Obama announces his New Deal for the 21st Century
By David Neiwert Saturday Dec 06, 2008 1:00pm
President-elect Barack Obama this morning announced the broad architecture of his economic-recovery plan (see the weekly address video here).
As the New York Times reports, the centerpiece of the plan is a massive investment in public works, similar to FDR's economic-recovery plan in the 1930s:
President-elect Barack Obama committed Saturday to the largest public works construction program since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy.
With unemployment on the rise and no end to the recession in sight, Mr. Obama began highlighting elements of the economic recovery program he is trying to fashion with Congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20.
Mr. Obama’s remarks sought to expand the definition of traditional work programs for the middle class, like infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, while also pushing a federal effort to bring in new-era jobs in technology and so-called green jobs.
Although he put no price tag on it, he said he would invest record amounts of money in the vast infrastructure program, which also includes work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electric grids, dams and other public utilities. He vowed to upgrade computers in schools, expand broadband Internet access, make government buildings more energy efficient and improve information technology at hospitals and doctors’ offices.
The CNN report above discusses some of the political complications involved, particularly in the context of the national debate over the bailout for the Big Three automakers. But as Russ Wellen notes, the plan includes such features as an attention to broadband access, which demonstrate the Obama does appear to be keeping his eye on the ball.
All this suggests that perhaps Obama is heeding Paul Krugman's advice:
The economic lesson is the importance of doing enough. F.D.R. thought he was being prudent by reining in his spending plans; in reality, he was taking big risks with the economy and with his legacy. My advice to the Obama people is to figure out how much help they think the economy needs, then add 50 percent. It’s much better, in a depressed economy, to err on the side of too much stimulus than on the side of too little.
In short, Mr. Obama’s chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are sufficiently bold. Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity.
As Steve Benen says, "January can't come soon enough."
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Foreign debt is the problem, taxes really don't matter until that is dealt with.
C&L a few weeks back posted Peter Schiff Was Right
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/peter-sc...
I agree 100% with Peter and if you watch the video a few times not only can you see how wrong the pundits were but you will also discover Peter is against the bailout. Everyone should read his book 'Crash Proof'.
At 7:55 in the video you here him tell us the 'government needs to cut spending', people we can kiss social security, medicaid, medicare goodbye, sorry. Military spending will also be sharply curtailed. If we don't do it by choice, we will have it forced on us as a result of doing the wrong things now.
No question Obama is in a tight spot, and no solution is easy but some thing not to do are easy to pick out.
Social Security cap needs to be raised. Nobody should take away what little there is left for the elderly.
everyone that earns a paycheck should pay into it from all their income.
and since it's highly regressive, the percentage should be lowered after the cap is removed. at the least for the lowest income earners.
Businesses the globe over are all clamouring for their share of (insert nation's name here) tax dollars. It's robbing the poor, and giving to the rich on a massive scale that infastructure programs will not cure. So you give a person $2000 tax dollars a month to repair a road. His bills are $2200 a month, same as before. So he takes his pay and pays his bills. The project ends. Now where does he get a job??? Oh ya, I forgot. Infastructure programs work because big business picks up the slack. Well, sorry, but Big Business is busy right now, picking at the rotten corpse of the taxpayer's wallet. I don't know what the cure all is for this Depression, but government infastructure programs don't work. Didn't work in the first Great Depression. Won't work now.
infrastructure programs helped many during the Great Depression in all walks of life. And we can still see the results of many of the works in the arts, in dams and energy, in teaching and many more. My dad was able to open his own theater and helped many starving actors keep their head above water.
On their own, infastructure programs do no more than pay people to do something, rather than just sending them a welfare cheque. At the end of the programs, there has to be private businesses to take over and offer jobs. Without that, what diff does it make? Very little. It just prolongs the inevitable.
They are jobs that have been ignored and need to be done. Maybe you want to drive across the bridge that is about to collapse but I don't.
disrepair, then it is really long overdue, isn't it? It still will mean not much when the bridge is repaired, but nobody can afford to drive on it because they are once again unemployed.
Except that you're ignoring the fact that with coast to coast broadband, improved electrical grids, better roads, etc. WILL BE beneficial for private business start ups and longevity.
And why don't you take your bullshit welfare check rhetoric back to drudge or wherever else you slithered out from.
