Important Questions For President Obama

President Obama in Detroit on Labor Day
Doug Mills/The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/politics/06obama.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

“We’ve got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems.” That expression of faith in bipartisanship drew loud groans of skepticism, reflecting a growing sentiment among Obama supporters that he is too conciliatory toward Republicans. As if acknowledging the skeptics, Mr. Obama quickly added, to applause: “But we’re not going to wait for them. 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.”

All,

I just have two--no, excuse me, make that THREE questions:

WHO is this man? WHY is he saying such stupid indefensible things in public? and WHAT does he think he is doing in Detroit on Labor Day?

The really scary thing is that I doubt very seriously if he can even answer these very important questions at this point...

Kofi


For Obama, a Familiar Labor Day Theme

President Obama spoke to an estimated crowd of 13,000 in Detroit, Michigan, on Labor Day.

By JACKIE CALMES
September 5, 2011
New York Times

DETROIT — Labor Day must seem like the movie “Groundhog Day” to President Obama. On Monday, for a third year he celebrated the holiday that honors workers with union members and their families in a political swing state, promising job-creation measures to reduce a 9 percent unemployment rate and calling on the Republican opposition to “put country before party.”

Mr. Obama, speaking to a riverfront crowd estimated by the police to number 13,000, said he would propose “a new way forward on jobs” in his speech on Thursday to a joint session of Congress, which returns this week from its August recess.

Mr. Obama did not provide details — “Tune in on Thursday,” he teased — but he said millions of unemployed construction workers would be able “to get dirty” building roads, bridges and other public works under his infrastructure proposals.

Organized labor and business leaders are on board, Mr. Obama said. “We just need Congress to get on board,” he said, prompting cheers of “Four more years!” from an audience filled with members of unions for autoworkers, public employees, service industry workers and teachers.

It remains unclear what new ideas Mr. Obama will propose on Thursday. But he faces high expectations after recent evidence that job growth has stalled and because of his own buildup since announcing a month ago that he would lay out a short-term stimulus program after Labor Day.

Mr. Obama also faces skepticism because of persistent unemployment. Recent polls give him his lowest ratings to date for job approval and his handling of the economy, though the ratings of Congress, and especially Republicans, are even more negative.

Mr. Obama has indicated that besides infrastructure proposals, he will call for extending and expanding temporary tax cuts for businesses and individuals, including a payroll tax cut for which he won Republicans’ support in December after agreeing to extend the Bush-era tax cuts on high income. He is expected to propose that employers get a tax credit for each new person hired, and to help local governments avert more teacher layoffs.

Separately next week, Mr. Obama is expected to recommend ways to reduce annual budget deficits to a special Congressional committee charged with finding up to $1.5 trillion in savings over 10 years. He plans to propose more than that in deficit reductions, aides say, partly to offset the stimulus costs.

But in Detroit Mr. Obama emphasized job creation. His backdrop was the high-rise headquarters of General Motors, which, along with Chrysler, has restructured and returned to profit and hiring after their rescue early in his administration.

“We’ve got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems.”

That expression of faith in bipartisanship drew loud groans of skepticism, reflecting a growing sentiment among Obama supporters that he is too conciliatory toward Republicans.

As if acknowledging the skeptics, Mr. Obama quickly added, to applause: “But we’re not going to wait for them. 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.”

Flying here with Mr. Obama were several union leaders, including Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who has been critical of his compromises with Republicans.

Also joining Mr. Obama was Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who, as Mr. Obama told his audience, gave the president a Labor Day address that President Harry S. Truman delivered in Detroit in 1948, the year of his come-from-behind election after campaigning against “do-nothing” Republicans.

Afterward, Mr. Levin said he told the president, “Here’s a ‘give ’em hell’ kind of speech.”

The president’s Labor Day addresses trace the stubbornness of the crisis he inherited.

In 2009, he spoke to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. picnic in Cincinnati, just after the government reported 216,000 jobs lost in August — relatively good news because it marked a second month of declining losses from a high of 750,000 as Mr. Obama took office. Six months earlier, in February, a Democratic-controlled Congress had passed his two-year, $800 billion stimulus program of tax cuts and spending.

“It’s working,” Mr. Obama said then. Most economists agreed, though many have since concluded that the package was not forceful enough to counter a recession and crises in the financial and housing sectors. Republicans, who generally opposed it, continue to say that the stimulus program failed and that they will not support another round.

“We’re on the road to recovery, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Mr. Obama said two years ago. That would become a refrain.

Last year, Mr. Obama was in Wisconsin with union families. While private-sector hiring had expanded for eight months, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent — just a tenth of a percentage point lower than the year before. With his two-year stimulus plan winding down, Mr. Obama announced new plans for infrastructure projects and more.

“Now the plain truth is, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem,” he said in Milwaukee. “Even when I was running for this office, we knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade’s worth of policies that saw a few folks prosper while the middle class kept falling behind.”

But his infrastructure plans went nowhere before Republicans, capitalizing on voters’ economic frustrations, won control of the House in November.

John Nichols On Why President Obama's Speech On Thursday Had Better Fully Address The Massive Dimensions of the National Unemployment Crisis

http://www.thenation.com/blog/163118/obama-better-give-one-hell-speech

All,

Just how truly horrible is the national economy? Check out this disturbing report by prominent political analyst and activist John Nichols...

Kofi


Obama Better Give One Hell of a Speech
John Nichols
September 2, 2011
The Nation


On the eve of a Labor Day that will mark the unofficial launching place of his 2012 re-election campaign, on the eve of an address to Congress that could be the most important of his presidency, there is no good economic news for Barack Obama.

