Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
In the budget and ideological battles engulfing the American political scene we keep hearing one recurrent theme. How average working Americans are going to have to foot the bill for the excesses of the rich and Corporate America over the last thirty years. They have run up our credit card, crashed our economy, bailed themselves out and given themselves a huge tax break. All this even as Americans suffer because of their actions and jobs are as scarce as ever.
That is why we need to support the Put America Back to Work Act of 2011. Modeled on the People's Budget released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus this act was introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and seeks to do something that has long been taboo in Washington D.C. Investing in actual Americans, and actual Americans who work to keep our country afloat.
With our current economic and jobs crises that is the one thing that needs to be done the press and most politicians do not want you to know about. In fact most politicians in both parties want to figure out how to invest LESS in our country and people and how to steal what social safety net is left and give it to the wealthy. These folks often wrap themselves in the flag and patriotism but when it comes down to it they hate their country so much they refuse to invest in anything to help us rebound.
And right now we need jobs. Good, middle-class jobs. More than reducing deficits or giving rich assholes more money to horde our country needs to be put to work. There is plenty to do. Our infrastructure is pathetic and all over the country investment is needed to rebuild America desperately.
That is what the Put America to Work Act seeks to do. It would put Americans back to work by investing money in our own country and people for once and stimulate our economy by rebuilding our nation by funding state and local governments:
Funding would immediately be provided for repairing and painting schools, community centers, and libraries; maintaining parks, playgrounds, and public spaces; expanding emergency food programs; staffing Head Start, child care, and early childhood education programs; and restoring or revitalizing abandoned or vacant properties in natural disaster- and foreclosure-affected areas. Funds would also be made available for child care, health care, and education services; energy efficiency retrofits; and youth employment and job training programs. The act also requires that at least 85% of all grant funding go to wages, benefits, and support services, such as child care.
http://www.epi.org/...
As we all know their is no better time for us to act. Our jobs crises is reaching disasterous proportions and local governments have been shedding jobs. We need investment in America to close the jobs gap that still exists from the Republican crash and recession:
This act is well-timed. The United States is still mired in a sweeping jobs crisis, and state and local government budget cuts represent a significant headwind blowing against a stronger recovery. In May, local government employment fell by 28,000, bringing total job losses in this sector to 446,000 since employment peaked in September 2008. Over just the last year, local governments have shed 267,000 jobs, and state governments have lost 24,000 jobs. Bringing the unemployment rate back to pre-recession levels would currently require putting 11 million Americans back to work, which will take many years even without the counter-productive federal budget cuts that look increasingly likely in the near-term. Putting public servants back to work and hiring individuals for public works projects in distressed communities would be an excellent way to pursue the most pressing economic priority—creating jobs.
And make no mistake about one thing. While politicians of both stripes will try and convince America that the only way to create jobs is to waste even more money giving it to the rich and Corporate America, folks that have failed us repeatedly with their greed and refused to create jobs what is really needed is that money to be invested in our country. The Put America to Work Act of 2011 would create millions of jobs:
Using standard macroeconomic analysis and assuming the authorizations were fully appropriated, we estimate that $200 billion in state and local government relief would generate roughly 2.1 million jobs in 2012 and another $150 billion in grants in 2013 would generate 1.5 million jobs. Based on Okun’s rule of thumb, which relates economic output to the unemployment rate, we would expect the unemployment rate to fall 0.7 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points, respectively, in 2012 and 2013, relative to baseline projections.
As an added benefit these measures will not only put folks back to work but would balance the federal budget annihilated by Repulicans in a decade. It puts America to work by investing in America and finally giving more Americans more capital to invest in our economy:
These job creation measures are consistent with the overall budgeting approach laid out in the People’s Budget, proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which would invest heavily in direct job creation while also balancing the federal budget within a decade. Over the next decade, the People’s Budget would finance $1.45 trillion in job creation measures in addition to $213 billion worth of infrastructure investments proposed in the president’s 2012 budget request. Front-loaded job creation funding of $350 billion and $300 billion for 2012 and 2013, respectively, would more than finance the Put America to Work Act. An additional $150 billion would be leftover in each year for other economic recovery measures, such as continuing emergency unemployment benefits (scheduled to expire at the end of 2011) or making additional infrastructure investments.
So what is the problem with such common-sense proposals?? You see things like the People's Budget and the Put America to Work Act of 2011 do the one thing that "leaders" in Washington hate the most. It benefits average working Americans, invests in them for once and does not throw a bunch of money away to the greediest and least patriotic among us who have robbed their country blind and are still the first ones to line up slopping at the trough once more.
The trickle-down policies that have ruled Washington D.C. for thirty years now have failed miserably. Reenacting them will be an even more miserable failure in the coming decade. What we need now are "trickle-up" policies that invest in and worry about working people and allow them more money to spend and invest in making the rich richer. Without real ideas to solve real problems our country will continue to spiral into the economic abyss and only a very few Americans will be allowed any facet of the American dream.
America it is time you fought back and told the elites they are no better than us. Our country needs us too.