Katrina vandel Heuvel has posted a terrific blog today that sums up the frustration with the administration's economic policy, and charts a bold new course for action and activism.
There is no question that our circumstances qualify as extraordinary and demand a laserlike focus by the president on job creation. At the pace of job growth we’ve seen over the past three months, we will never, not ever, reach normal levels of employment in America again. We know now that only 58 percent of American adults are employed, the lowest number in nearly three decades. We know that, as of last month, 6.2 million Americans have been out of work for more than six months. Forty-six million Americans are on food stamps, a national record.
Wisely, vanden Heuvel asks for more than a good speech. She asks the president to craft legislation and bring it to Congress, legislation that captures the vision and promises that got him elected in the first place.
Let’s be clear: There is a limit to what the president can do. To succeed, he must be a joined by a movement. But there is a movement afoot, one that is prepared to take on this fight. The American Dream Movement is mobilizing tens of thousands of people in all 435 congressional districts with a simple message: jobs, not cuts. That is a message the American people support by more than a 2 to 1 margin. On Monday, the organizers released a job-creation plan written by 127,000 Americans.
This is the kind of movement Obama needs. Rather than merely acknowledging that the American people are with him, he must mobilize them; he must fight alongside them. And rather than demand that Congress write a jobs bill, a process certain to be bogged down by obstruction and lobbyists and corporate money, he should write his own — one that would actually, genuinely, do something big and meaningful for the economy.
She's calling for big, strategic investments that create jobs by spending money on infrastructure and skills. A bill like the Progressive Caucus's People's Budget:
The People’s Budget eliminates the deficit in 10 years, puts Americans back to work and restores our economic competitiveness. The People’s Budget recognizes that in order to compete, our nation needs every American to be productive, and in order to be productive we need to raise our skills to meet modern needs.
Our Budget Eliminates the Deficit and Raises a $31 Billion Surplus In Ten Years
Our budget protects Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and responsibly eliminates the deficit by targeting its main drivers: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars overseas, and the causes and effects of the recent recession.
Our Budget Puts America Back to Work & Restores America’s Competitiveness
• Trains teachers and restores schools; rebuilds roads and bridges and ensures that users help pay for them
• Invests in job creation, clean energy and broadband infrastructure, housing and R&D programs
Our Budget Creates a Fairer Tax System
• Ends the recently passed upper-income tax cuts and lets Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012
• Extends tax credits for the middle class, families, and students
• Creates new tax brackets that range from 45% starting at $1 million to 49% for $1 billion or more
• Implements a progressive estate tax
• Eliminates corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies; closes loopholes for multinational corporations
• Enacts a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange
Our Budget Protects Health
• Enacts a health care public option and negotiates prescription payments with pharmaceutical companies
• Prevents any cuts to Medicare physician payments for a decade
Our Budget Safeguards Social Security for the Next 75 Years
• Eliminates the individual Social Security payroll cap to make sure upper income earners pay their fair share
• Increases benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side
Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home
• Responsibly ends our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to leave America more secure both home and abroad
• Cuts defense spending by reducing conventional forces, procurement, and costly R&D programs
Our Budget’s Bottom Line
• Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
• Spending cuts of $1.7 trillion
• Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
• Public investment $1.7 trillion
As vanden Heuvel rightly notes, the public mood is shifting. People need help, on a scale that only a progressive, government jobs program can deliver.
More than ever before in this presidency, more than in over a generation, the people need leadership, guidance, mobilization.
It's time for this president to take the lead and chart the course on jobs. Write a really good plan, and take the time to explain, defend and champion it on the public stage.