In the meantime, people can feed their families, and get money flowing through the economy again, creating/keeping other jobs intact. In the end, you've got something to show for it, that hopfully improves life and business conditions.
During that time, businesses and individuals tighten their belts and get their debts paid down, maybe even re-train with new skills.
Just sending a scant welfare cheque helps no one.
You can't be serious about eliminating social programs that help the neediest.
I do agree about cutting the military, even as so far as to bring home all of the personel from other countries. But even then, these men and women must be given jobs, perhaps doing the infrastructure fixes that are needed.
There is plenty of work to be done, blue collar as well as high tech, white collar work.
But you don't cut off the people who need services just to stay alive. That is heartless and doomed to failure, at least morally.
I'm saying these programs have been bankrupt for years. Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are already walking corpses. Our social security dollars has been replaced with bonds (a.k.a. IOU's) and the promises made on Medicaid and Medicare total $53 trillion to retiring baby boomers.
Progressively each year more retiring boomers will begin to stress a system that did not plan for them to live the longer lives they currently are. Nor did the system plan for the succeeding Generation X which must support them to be 1/3rd smaller than the parents generation.
Heartless?
* Heartless is the government who wrote IOU's on their retirement with careless abandon for the last 30 years.
* Heartless is the ERISA act of 74 that put their nest egg retirements into mutual funds and handed it to the Wall Street fox.
* Heartless are those who lied to people about their 401k’s and IRA’s into believing they would only go up in value never stopping to think for a moment there are more mutual funds than public companies, more sellers than buyers. BTW Wall Street wants your pension too now see here.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/...
Obama cannot save social security, Medicaid, or Medicare, or even his health plan
I would love for all of this to be there for me when I retire but Obama can’t save these programs. To his credit he will try but there are no tricks that will make the bad math add up.
If you want to know more research these:
60 Minutes - Head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) David Walker says that the U.S. economy is unsustainable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Q14HOBThM&fe...
I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized - The 30 Minute Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo
Page 16 of FISCAL YEAR 2007 U.S. GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS - GAO
Sustained Improvement in Financial Management Is Crucial to Improving Accountability and Addressing the Long-Term Fiscal Challenge
The on-budget deficit includes all budgetary accounts other than those designated by law as off-budget. The off-budget accounts are the Postal Service and Social Security trust funds. The unified budget is a comprehensive measure of all federal activities, including those that are on-budget and off-budget.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08926t.pdf
Also read Rich Dad’s Prophesy by Robert Kiyosaki ISBN:0-446-69034-1
Except that millions of retirees are using medicare and receiving SSI checks with no issues. You are here to spread your right wing bullshit about there being no money for social programs. There's plenty of money for SSI when we decide there is.
Mike I voted for Obama, as an investor I have known about this for years and I have prepared for this moment. You didn't even read the post, one of the links is our own government's 2007 Financial statement telling you social security is an 'off budget item' try that in the private sector and not get arrested. Why do you think they keep it off budget? HINT: It's how the government gets to technically not lie when it BS's you into thinking the economy is fine.
Your belief in what I have presented does not matter, the physical reality cares not what you or I think. It will come to pass regardless. If you want to keep your head in the sand there is nothing I can do to stop you.
You really think these are right wing lies? My livelihood, my work is with a company that has CMS Medicaid and Medicare government contracts, we save the government money. If these programs die I'm out of a great job, the best job I've had to date. All of us who work there know our commercial business needs to be strong because we know these programs will likely get gutted or seriously modified somewhere down the road, they won't survive past 2040 and probably sooner. So go ahead don't believe me.
SS is not a handout, it's a "saving account" you all pay into. The baby boomers paid their share according to their numbers, and if it were managed correctly there should be no problem. As it hasn't been, the baby boomers are not whiners, the government is criminally negligent and should be charged with theft.
The Bush government who looted the treasury in 2001 (before 9/11) should be charged with theft!
It is pay as you go.
