--------- Tula Connell --------- Photo by Joe Kekeris
By Tula Connell
AFL-CIO Managing Editor
Higher profits and new fuel-efficient models have put American-made cars back on the road again—with the help of taxpayers and the workers who have worked closely with the Big Three automakers to ensure their success.
In July, Ford posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit of $2.6 billion—some $1 billion more than analysts predicted—with promises of more earnings in 2011. Chrysler, which cut its net loss to $197 million from January through March, expects to announce its second-quarter earnings in mid-August. General Motor’s (GM’s) U.S. sales for June rose 11 percent from the year-ago period and the company is again building popular cars.
The commitment, sacrifices and hard work of the men and women at UAW-represented companies is an enormous part of the positive news coming from Ford, GM and Chrysler, where UAW members are producing best-in-class quality results and building vehicles that hands-down beat global competition. (more…)
By Robert Creamer
Political organizer, strategist and author
President Obama has proposed to eliminate the massive deficit-busting Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent of Americans — while maintaining tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans. He is spot on.
The Bush tax breaks are set to expire at year’s end, so there is real pressure on Congress to act. Congress should maintain the cuts for individuals earning $200,000 or less, and families earning $250,000 or less. And it should restore the Clinton-era tax rates to the very rich.
It is the right thing to do economically, politically and morally.
First the economics. When it comes to creating jobs, the last people who need more money in their hands are the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
The Republicans charge that eliminating these tax breaks on the rich — and returning them to Clinton-era levels — would be a “job-killing tax hike in the midst of a recession.” Let’s recall that while the Clinton-era tax rates applied to the rich in the 1990′s, the economy created more than 22.5 million jobs in less than eight years — the most jobs ever created under a single administration. Moreover, the Federal deficit had turned into a surplus for as long as the eye could see. The number of private sector jobs created during the Bush years: zero. The Republican position amounts to nothing more than baseless pandering to the greed of their many wealthy donors.
To create more jobs, our economy needs more economic demand. We need people who are willing to go out and buy products and services. Our economic problem is not that we lack enough people who will go out and work to create the products and services we need to have better lives. Our problem is that there is not enough demand to entice businesses to increase their work forces or buy new plants and equipment. (more…)
It’s not quite as scary as looking up and seeing Godzilla lurking over the city skyline, but a two-story-tall Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) staring down from the side of a downtown Louisville office building caused a few surprised gasps Monday night.
In a bit of guerilla theater, AFSCME projected a 30-second silent video reminding passers-by about McConnell’s role as chief architect of the Republican’s obstructionist battle plan. The Party of No’s obstructionist tactics cost more than 2.5 million long-term jobless workers their unemployment insurance (UI) and blocked aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others.
AFSCME chose Louisville because McConnell was there to speak before the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). The group had just released a report that said without federal aid, more than half the nation’s states will see their budget shortfalls grow by as much as $72 billion next fiscal year, forcing cuts in vital services and jobs to make up for the shortfalls. (more…)
Dear Senate Majority Leader, you are letting the public down. We, the People need you to get things done but everything is being blocked by a minority. The public doesn’t understand that everything is being filibustered, so they are not applying the pressure that could break the tactic. That is your fault, not theirs: you have to show them. You owe it to the public, in the name of democracy, to let them know what is going on. There is a clear way to do that: Roll out the cots!
The country has so many things wrong that need fixing. A majority of the Congress, elected to make changes, is trying to get things moving for the people, but a corporate-sponsored minority is blocking almost everything. Their strategy is to frustrate the public and they count on misinformation to confuse people as to who is responsible for the logjam. As a result the public doesn’t see that there is a strategy of pure obstruction at work here.
The obstructionists have help in spreading the confusion. Newspaper stories rarely use the word “filibuster.” Many in the media tell the public that Senate rules require 60 votes to pass bills. Other stories blame “partisan bickering” for the lack of progress. So the public blames “both sides” because they don’t know what is really going on.
But you are helping spread the confusion too. You are not drawing a clear contrast and repeating it. You are not telling a simple story in a clear, understandable way. It is not getting through to the public that the hated filibuster is being used over and over. You need to put on a show that breaks through the haze and informs the public. There is a way to do that: roll out the cots! The public gets that. They associate cots with filibusters. It is theater but the public needs to have the information and without the theater – yes, the circus – of rolling out the cots again and again and again, the public is, in effect, having that information withheld from them. (more…)
Washington is enmeshed in the economic version of the phony war. The two sides have declared war on one another, but neither has faced up to the fierce battles yet to come. Too few seem aware of the staggering challenges that face this country.
Here is a summary of the carnage wrought by the Great Recession summarized by the Economist from a Pew study (HT to nakedcapitalism.com):
More than half of all workers have experienced a spell of unemployment, taken a cut in pay or hours or been forced to go part-time. The typical unemployed worker has been jobless for nearly six months. Collapsing share and house prices have destroyed a fifth of the wealth of the average household. Nearly six in ten Americans have cancelled or cut back on holidays. About a fifth say their mortgages are underwater. One in four of those between 18 and 29 have moved back in with their parents. Fewer than half of all adults expect their children to have a higher standard of living than theirs, and more than a quarter say it will be lower.. for many Americans the great recession has been the sharpest trauma since the second world war, wiping out jobs, wealth and hope itself.
