If you've had "your fill" of the Blago tour, and Rush Windbag project, and the non-stop spinning from the GOP (the Grand Obstructionist Party) -- How about spending a few minutes on "some News you can use!"
Obama Says Economic 'Disaster' Requires Focus on Middle Class
By Roger Runningen and Holly Rosenkrantz - Bloomberg -- Jan 30 2009
The president cited a Commerce Department report showing the economy shrank 3.8 percent at an annual pace in the last three months of 2008 as he said Vice President Joe Biden will head an expanded task force that will come up with policies to help middle-income Americans.
...
"We have to reverse many of the policies toward organized labor," President Obama said. "I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem."
(Emphasis added)
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
But wait there's Video footage buried on the intertubes ... just turn the page ...
Obama and Biden Announce "Middle Class Task Force" Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/...
Jan 30, 2009
Transcript: The President's Remarks On The Middle Class Task Force
Posted by Brian Montopoli -- CBS News
Barack Obama -- selected exerpts:
... For two years I traveled across this country. I met thousands of people -- hard-working middle-class Americans who shared with me their hopes and their hardships. These are the men and the women who form the backbone of our economy. The most productive workers in the world. They do their jobs. They build the products and provide the services that drive America's prosperity.
...
They need action -- now. They need us to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan -- a plan that will save or create more than 3 million jobs over the next few years and make investments that will serve our economy for years to come. We intend to double our capacity to generate renewable energy while redoubling our efforts to use energy more efficiently. We will rebuild crumbling roads and retrofit aging transit systems and renovate 10,000 schools for our children, and we'll bring health care into the 21st century by computerizing medical records, counting -- saving countless lives and billions of dollars.
...
But passing my plan is not the end, it's just the beginning of what we have to do. We know we need to create jobs, but not just any jobs. We need to create jobs that sustain families and sustain dreams; jobs in new and growing industries; jobs that don't feel like a dead end, but a way forward and a way up; jobs that will foster a vibrant and growing middle class, because the strength of our economy can be measured directly by the strength of our middle class. And that's why I've created the Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, and why I've asked my Vice President, Joe Biden, to lead it.
...
This task force will bring together my economic advisors and members of my Cabinet to focus on policies that will really benefit the middle class, policies to create jobs that pay well and provide a chance to save, to create jobs in growing fields and train workers to fill them, to ensure that workplaces are safe and fair as well as flexible for employees juggling the demands of work and family.
And I think I should note that when I talk about the middle class, I'm talking about folks who are currently on the middle class, but also people who aspire to be in the middle class. We're not forgetting the poor. They are going to be front and center, because they, too, share our American Dream. And we're going to make sure that they can get a piece of that American Dream if they're willing to work for it.
I also believe that we have to reverse many of the policies towards organized labor that we've seen these last eight years, policies with which I've sharply disagreed. I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem, to me it's part of the solution. (Applause.) We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests, because we know that you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement. We know that strong, vibrant, growing unions can exist side by side with strong, vibrant and growing businesses. This isn't a either/or proposition between the interests of workers and the interests of shareholders. That's the old argument. The new argument is that the American economy is not and has never been a zero-sum game. When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper. We can be competitive and lean and mean and still create a situation where workers are thriving in this country.
So I'm going to be signing three executive orders ...
(Emphasis added)
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Now a short break, for some details on those 3 Executive Orders, that begins to "Undo" the previous Adminstration's War on Labor:
Obama touts middle-class task force led by Biden
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 30,
... Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers. The orders will:
* Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
* Reverse a Bush administration order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
* Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
"We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests," Obama said during a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
"I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," he said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement." ...
(Emphasis added)
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Now back to our featured event:
Obama and Biden Announce "Middle Class Task Force" Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/...
January 30, 2009, 12:39 PM
Transcript: The President's Remarks On The Middle Class Task Force
Posted by Brian Montopoli -- CBS News
Joe Biden -- selected exerpts:
It's good to see so many of my friends from -- our friends from organized labor, as well. Welcome back to the White House. (Laughter and applause.)
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I would argue there would be no middle class were there not a organized labor movement that started 150 years ago.
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I think you send a very, very clear signal to everyone in this country who goes to work every day without expecting acclaim or big bonuses -- the people that President Teddy Roosevelt referred to as the "doers of deeds," the men and women who teach our children, who protect our neighborhoods, who build our homes, who staff our hospitals, work on the line -- all those people.