I always hear the same tired propaganda said about the SS and Medicare shortfall problems. Very rarely does any politicion tell the truth about it, and then it gets dropped by the MSN the next day. SS is sound, as is medicare. Because it had such a huge surplus just sitting there, our rapacious politicians put forth the idea of moving it into the general fund and spending it. When the people heard about it and raised a tremendous outcry, they were pacified by another big lie, (SS can never go broke, as long as we in congress, HAVE THE POWER TO TAX). So they took our old age savings, spent it on things they didn't want to raise taxes to pay for, and now don't want to do the right thing and re-fund this vital and necessary safetnet. One more thing, SS was never supposed to be a retirement account, only a supplement to whatever you did for your retirement. But who can save for a retirement, the banks won't pay any decent interest on a savings account, and if you invest any of your hard earned money in stocks,bonds, etc, the big players will figure out a way to steal it. So SS is an imperative for the vast majority of citizens.
It's that ending we saw before, the deregulators lose, living wage ends.
They hates it.
see http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2008/12/marke...
Is basically working for the taxpayers. Unfortunately, the taxpayers don't have jobs, so they aren't taxpayers. So, who pays for the infastructure jobs? Credit? Borrowing money from Visa to pay Mastercard? That doesn't work.
The Interstate Highway system, which was sold by Eisenhower on the basis of national security, is a major source of our problems.
He said that we could evacuate the cities in case of nuclear attack. What a joke. Try rush hour on a normal day.
We tore up our major cities, which were beautiful, to build highways to the farmlands surrounding them.
We created the FHA which offered mortgages on NEW HOUSES with 5% down but required much more for existing houses.
Developers bought the farm land, plowed it under and built new houses.
The conglomerate of car companies, tire companies and oil companies bought up or otherwise dispatched the usually highly effiicient mass transit that was in place.
The cities were torn up for the expressways and the great rush was on to our Suburban NIRVANA.
OH WRETCH!
The cities were abandoned by everyone who could afford to get out and here we are.
The car companies are going broke, the country is going broke, we have an infrastructure that cannot be adapted to do what we need to do.
What we need is precisely what we tore up. Higher density cities with viable mass transit.
This is what happens when government is bought and paid for by private interests.
We still have best government that money can buy. Look out!
What a wretched vile piece of shit have we created.
Seems kind of silly to repair failing superhighways, if there is no need for them anyway. "Look at that shiny new highway we done built, Jed. Too bad there is nobody around these parts that can afford a vehicle to drive on it."
You worry about what Harper is doing and we will hold Obama's feet to the fire.
Harper is all but history, as are the other political morons in Ottawa. I would think though that you would be a Harper supporter, considering he is more to the left politically than Obama.
Like it or not, freeways are a significant component of our system of commerce for the foreseeable future, simply because of the amount of trucking commerce that occurs on them. We may not need them in 20 years, if we develop rail systems adequately, but we will need them in the interim.
The Government of Canada sponsored a wonderful rail system decades ago. Finished it at a staggering cost, basically gave it away to big corporations like Canadian National Railways, and today if you are lucky enough to live near one that hasn't been tore out, it's amazing to watch the trains. Unfortunately, most of their few remaining railways go nowhere.
Highways are the lifeblood of commerce for now. We may be able to get to a point where mass transit can take over the bulk of goods, but for now, we need decent, safe roads.
We'll always need good highways just to move goods to market. Crumbling roads and collapsing bridges won't get the bread to the people who want bread. And I don't think the solution is to let them eat cake.
Every time I go to Toronto I am very impressed.
As long as I don't get on an expressway and try to drive anywhere.
I can make it from Detroit to Mississauga in three hours, as long as the mounties are not out giving speeding tickets.
The last twenty miles can take two hours. It is much better to take the subway. I can never understand why they have a functional mass transit yet there is seemingly half of the population on the few expressways there are, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
I like Toronto, high density. Same population as Detroit in one quarter of the area.
Expressway in Toronto speak, means, everyone on now and give 'er hell. LOL.
Our own poor planning (in hindsight) many years ago, and our own addiction to the automobile. 'Nuff said? The QEW is a main artery in Southern Ontario, but it is "depression era" thinking, and the population centres have mushroomed.
They've been slowly expaning our GO Train (subsidized Government of Ontario commuter) service, and it is much better to go in that way, but we loves our cars too. They're double-decker, and sometimes express, trains.
Alice, you could park in Burlington or Oakville and go in by train. That means leaving your car behind.
