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Friday, May 4, 2012

The One Thing You Need To Know About Today’s Jobs Report

May 4, 2012 | By ThinkProgress War Room

4.2 MILLION Private Sector Jobs

Most of the press coverage of today’s jobs report has been focused on the two topline findings — that the economy created a less-than-expected 115,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate edged down slightly to 8.1 percent. While these numbers are certainly important, they miss the forest for the trees.

The biggest news today is the economy has now recovered all of the private sector jobs lost since President Obama took office. The Center for American Progress’ Michael Linden explains:

Unfortunately, the news is not nearly so good when it comes to the public sector, where there are currently 607,000 fewer people working than there were when President Obama took office.

The chart below tells the whole story. Under President Obama, the private sector experienced a relatively robust recovery, and is now back to where it started when he took office. But due in large part to spending cuts at the state and local level, the public sector continues to shed jobs, and as a result, the overall jobs picture in the United States remains weak.

Keep this chart in mind the next time you hear someone rail about “big government” and complain about the slow pace of overall job creation.

The job losses at the state and local level could have been significantly curtailed if conservatives had not rejected a larger (or additional) aid package for state and local governments. Last fall, Republicans, of course, also rejected the president’s jobs plan that would keep hundreds of thousands of teachers, cops, firefighters, and others on the job. What’s more, the deep spending cuts being proposed under the Romney-Ryan GOP budget plan would only dig the hole deeper.

IN ONE SENTENCE: Instead of the GOP plan to slam the brakes on the recovery and go back to the Bush economic policies that caused this mess in the first place, we need Congress to get serious about passing a jobs bill to help the millions of Americans still looking for work.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Why Our Economy Isn’t Working for Workers

From our friends at the Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/

Yesterday was May Day, an international holiday honoring workers. Unfortunately, our economy — and its tax code rigged to benefit the wealthiest few — isn’t working for many workers.

ThinkProgress’ Annie-Rose Strasser highlights three charts showing why we need an economy that works for everyone, not more conservative policies that give all of the benefits to the wealthy in the vain hope that some of it will trickle down to the rest of us.

1. The 99 percent are extremely productive workers, but aren’t compensated for their productivity. While productivity has been on the rise among workers, average wage and compensation has remained nearly flat. That means while workers are producing more, they’re being compensated the same. This chart from the Economic Policy Institute details the change:

Worker Productivity, Annual Wage, Compensation

2. Corporations don’t notice income inequality, but workers sure do. The 99 percent may be pivotal in the productivity of a company, but they aren’t reaping any of the benefits of success. This chart from the New York Times illustrates exactly how companies profit while workers do not:

3. Workers who don’t organize are getting the short end of the stick. While productivity goes up and wages stay flat, the middle class sees itself shrinking. This income inequality is in direct correlation to union participation. As union membership falls, the middle class shrinks.

Union Membership and Middle Class Income

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

‘Republicans For Mandating Coverage’ Calls On The Supreme Court To Uphold Health Reform

March 26 – Republicans For Mandating Coverage (RMC) — a 51-member coalition representing Republicans who supported a federal health care mandate before President Barack Obama endorsed it — urged the Supreme Court on Monday to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate:

As Republicans who have co-sponsored or supported legislation requiring all Americans to purchase individual health insurance in 1993, 1994, 2007, and as recently as 2009, RMC believes that the mandate is based on the fundamental American principle of personal responsibility, rooted in conservative jurisprudence surrounding the Constitution’s Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses.

In the words of Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Republicans “don’t think the free market ever envisioned an idea that people would be able to do something and make other people pay for it.” “People are either going to buy insurance or they’re going to pay for their own care. They’re not going to say, ‘I got care and you Mr. Tax Payer or You Mr. Premium Payer are going to pay for me.”

‘Republicans For Mandating Coverage’ believes that this is an “American principle” — a principle of “personal responsibility” — that can be constitutionally enforced by the federal government.
Since nearly all Americans are already part of the health care marketplace and health care affects 17 percent of the economy, Congress is authorized to regulate health care behavior under the Commerce Clause. As conservative Judge Laurence Silberman put it: “At the time the Constitution was fashioned, to ‘regulate’ meant, as it does now, ‘[t]o adjust by rule or method,’ as well as ‘[t]o direct.’ To ‘direct,’ in turn, included ‘[t]o prescribe certain measure[s]; to mark out a certain course,’ and ‘[t]o order; to command.’ In other words, to ‘regulate’ can mean to require action, and nothing in the definition appears to limit that power only to those already active in relation to an interstate market.”