To this, the great American middle class, you have simply said, we're on your side again.
...
even when our economy was growing, there was a -- and it was very solid ground on which to build -- the middle class found itself slipping. Productivity went up almost 20 percent between 2000 and 2007, yet income for working families fell by $2,000 a year. And now with our economy struggling, the pain is significantly worse. Trillions of dollars in home equity, retirement savings, college savings, gone. And every day, more and more Americans are losing their jobs. And for many people, the work of a lifetime has literally disappeared. It's cruel, but it's also -- it's threatening to sap the spirit of the country.
Mr. President, you said it best in your inaugural address, in my view. You said -- and I quote -- "A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous." Quite simply, a strong middle class, in our view, equals a strong America.
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We need to make sure that the benefits of a strengthening economy, which we're looking forward to, reach the people responsible for generating that strength.
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We'll be looking at everything from access to college at the Department of Education, to business development at the Department of Commerce, to child care and elder care with Health and Human Services, to restoring the balance in the workplace with the Department of Labor, and restoring labor's place with the Department of Labor.
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With this task force, we have a single, highly visible group with one single goal: to raise the living standards of the people who are the backbone of this country -- the middle class. Because when they, in fact -- their standard is raised, the poor do better. Every -- and by the way, the wealthy do better, as well. Everyone does better.
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And I want to announce that our executive director will be Dr. Jared Bernstein, a man who has dedicated a substantial portion of his professional career and his writing and studying to the economic issues that most impact on the lives of middle class families.
We're also launching a website today. The website will be AStrongMiddleClass.gov. Now, this website won't just be a source of information. Hopefully it will be a place for conversation, as well. We invite Americans to interact with us in the ideas that they have. It will be a place where people can find out not only what we're doing, but also share their ideas and experiences with us.
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And our first task force meeting will be held in -- on February 27th in Philadelphia. The focus of that meeting will be green jobs -- those jobs that pay well, can't be outsourced, and will help us move toward a cleaner, more self-sufficient energy future. Each month to follow, we will focus on a different concern in a different part of the country: how to make retirement more secure; child and elder care, how to make it affordable; improving workplace safety; getting the cost of college within reach of the vast majority of the American people; help weary parents juggle family and work; and create the jobs for the future.
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This task force, I might add, which coming out of the Vice President's Office will be a bit unique, will be fully transparent -- totally transparent. (Laughter.) We are going to consult. We are going to consult -- (applause.) We are going to consult openly -- openly and publicly without side groups, who can help us develop the most far-reaching, imaginative solutions to help us solve these problems and create the outcome we're looking for.
...
And we'll put all the material from our meetings and any report we produce up on the website. None of this will happen behind closed doors. We want the American people engaged. We want them engaged in the outset.
There are some people who say -- that are somewhat down on the future economic prosperities -- prospects of the country, who say that we've entered an age when only a few people can prosper and everyone else has to fall behind. We do not accept that proposition. There has never been, and that has never ever been a part of America's story, at any part in our history. And the President and I are determined that it will not be any part of America's story today.
The American story is one of expanding opportunity and shared prosperity. It's a story about the future; it's never about the past. It's a story in which we put the middle class families that are the heart of the nation at the heart of our efforts, because it drives everything else.
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They just wanted leaders who not only understood their problem, but leaders who would offer them policies that gave them nothing more than a chance, nothing more than a chance to make it.
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And they have wanted and want today a White House who's ready to say that the measure of our success will be whether the middle class once again shares in the economic success and prosperity of the nation.
(Emphasis added)
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
More from Joe Biden ... Say IT IS SO, Joe ...
Vice President Joe Biden and the Middle Class Task Force
http://www.youtube.com/...
Joe Biden:
... The Middle Class, the Economic Engine of this Nation, must be healthy in order for us to success. Quite simply, A strong Middle Class equals a strong America. We can't have one without the other. But in the last Economic Expansion, the Middle Class got left behind. THIS TIME, we can't let that happen.
...
Get involved: http://www.AStrongMiddleClass.gov
Stay updated, and Help us get American back on Track.
Thank you very much. Get involved!
(Emphasis added)
WOW!
Funny how I didn't hear much about this during Last Night's National News!
Maybe we need a National News channel, owned BY THE PEOPLE, too.
Could be?
A People's Web Sites for the Middle Class -- well that's a start!