From Wiki:
The Queen Elizabeth Way originally started as a divided-highway upgrade of the Middle Road between Highway 27 and Highway 10 in 1931. At the time, the Middle Road was one of the first examples of a divided highway anywhere in North America,[3] and it was the forerunner to the current superhighway. Various upgrades during the 1940s and 1950s brought the Queen Elizabeth Way up to modern freeway standards between Toronto and Hamilton, and later over its entire length.
It is named for the Queen Mother, not Elizabeth I or II.
Anyway, Canada too needs to get off cars and onto trains. Personally, I love taking trains!!!!
PS another tip, my friend pointed out to me a few summers ago (even though I am Canadian myself), is drive at supper time. It's like some magic bell goes off and we all head home to the dinner table. Weird shit, but I noticed it's TRUE, amazing, but true.
The dollar will tank and oil will be headed for the stratosphere again.
It is not a matter of if, but when.
When gasoline is $4 a gallon again, or $8 which will also happen, we will again hear screams of bloody hell.
Petroleum is a finite resource, India and China want to do what we are doing, which burn it like it is going out of style.
When these prices hit again, the truckers are going to be screaming bloody murder, just as they were this summer.
Everything they carry will be inflating in price with the sinking dollar and the inflating prices for petroleum.
It is like gravity. You can jump out the window and have a nice flight for a minute.
Our time is ending for the petroleum based economy, we had best learn the hard lessons.
Obama is certainly smart enough to know this, but the corporations only care about the next quarter's bottom line.
They do not think long term.
the history of the part of Illinois where I grew up, 50 miles west of Chicago, during the period 1955 - today.
Answer: Railroads.
The existing interstate highways will make excellent beds for rail, for passengers and for freight.
I agree 100% - the interstate highway system was an enormous cash cow for the auto industry, the real estate developers, and the politicians who had their hands in the till.
If you track the development of the Interstate Highway Bill, guess whose fingerprints are all over it? Prescott Bush!!!
...is like handing a gift to the oil companies. Obama campaigned on ending our addiction to foreign oil, promised to expand mass transist, expand use of alternative energy such as wind and solar, and yet none of these things are even mentioned in his new 'public works program.' Nice bait and switch, eh?
He said the States will have to use the money on his projects or lose the money.
They should put that in a bill for the bank bailouts.
Loan the money or lose it.
Remember Naomi Klein on Colbert?
She's right yet again!
clean up bank balance sheets?
Until those balance sheets are wiped clean, the financial system will be in distress, which means the worldwide economy will be in distress.
I'm all for solar plants and a vastly improved rail system. But I'd want these whether or not the U.S. were in an economic crisis.
... if it just sits in the bank. Money needs to get out and move around. Infrastructure projects are a good way to get money moving through the economy.
most of the people made out ok. 60 to 70 percent still kept it together. If we do nothing just because 30 or 40 percent don't have jobs, then we all lose. Yes, times were very difficult for even those who had the jobs but they got through it. I can't believe the pessimism I am reading here from some. It's time to roll up our shirtsleeves and get to work doing what we can. Or are we saying the people in the 1930s were smarter and better workers than we are now? A job, doing something is better than the loss of pride. A man needs a job. A woman needs a job. And there is lots to be done.
During the 30's the majority of the US population worked on farms.
They had food.
Now over 95% of the population depends solely on food produced and distributed by the big corporations.
BIG difference.
Way down South, where I grew up and still live, there are beautiful stone buildings left over from the New Deal. I have interviewed dozens of elderly folks over the years who worked in cooperatives, canning local produce, shelling pecans, making cloth. It worked then and it can work again. The naysayers can sit back and watch, if they like. If you can't plant something you can always sprout your food in Mason jars, it costs only pennies (and they have a delightful crunch.)
I'm sorry, but it takes a LOT of poverty to scare a 4th-generation Arkansan.
Hard times doesn't scare some of us.
I love growing and canning/freezing shit. I'm thinking about learning how to knit and sew, as hobbies. It's very theraputic to use your hands and arms. It stimulates your heart chakra, and that's what America needs most right now. :-)
played in a park and swam in the swimming pool, also built during the new deal
both were beautiful as artisans were used
both still stand today....60 years later
its not just a works program that needs to be instituted, but an entire mindset change...that might be harder
Step one is to banish your negative thinking. Step two is take the first step (fearlessly) in the new journey. That is what life is all about. "Winners" know this.
