Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Two things that have taken a lot of heat lately is the Economic Stimulus and the Social Security insurance for America. In front of the federal budget deficit commission he argued that deficit spending is the best way to reduce and stabilize the national debt by stabilizing the economy and creating jobs. Meanwhile, others are defending Social Security against those who would continue to eliminate or privatize it.
Trumka brought his common sense arguments on how the Stimulus should be allowed to finish it's work:
We must have a job-centered approach to stabilizing the national debt, which would bring us closer to our goal of sustainable, broadly shared prosperity.
To a great extent, the size of the deficit depends on employment and growth. When employment and growth are weak, tax revenues are low and social assistance expenditures are high. When employment and growth are strong, the reverse is true.
Without a significant reduction in the trade deficit, only economic stimulus in the form of deficit spending can make up for the remaining shortfall of aggregate demand until private sector demand regains its footing.
http://blog.aflcio.org/...
Trumka also stated "We believe it is only fitting" for working Americans to expect Wall St. to help rebuild the economy it was so instrumental in crashing. He called for a financial speculation tax to raise $100 billion to invest in rebuilding American infrastructure for the 21st century. He went on to warn how failure to invest in our own infrastructure will cause even lower rates of economic growth and tax intake for the government. He gave an example of how history can teach the best way of reviving the economy:
The example of the postwar boom—when an economic strategy of broadly shared prosperity with strong unions and shrinking inequality paid off enormous dividends—shows us the way forward.
Catch his whole testimony here:
http://www.aflcio.org/...
And of course he is right. Before any American hammers the Stimulus too hard they should consider this. It did succeed in preventing our nation from falling into a full blown Depression. It did greatly increase the number of people employed and increased the number of full-time jobs. It also increased American GDP by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2010. I would shutter to think what would have happened to our economy without it.
As always, the best way to have less debt is to increase tax revenues. To do this you expand the middle-class with higher wages. When more people make more money they naturally have more to spend and pay more in taxes. This helps everything across the board. Why it should not make sense to put more money in the form of wages in the hands of more people who in turn can spend it and revive the economy is completely beyond me but it seems as if nobody will stand up and say it. We did here.
And before America goes to the polls in the fall and makes John Boehner the Speaker of the House they should remember one thing. If they do they will most likely not see a penny of the money the put in Social Security if they are not currently drawing it. Just this week he called for cutting benefits and raising the retirement age for drawing:
House Republican Leader John Boehner said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review out today that he would back raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 for those who will not retire for another 20 years.
The comment - along with Boehner's statement that the financial reform compromise reached last Friday creates a bill that amounts to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon" -- has drawn the attention of Democrats eager to cast the GOP as uncaring about the problems of average Americans.
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
A nuclear bomb on an ant?? Give me a break!! The financial industry got coddled as to what it should have gotten. Just like the fatcats on Wall St. the fatcats within the Republican Party refuse to believe that the policies they enacted when they controlled Washington are still causing real pain among Americans and still need to be addressed. Their only solution is gutting your Social Security as a ruse to continue fighting in Afghanistan.
The Executive Director of Alliance for retired Americans, Edward F. Coyle laid out one of the many reasons why raising the age limit would be such a disaster for so many Americans:
"Current and future retirees should be suspicious of 'sky is falling' predictions of doom for Social Security and Medicare. These warnings mask an ongoing ideological agenda to cut benefits to current and future retirees. Instead, we should focus on strengthening Social Security by raising the cap on earnings, and ending the nearly 20 percent overpayment that taxpayers give to the big insurance companies to offer privatized Medicare Advantage programs.
"Today's reports are a reminder that we must focus our energies on the lasting benefits of improving our economy and reforming our nation's health care system. This is neither the time nor place for ideology or heated rhetoric. Instead, our nation's retirees are looking to Washington to take specific steps to improve retirement security in America."
http://www.retiredamericans.org/...
Americans should be very wary and make their choices wisely this fall. While I have been as disappointed as anyone in Democratic leadership one thing rings true. Return of power to Republicans means none of the problems get addressed. They will expect American workers, seniors and poor to shoulder the burden of the policies they allowed to crash the economy instead of those who actually crashed the economy and were bailed out.
It is time we took a truly American approach to all these problems. Investing in our own country, raising wages to grow the middle-class and keeping our promises to current and future retirees. A robust economy will only re-emerge when we spread the wealth for everyone to spend and quit waging war on working America. That is the war that has cost us the most the last few decades.