Stop and consider the implications. Then add the fact that continuing high levels of unemployment are now the consensus forecast. Long term unemployment will remain at record levels. In the US, where we provide only temporary support for the unemployed, this is a social catastrophe. Families break apart; drugs and despair increases; community institutions decline; domestic violence, racial and anti-immigrant hostility soar. The young graduating into this economy are likely to fare worse throughout their work lives. (more…)
By Richard (RJ) Eskow
Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
There’s a battle going on between those who are defending Social Security – that is to say, the “good guys” – and those like economist Alice Rivlin and Wall Street banker/giveaway king Neel Kashkari, who would cut it. The attackers pretend to see nuances that don’t exist, slanting their arguments to make benefits reductions seem inevitable and even humane. True to form, Rivlin frightens Americans with the idea that we need to “save” Social Security, then proposes to “reassure” them … by cutting it.
Fortunately the defenders are getting reinforcements. A new coalition of organizations is uniting under the “Strengthen Social Security” banner, including major unions like the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and AFSCME, the National Organization of Women, MoveOn, and the National Education Association, as well as 60-plus other organizations representing over 30 million Americans. (Note: I am associated with that coalition through my affiliation with the Campaign for America’s Future.)
In this corner, hailing from the great state of Nevada …
Harry Reid told attendees at the Netroots Nation conference that “Social Security is the most successful social program in the history of the world,” while condemning the “fear tactics of those who say Social Security is going broke. It’s not.” That’s a good start. Nancy Pelosi was even stronger, and considerably more specific, telling conference attendees that she opposes raising the retirement age. Pelosi added:
“To change Social Security in order to balance the budget, they aren’t the same thing in my view. When you talk about reducing the deficit and Social Security, you’re talking about apples and oranges.” (more…)
We’re only three months away from the midterm election when a shockingly large number of American voters will inexplicably vote for Republican candidates. I have no idea if this will mean a Republican takeover of the House or Senate or both, but there will definitely be enough voter support for Republicans to significantly reduce the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
Why? Because too many voters tend to be low-information, knee-jerk Springfield-from-The-Simpsons types, and the Republicans have lashed their crazy trains to this new wave of inchoate roid-rage to help sweep them into more congressional seats.
• 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1 percent of all Americans.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009. (more…)
By Mitchell Hirsch
2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year
What do I mean? Specifically, the U.S. private sector currently needs substantial, publicly-funded direct job-creation programs in order to get private employers to hire again on the scale needed to significantly reduce unemployment and promote a robust economic recovery.
It’s an argument that I don’t think has been made, at least not adequately, to help advance the debate in favor of large-scale stimulus to create jobs.
Part of the problem is the almost religious belief that the private sector, and only the private sector, can be the engine of job creation. As James Kwak wrote recently, in a somewhat different context:
… the belief that the private sector is the answer to all our problems remains deeply rooted. One might even call it an ideology.
And the problem is exacerbated by policy makers who ostensibly grasp the need to do more to boost a weak and faltering economy, but undercut that message with utterances to the effect that ‘we’ve done enough’ and ‘government can only do so much’, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner did recently. Now, Mr. Geithner is a smart man, who we’d hope doesn’t believe in magic. And he’s right, of course, that private investment is needed. But the fact is, it’s not happening. (more…)
House leaders deserve praise for fighting for working people by launching a “Make It In America” initiative which they officially unveiled this week. The country still badly needs an immediate job-creation effort, but this is a very important longer-term initiative for reviving America’s manufacturing base and restoring our competitiveness in the world economy. Good work!
Manufacturing is the core of our country’s income. Making things that we sell is how we earn money to buy things that others make. This is why it is so important to restore America’s manufacturing base and the infrastructure that supports it. People want to go into a store and have a choice to buy things that are made here.
This week these important bills made it to the House floor: (click through for details)
Washington is enmeshed in the economic version of the phony war. The two sides have declared war on one another, but neither has faced up to the fierce battles yet to come. Too few seem aware of the staggering challenges that face this country.
Here is a summary of the carnage wrought by the Great Recession summarized by the Economist from a Pew study (H/T to nakedcapitalism.com):
More than half of all workers have experienced a spell of unemployment, taken a cut in pay or hours or been forced to go part-time. The typical unemployed worker has been jobless for nearly six months. Collapsing share and house prices have destroyed a fifth of the wealth of the average household. Nearly six in ten Americans have cancelled or cut back on holidays. About a fifth say their mortgages are underwater. One in four of those between 18 and 29 have moved back in with their parents. Fewer than half of all adults expect their children to have a higher standard of living than theirs, and more than a quarter say it will be lower.. for many Americans the great recession has been the sharpest trauma since the second world war, wiping out jobs, wealth and hope itself.
Stop and consider the implications. Then add the fact that continuing high levels of unemployment are now the consensus forecast. Long term unemployment will remain at record levels. In the U.S., where we provide only temporary support for the unemployed, this is a social catastrophe. Families break apart; drug use and despair increase; community institutions decline; domestic violence, racial and anti-immigrant hostility soar. The young graduating into this economy are likely to fare worse throughout their work lives. (more…)