Often gets the same results.
??????
We were on the same track at 14:02, that's fun!
as an old yankee once said, it's time to quit chawin' an' git ta work! Hard work and hard times can be fun if you just keep at it.
where is he going to get all the people it really takes to build an infrastructure? jesus christ it takes experienced workers to build roads , dams , bridges, you people aint humgry enough yet to go out and work in 30 below weather or snow up around your ears, or rain so hard it feels like hail hitting you, what you figure it takes to be a steel worker repairing a bridge or a carpenter, concrete, finisher this aint the thirtys and everybody cant stand around with a broom or a shovel,and get paid for it, its pie in the sky folks , and whats going to happen when you start scabbing on the comstruction unions ,you want to break them , hell it even takes skills that are learned over yrs just to be a laborer, id love to see a bunch of jackleggs build a power plant! and dont think your going home every night to the old lady youll be liveing in tents and portable houseing , buying your grub from the politicians buddys and crapping in portapottys over running from not being cleaned in a month , flys mosquitos biteing your ass day and night,
look on the bright side. ; )
Great post tyree.
I am an experienced land surveyor, so I know all about the outdoors stuff, and through Canadian winters. Brrrr... hours on end out in blizzards, trudging through frozen swamps, and mosquito-infested ones in summer!!! It's no desk job. March onward boys (and girls). It can be done.
Then an attitude adjustment, then a lesson in circular economy (as opposed to closed economy) -- plus You Can't Tax Barter.
The IRS has form 1099-B exactly for the purpose of reporting barter.
It is treated as income.
Here are the merry facts.
copy-paste
"The term does not include arrangements that provide solely for the informal exchange of similar services on a noncommercial basis."
...it only applies to businesses and people who have "Incorporated"
...screw the IRS!
I don't remember much hullaballoo from other incoming administrations, other than cabinet picks and stupid, useless political mandates during the last 40 years.. I don't know about you but, it sure does feel positive to think that the leader of the nation gives more than a rat's ass about the well being of it's citizens. Call me whatever you want. I'm downright proud!
I mean, we elected Obama, now let's see what we all can do together.
I meant "not even yet the leader of the nation"? Again, very proud!
Me too, and I'm not American.
I'm willing to bet we all have fabulous ideas, but were never inspired to pursue them: it was easier just to go along "with the crowd". Now we all have a chance to prove our stuff.
Obama has inspired far more than the 50 states.
That's one vision, but what would happen if everybody just started planting and growing nice edible THINGS? Grow the way to a green economy.
Building the way to a green economy? Solar trolleys for starters.
It sounds great, but will there be an improved rail system as part of it? Rail is cheaper and faster than road, and can be as fast as air travel; it takes less time to go from London to Paris by rail than by plane when time to and from the airport are included, and the same time from New York to Washington.
It's not just inner cities that need new rail, or the eastern US, or a national freight/travel system. With massive projects being created to energize the world economy, a clear shortage of (and need to end the addiction to) oil, and the threat of rising sea levels, the time is now to start thinking about a worldwide rail network - Europe to Asia already exists, and a combined US/Canada/Alaska/Russia system is feasible. Freight can be transported faster and cheaper than by air or cargo, and with less pollution too.
In time, we may see air travel and oil use limited to island nations (Taiwan, Australia) and between Europe and North America. And we'd all be better off for it, worldwide.
In the 1950s America had one of the best train systems on the planet. Then the love affair with the automobile took over, and the trains became neglected relics of a "bygone era".
Korea now has its own (Korean built) TGV and there are plans to link it to Japan's. This stuff takes time, but... One day to China too, but N. Korea is there, effectively making South Korea an island nation.
Certainly America can do it. Korea was the poorest nation in Asia in the 1950s. Look at it now!! (In the top 13 worldwide.)
Expanding mass transit, expanding the nation's use of alternative energies such as wind and solar, would go a long way towards ending our addiction to foreign oil, and yet none of these things which Obama himself campaigned so hard on are even mentioned in this new plan. And saying that you're going to expand the highway system is like a gift to the Oil Companies. That is NOT the way to end our dependence on foreign oil something Obama made such a big deal about during his campaign, and yet fail to even mention anymore. Do I sense a bait and switch here?