A net total of zero jobs were added in the month of August, for which economic data was released Friday morning.

In addition, Friday’s report revealed, the number of hours worked by the average American has begun to decline.

And hourly earnings have dropped.

So even if Americans are employed, they are working less and making less.

“These numbers, with no net job creation at all—and 14 million people officially unemployed—show that the economy is dead in the water.” says Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future.

But that’s not the scariest part of the story.

While the official unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent—almost twice the level that former US Senator Hubert Humphrey and former US Congressman Gus Hawkins identified as a unacceptable when they were pushing their Humphrey-Hawkins full-employment bill in the 1970s—the real rate continues to grow worse.

The broad measure of unemployment—the Department of Labor’s U-6 figure, which includes the long-term unemployed and under-employed—rose to 16.2 percent (from 16.1 percent in July). That’s the highest level this year.

The 16.2 percent figure is, by any honest measure, the real unemployment rate. And it is ticking upward.

Why? Because the United States has failed to create jobs at a rate to keep up with population growth.

How big a failure are we talking about?

Consider these facts:

The number of employed Americans in the summer of 2011 was 139,296,000.

The number of employed Americans in summer of 2004 was 139,556,000.

So there are 260,000 fewer people working today than when George Bush was in his first term as president. Yet, the US population grew during the period from 2004 to 2011 by almost 20 million—from 292,892,000 in July 2004 to 312,150,000 today.

Tens of millions of Americans who have stopped looking for work, who never had work or who are severely underemployed live in the shadows—unreflected in the official figures. “Long-term unemployment remains at record levels, and 25 million Americans who want work can’t get full-time jobs,” says National Employment Law Project director Christine Owens. “Midlife job losers fear they’ll never work again, while young people yearn for any start. Economic growth has barely dented the yawning jobs deficit, and those jobs we are adding are largely low-wage. Earnings are stagnant for most workers and have fallen for the lowest-paid.”

As job growth literately grinds to a halt, the crisis becomes all the more evident. And Owens states the obvious yet critical point: “This distressing news sets the stage for President Obama’s address to Congress next week on jobs and the economy.”

President Obama is starting to recognize this reality.

He’s going to give that “major” address to Congress on Thursday.

And he’s going to talk about some kind of jobs program.

But Obama has yet to display the sense of urgency that is required.

He wasted the summer on a ridiculous debt-ceiling debate that—with the establishment of the Congressional “super committee” on debt and deficit reduction—“ended” with a commitment to continue the wrangling.

Now, even as he has focused on the jobs crisis, Obama continues to send weak signals.

The worst of those weak signals took the form of the wrestling this week over when to schedule his speech before Congress.

With America teetering on the brink of potentially severe recession, a president who is in charge does not worry about scheduling conflicts with a partisan debate involving his potential opponents—as Obama did—or a football game. He says that some issues are more important than politics or football.

Obama did not do that. It was a mistake.

There is much talk about how the president has to “go big” with his jobs speech. There’s no question that this is true. But there are many ways to “go big.” For Obama to succeed next week—and he must succeed if he hopes to right the course not just of his presidency but of the economy—he must hit all the bases.

1. His speech must inspire confidence that he has a plan for job creation, that the plan can he measured in real time and that there is an end goal. Obama cannot talk vaguely about creating jobs or improving the economy. He ought not peddle false hope or fantasy, He should come on strong with specfic plans, specific goals and specific timelines,

2. To inspire that confidence, he must be willing to say that his plan is essential and cannot be compromised or dialed down. Obama’s failure to do this with the original stimulus plan of 2009 robbed that initiative of the resources needed to provide a sufficient jump-start to the economy.

3. Obama’s plan must provide incentives for the private sector to create jobs in the United States—not overseas. If he includes a major free-trade component his initiative will—according to studies by government and non-government analysts—lead to increased unemployment.

4. Obama’s plan must recognize that the most severe layoffs right now are taking place at the state and local government and school district levels—550,000 jobs lost since the fall of 2008. State and local government layoffs are triply damaging to the economy, as they create greater unemployment, reduce buying power for teachers and others who tend to spend a lot on Main Street for supplies, and cut services that are more needed in a time of recession. The president needs to include federal funding to keep local government functioning and even, where possible, to expand services. CAF’s Hickey is right when he says: “The policy of our government is systematically undermining the recovery. Public sector layoffs are undermining consumer buying power, crippling the ability of the private sector to sell products and services. Clearly, President Obama must reverse this downward spiral by creating jobs directly, putting money in consumer’s pockets, and helping small and large companies to find buyers and invest in growth.”

5. Obama has to talk about how to fund his program, so that he does not get bogged down in the usual DC debate about spending. If the debate about renewing the economy becomes a spending fight, Republicans in the House will prevent anything meaningful from happening. There has to be a revenue component and Obama should be talking about taxing Wall Street and financial speculation. Even if he does not get everything he asks for, it will shift the focus of the debate away from the spending fight to a real dialogue about whether billionaires ought to aid a recovery—or continue to stream money out of the real economy and into the paper economy of the speculators.

The president should take a cue from Progressive Democrats of America national director Tim Carpenter, who says, “America’s working families have lost their homes, jobs, and healthcare. Young people can’t afford the price of college, can’t find jobs, and older folks can’t retire because of an economy destroyed by greedy Wall Street corporations. It is only fair that Wall Street pay for the destruction they have wrought.”