The Supreme Court can also find justification for the mandate in the Necessary and Proper Clause. In Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court decided not to strike down a provision of law when that provision is an “essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity.” Justice Antonin Scalia explained in a concurring opinion that “where Congress has the authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective.”

Whole article at Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/26/451406/rmc/

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Who's the "socialist?"

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Romney & Perry Doth Protest Too Much

Sep 28, 2011 | from www.thinkprogress.org

They Can Run, But They Can’t Hide Their Stimulus-Loving Pasts

Just as we were crawling out of bed this morning, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign eagerly blasted out a new video attacking President Obama on the stimulus. Shortly thereafter, however, Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry became engaged in a nasty fight over who had flip-flopped harder on their past support for the Obama stimulus plan.

Here’s a rundown of how the action unfolded today and, more importantly, how both Romney and Perry are forever entangled with the Recovery Act, as much as they’d both like to pretend otherwise now.

Round 1: Romney Tries to Edit Away His Pro-Stimulus Comments, Calls Perry A Liar

Though Romney was also critical of the Recovery Act in his book, he at least initially offered an undeniably positive comment:

Mitt Romney in the 2010 hard cover edition of his book No Apology:

The ‘all-Democrat’ stimulus that passed in early 2009 will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.

Mitt Romney in the 2011 soft cover edition of his book No Apology:

The ‘all-Democrat’ stimulus passed in early 2009 has been a failure.

Romney, who is apparently unaware of the existence of “the google,” also excised another passage from his book in which he suggested that Romneycare and its individual mandate could serve as a model for the entire nation.

The Romney campaign responded to the attacks by calling Perry a liar, saying he has “a problem with truth.”

Round 2: Romney Reminds Everyone That Perry Extensively Relied on the Stimulus

As ThinkProgress has been reporting since way back in March 2009 and the Romney campaign reminded reporters today, Perry is all hat and no cattle when it comes to his opposition to the Recovery Act:

Perry relied the most heavily of any state on stimulus funds to balance his budgets.
Perry said the stimulus didn’t create any jobs at all, when in fact it saved or created as many as 3.6 MILLION jobs — including in Texas.
After showily rejecting stimulus funds to cover unemployment benefits, Perry later reversed course and requested hundreds of millions of dollars— even more than he initially rejected.

Round 3: Romney’s Pro-Fed and Fiscal Stimulus Past Further Exposed

While these days Republican leaders are practically begging the Fed to keep unemployment high, it wasn’t always so. Back in December 2008, Romney eagerly supported action by the Fed and clearly said a stimulus plan was necessary:

So this is surely the time for economic stimulus. But — and this is the crucial point — the government can’t just make itself bigger and more oppressive in the guise of stimulating the economy. That would make matters worse. Nor should we forget that fiscal stimulus is but one part of the solution. As Christina Romer, Barack Obama’s designee as chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors concluded from her study of the Great Depression, bad monetary policy was its greatest cause and good monetary policy was its most effective cure. The Fed should continue to expand the money supply. And, it should confirm that it will not tolerate deflation — the pain of inflation pales in comparison.

That being said, a stimulus plan is needed without further delay, and there are some things that Republicans should insist on.

The Romney campaign once again attempted to dispatch this latest round of attacks from Perry by calling him a liar with a “Pinocchio problem.”

IN ONE SENTENCE: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry will do nearly anything to appease the Tea Party extremists in their party, whether it’s running from their pasts or attacking President Obama’s plan to make sure that no millionaires are paying a lower tax rate than working families — a commonsense rule that even two-thirds of Republicans say they support.

Monday, April 18, 2011

From our friends at ThinkProgress.org

Rick Santorum Borrows Campaign Slogan From Pro-Union Poem Written By Gay Rights Advocate

Earlier today, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) announced that he will begin fundraising for a presidential run using the campaign slogan “Fighting to make America America again.” This eloquent turn of phrase, however, was not invented by Santorum. It is borrowed from the title of a pro-union, pro-racial justice, and pro-immigrant poem written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes — “Let America Be America Again”:

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–

While Hughes is best known for his poetic cries for racial and economic justice, he was also a staunch defender of gay rights. His poem “Cafe: 3 a.m.” criticizes a police raid on a gay establishment, attacking the injustice of arresting gay people because “God, Nature, or somebody made them that way.” Santorum, by contrast, is best known for spouting a frothy mixture of anti-gay rhetoric comparing same-sex couples with people who have sex with dogs.