Notice Obama said he "looks forward to working with the new congress" to get started on his proposals.
JANUARY 6th
31 days from today.
you see this aint the thirtys or fourtys, back then many did grow thier vegatables , raise chickens rabbits ,some had a cow,even hogs now this was in the citys back then they bartered for a chicken or duck you name it you had something to trade now thier are ordinances against raiseing stock in the citys, and most people who can can food will getcha poisoned ! food poison that is, ah the good old days!
Many people have suburban backyards, often the best farmland, sitting idle. Victory gardens needed. Know what I mean? My (not as well off) neighbours had a big patch out back, a big freezer and mason jars, and it got them through the winters nicely.
This is the kind of "can-do" attitude that is disappearing. Instead of victory gardens, we get told to go shopping. I believe a lot of people in this country are starving for decent leadership.
When the towers were hit, even though I didn't like Bush, I stood right there side by side with my fellow Americans. Then the right-wing started saying I was treasonous for not goosestepping all the way to Baghdad. Well...how do you stand side by side with that? I decided I wasn't educated enough in politics. I started studying more and now I know, the right wing will not be reasoned with.
after 9/11, we shoulda been told to prepare to sacrifice
we were told to continue living in lala land
i think people are ready for a leader who will be more truthful
carter tried it....but we werent ready then...so we bought into reagans bullshit
i think america might be ready now
if not...the union may finally come to a crashing end
I have to agree with those who are perplexed by the level of pessimism on this thread. My god, have we become so inured to the Bush years that we still believe we're too screwed to do anything about it anymore?
The idea that we can't afford to do this because it's only make-work paid for by taxpayers who will only be employed to do the make-work... what horseshit. The unemployment rate is truly awful, yes. But THE ENTIRE COUNTRY is not unemployed! The lack of skills currently being produced by our woefully lacking educational system is truly awful, yes. But THE ENTIRE COUNTRY isn't made up of completely braindead, ignorant wasters.
This is a HUGE country, with 300 million plus people in it. There are still plenty of intelligent, inventive, energetic Americans willing to get behind a Yes We Can attitude to reinvigorate both our existing infrastructure, which forms the basis for any economic stability, as well as our ability to create new jobs from new industries.
We have blithely sunk huge amounts of money into the military industrial complex for decades, to create... what? To pay people to do... what? To build, create, invent... what? I can't think of a more counter-productive and ultimately self-defeating industry than one dedicated to making money out of destruction and death. If we spent just half of what we have over the past ten years on blowing up things, and other people, on building roads and bridges and - yes - rail systems so our children can get to refurbished schools to learn those skills needed to rebuild cities abandoned like New Orleans, or to create new industries in agriculture and energy and housing and communications that invent and create new things which could make all our lives better, if not grandly even saving the entire planet at the same time, this recession would be over so fast we'd be wondering what the hell we were so worried about.
We still have the resources to do it, in our vast population, in our natural resourses. Our economy is on its knees, but it's not on its face. I, for one, am tired of the 'oh well, we're screwed, nothing we can do, the fat cats have taken everything, so us little people might as well just sit back and wait for the world to end and the Lord Jesus to come rescue us all' GOP insanity.
I for one will give Obama the chance. It's a no-brainer, people; We've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. So stop yer bitchin', get off yer asses, roll up your sleeves, and DO IT.
Sheesh.
I like it when "our mouse" roars. :-)
*blushes, scuffs toe*
You brought tears to my eyes!
well said nonny now its time for you to come home and join in the rebuilding!
...this is the very first time in more than twenty years of living outside the US as an ex-pat that I've even been tempted.
I've got a PhD to see through to the end, I'm not walking away from that. But when that's done, where I go to use it is an open question. A year ago, I would never have considered 'coming home'. Now I have even started, oddly enough, of thinking of the States as... home. In the meantime, I'll be something else I haven't been for a long, long time. A proud American living overseas, an ex-pat happy to be seen again by the world AS an American!
Home.
My god, how long it's been since I could think of the States like that. And how good it feels!
Unemployment and health care.
