’ve got people trying to claim that you’re responsible for the problems middle-class folks are facing. You’ve got Republicans saying you’re the ones exploiting working families. Imagine that."
For once, the President didn't back down on his criticism of Congressional Republicans and their plan to bog down the country's business for the forseeable future - and he told Congress they MUST pass a jobs bill and they needed to give tax breaks to working class Americans, if they were going to give them to anyone at all.
"We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party," the President said. "You want -- you say you’re the party of tax cuts? Well then, prove you’ll fight just as hard for tax cuts for middle-class families as you do for oil companies and the most affluent Americans. Show us what you got."
His speech was good - but we sincerely hope he backs it up with action for a change.
There are a great many things the Executive Branch of the U.S. government cannot do alone - including save the economy. While President Obama may have presided over eighteen straight months of meager but positive PRIVATE job sector growth, the lack of Congress in doing anything meaningful on jobs or the economy has lead the public sector - local, state, and federal governments - to cut jobs so hard any private sector growth has been cancelled out. The lack of participation by Congress is the biggest single reason everything the President has tried so far to help spur our economy has ended up returning only half-baked results.
There are 535 voting members of Congress and nine Supreme Court justices, as well as over 210 million voting-age Americans (but no voting corporations) who are all part of this government. Millions of these same Americans need jobs that corporations and businesses - who are sitting on billions of dollars in cash - have yet to create, at least not in this country.
We don't expect the President's speech on jobs this week to magically create massive demand in the marketplace - the REAL reason private companies and corporations have remained siting on the sidelines for so long. Even if private sector growth exploded, until we correct the gaping loopholes in our tax code that the rich and corporations fly through all the time, the public sector still won't have the money it needs, and America will continue hemorrhaging public sector jobs.
We also don't expect Congress - especially the Republicans in Congress - to do anything on the jobs front. Most of the cowards on both sides of the Congressional aisle were too afraid to even have town hall meetings with their constituents last month. They sure as hell aren't likely to upset their corporate campaign donors by pushing for a more just tax code in an election year.
What we do expect this week, from both President Obama, as well as his Republican challengers, is some hard details on how they plan to enlist the millions of Americans who have been waiting to become heroes in our own economic recovery.
What those details and plans will reveal is just who is ready to lead this country forward, towards progress. Those millions of Americans who have been without work for far too long are watching closely, and will surely remember this week come election day 2012.
Monday, September 5, 2011
What Labor Day SHOULD Mean
Today is Labor Day, a day for Americans to celebrate and honor the real working-class individuals who made America the legendary country many of us remember. Labor Day is meant to celebrate the struggles of those who stood up for and were part of the working class, whose sacrifices have given large numbers of people in America and worldwide lives that are more that just simply existing.
It was never exclusively the rich - the "job creators" as Republicans try to call them these days - that brought about the long-term stability and prosperity of the working class. It was working men and women, and organizations like labor unions, that caused those in power to finally take the concerns of working people seriously.
Sadly, in America today, Labor Day has ceased to have much meaning at all.
Of course, when you have a political and social system that's been unjustly set against those who truly work for a living, by those who don't have a clue on what it is to do an honest day's work (or what an honest day's work is truly worth), you get the kind of inequality in the workplace Americans currently face every day.
Many of you are among those workers who don't know what it's like to be part of a workforce where employers didn't treat you like a number, like a replaceable part, just another money-sucking expense. Today we offer you a few facts to help you understand who and what Labor Day is supposed to celebrate - and why some would like this holiday and its meaning to be forgotten.
If your pay, or your work schedule is based (even loosely) on the idea of a 40 hour work week, big business bosses didn't do that for you. Organized labor and collective bargaining did that. Corporations have fought the 40-hour work week for years, and they usually break that rule whenever they can get away with it.
Unions gave you the eight hour day and the 40 hour work week, and by doing so gave you the weekend you just finished - or may still be enjoying.
The minimum wage you started earning as a young worker? Labor unions helped to get that for you, too.
Even though pension plans and access to health insurance have been shrinking more and more over the last thirty years, the basic ideas of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would never have happened without the support of the working men and women of organized labor. Our general system of retirement planning and health insurance in America would also never have been possible, were it not for men & women of unions fighting - and, sadly, dying at times - for Americans to have those benefits that we now too often take for granted.
Without working class Americans & their unions, children would still likely be working in factories, as they do in many other places in the world.
Today, if you are lucky enough to have the day off, we simply ask that you think about the reality of working life in America - and around the world - and realize a key fact.
No matter what economic class you currently live in, or what you think of labor unions and the American working class, without them, your life and the lives of millions of people would be drastically different - and likely MUCH worse.
Enjoy your day off (if you're indeed lucky enough to not be working today) - and remember those who made it possible for you to have any days off in the first place.
It was never exclusively the rich - the "job creators" as Republicans try to call them these days - that brought about the long-term stability and prosperity of the working class. It was working men and women, and organizations like labor unions, that caused those in power to finally take the concerns of working people seriously.
Sadly, in America today, Labor Day has ceased to have much meaning at all.
Of course, when you have a political and social system that's been unjustly set against those who truly work for a living, by those who don't have a clue on what it is to do an honest day's work (or what an honest day's work is truly worth), you get the kind of inequality in the workplace Americans currently face every day.
Many of you are among those workers who don't know what it's like to be part of a workforce where employers didn't treat you like a number, like a replaceable part, just another money-sucking expense. Today we offer you a few facts to help you understand who and what Labor Day is supposed to celebrate - and why some would like this holiday and its meaning to be forgotten.
If your pay, or your work schedule is based (even loosely) on the idea of a 40 hour work week, big business bosses didn't do that for you. Organized labor and collective bargaining did that. Corporations have fought the 40-hour work week for years, and they usually break that rule whenever they can get away with it.
Unions gave you the eight hour day and the 40 hour work week, and by doing so gave you the weekend you just finished - or may still be enjoying.
The minimum wage you started earning as a young worker? Labor unions helped to get that for you, too.
Even though pension plans and access to health insurance have been shrinking more and more over the last thirty years, the basic ideas of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would never have happened without the support of the working men and women of organized labor. Our general system of retirement planning and health insurance in America would also never have been possible, were it not for men & women of unions fighting - and, sadly, dying at times - for Americans to have those benefits that we now too often take for granted.
Without working class Americans & their unions, children would still likely be working in factories, as they do in many other places in the world.
Today, if you are lucky enough to have the day off, we simply ask that you think about the reality of working life in America - and around the world - and realize a key fact.
No matter what economic class you currently live in, or what you think of labor unions and the American working class, without them, your life and the lives of millions of people would be drastically different - and likely MUCH worse.
Enjoy your day off (if you're indeed lucky enough to not be working today) - and remember those who made it possible for you to have any days off in the first place.
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