I have my own new deal I would like to see enacted. First raise the minimum wadge to about $12.50 per hour and it goes up yearly based on the COLA. Next about a 250 billion dollar national public works project but can only be applied for and administrated by city and county governments. Raise the gas tax by about 50 cents a gallon and split that money between the national high way system and national project to put solar panels on every roof. Put tariffs on every manufactured product imported into this county based on the cost of labor. If it cost a dollar to manufacture a product in this county base on prevailing US wadges and it cost 25 cents to manufacture something over seas then the tariff to bring it into the US would be 75 cents per unit. Make the tax rate for people making more then about 750,000 about 65% and 1.5 million and above to about 75%. Allow everyone to buy into Medicare at a rate about 65% of what private insureance costs plus make every hospital in the US be manditory non profit. That would be enough for starters
i might point out besides most workers today arent qulified to work in construction that thoes who do will be considered scabs union busters for a nation wide industry, you will be responsible for destroying the unions and thier pension funds , retired union members will lose thier monthly checks they spent a life time of hard work getting, chalk up another victory for the union busters, you think the unions are going to take scabs stealing thier bread , i dont think so, youll have to fight them for every job you steal from them!
Everyone thinks the grandiose theme will be union construction jobs for the masses. Um..it doesn't work that way. At all. And, I might point out, the way the companies enact said infastructure program is all perfectly legal. The government will basically subsidize construction paying not worker's full wages but a percentage. The company is then to top up the wages. The companies will not. And for those that think that some fancy new ideas will come of it all? I doubt it very highly. Everything will have paper jockey engineers behind it that know squat about the real world. Been there. Done that.
well concerned its for sure the governments going to just give a guy a barely liveing wage and you wont be getting any benifts , and about the only thing youll be able to buy with thier chicken feeds crap from china, after these loons break the construction unions theyll kick thier scabs to the curb, probably the most time the boot lickers will gets two yrs of work , then its back to the streets !
And those that luckily get those "high paying union construction jobs" will be lucky not to be killed while doing them. Just as anything the government helps with. There is an old saying. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." Usually means they will gloat and pat themselves on the back while screwing the poor and downtrodden.
well they butcherd osha and except for the union construction workers if your told to get down in a ten ft deep ditch four feet wide and work without any safety equipment such as jacks and timbers or cages your takeing your life in someone elses hands, im allso tired of posters saying your bitching when your pointing out some unpopular facts!wise up folks constructions dangerous enough with experienced guys on the job , greenhorns get folks killed!
The same people that only trust "experienced" politicians and political families, are more than willing to let some unknowns build their bridge. Oh ya. That's a great idea.
yeah the politicians and the rich rat bastards will be scared to cross thoes bridges theyll take helicopters to stay safe! i have worked construction for 25 yrs power plants dams high rises you name it and i know what im talking about,
Me too similar. Been in residential, commercial and industrial construction for more than two decades myself. I'm a supervisor now, but even my hours have been drastically cut back due to the great economy. I could see one of my projects being done by all new guys. Ya, costs wouldn't go through the roof and quality fall below ground level.
well the most i ever got up in grade was general foreman and i hated it , funny it was a brown and root company, and theyd send these collge boys out to us in the summer time and the lazy bastards just wanted to lean on thier shovel all day, hell one of these jerks is now my wifes dentist!
hired a decent worker in almost 7 years. Even the summer students are completely worthless whiners that do nothing or next to nothing, but want big ass paychecks. It's annoying. Too many want jobs, but don't want to work, or learn anything. They all want office jobs in the hitech industry, cuz you don't have to work.
heh heh guess things havent changed much since i retired, course its the kids with suck that get sent out on the job, they dont feel like they have to really earn thier pay, and they made the rest of us look bad,
Hell, they've got worse tyree. I cringe at the abilities of some of them. Don't know how they wipe their own butts without their mommies. I've got very few more years before retirement (hopefully) as long as there is something left to retire to and we haven't given it all away to the big corporations and rich.
well good luck on the retirement thing,
... whimper and whine like a couple of dribblers at the old folks home. Stand back out of the way, please, while the able-bodied get to work.
you want to scab junior , scab on the truckers union, you cross a union picket line and pop goes the weasel weasel!now step back and watch your tough ass get the scabs removed
Since the Republicans found out Barack Obama wanted to use the auto industry to initiate part of his recovery plan, there has been a partisan divide developing to make sure he fails. CNN is also taking there usual conservative accommodation stance by releasing polls that claim to support the conservative few.
First, there does not seem to be a statement of non support of the Auto industry within the poll they cited. When you ask the following: "Based on what you have read or heard, do you favor or oppose this program?" You are not asking if there is totally no support for the auto industry. At best, you are asking with what you have scene so far will you support the auto company.
This poll seem to say the same thing Congress told the auto makers the first time they appeared on capital hill. So why is CNN saying there is "little support" for the auto makers. The question "will you never support the auto makers" was never asked. At the time of the poll, there was no plan to support or not support , so why could CNN report anything related to support for the auto industry? Oh, by the way, this poll was released on the day the auto makers returned to congress for the second time. This is partisan media reporting that deserves the same kind of change we need in Washington.
Joseph
Obama will be the savior of our nation. FDR and Lincoln have nothing on this talented young president.
Christofascists beware. The nondenominational left is here to stay.
I don't get it. Throughout the entire campaign, Obama made a huge deal about ending our 'addiction to foreign oil' in his words, as well as expanding the use of solar and wind technology, mass transit, etc. And yet in this so-called 'massive' public works program, none of the things he campaigned so hard on are even mentioned?? What the hell? Do I sense a bait and switch here? Expanding mass transit, expanding use of alternative energies would go a long way towards ending our addiction to foreign oil as well as creating lots of new jobs, and yet none of these things are even mentioned in this new 'plan.' And saying that you're going to expand the highway system is like handing a gift to the Oil Companies.
Obama is going to try what Republicans have already begun; Borrowing America out of Debt! The interest alone is already mind boggling.
More Debt loans, open credit lines, and heavier Debt for the nation and Citizens to purchase Made in Communist China goods we as a nation can not afford!
No-one or government can borrow themselves out of debt.
Buffett supported Obama so he could close plants, shuck 25-year employees into the dumpster, and have Obama tax the classes just above the disemployed for new make-work jobs.
Some change...
Here's the bailout plan that will work: give $50,000 - tax-free - directly and immediately to every individual taxpaying adult.
In 2007 there were approximately 160 million taxpayers (http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102...), so the cost of a direct bailout would come to 8-9 trillion dollars.
Our economy depends primarily on consumer spending, and consumer confidence is at or near all-time lows precisely because people don't feel that there's any breathing room - even those who are currently fully employed.
A direct infusion of capital that large into everyone's pockets would fully restore consumer confidence, stimulate spending and growth, and restore the robustness of our consumer-based economy.
This type of direct bailout would also go a long way towards alleviating all of the other secondary issues that have been the focus of the previous bailout plans.
With $50-100,000 (or more) in every household, people facing foreclosure or other mortgage problems can stay in their homes and have time and equity enough to restructure their mortgages. Those who aren't in any type of financial trouble can choose to invest the windfall (pumping money back into Wall Street), save it (pumping money into banks), or spend it - maybe even on an American-made vehicle.
All of the current plans - and those still in the works - address the symptoms and not the cause of the financial crisis. People either don't have money to spend, or they're afraid to spend the money they have because the future is much too uncertain.
It's time for someone in power to step up and be truly bold, and insist that all further economic measures address the root cause of our problems by giving individuals a large lump sum of cash now.
If such a truly revolutionary move were made, within a week the economy would stop its nosedive, within a month it would be on its way to a strong, stable recovery, and within a quarter we might even be sound enough for the Fed to have to worry about inflation again (much better than stagflation and depression).
This is the new, New Deal America needs right now.
All of the bailouts are using taxpayer money, yet it's the taxpayer who is being shut out - again.
The cost of this proposed taxpayer bailout matches (or only slightly exceeds) the total cost of all of the other plans either in place or under consideration right now. None of the plans in place have worked as expected, none of the new proposals directly address the primary issue (It's the Consumer, Stupid!), and the crisis continues to linger and threatens to deepen even further every minute of every day.
Let Americans decide which industries and businesses should succeed or fail by giving us the financial ability to have a direct and immediate impact on where our money should go.
If we're going to drive the country deeper into debt, shouldn't we - the taxpayers - be the ones spending our own money?
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