In my email the other day I received a link to a plan, that is paid for, that will create 4.6 million jobs.
I will attempt to give a review of it . I highly suggest that you go to the link and read the whole proposal yourselves. It is quite progressive in it’s implantation of both distributing jobs and taxation. It was developed by a group called “Economic Policy Institute.” The name of their plan is called “American Jobs Plan.”
The Safety Net
The first component of the American Jobs Plan is to strengthen the safety net—including unemployment compensation, COBRA health coverage, and nutrition assistance.
These supports are critical to helping families make ends meet while they search for new work. But they are also highly effective at increasing overall demand in the economy, and therefore at creating new jobs.
As the first components of the American Jobs Plan, EPI recommends continued extension of unemployment insurance and subsidized COBRA, as well as an increase in the COBRA subsidy to 80% from the current 65%. Congress should also examine ways to strengthen nutrition assistance.
Fiscal Relief for State and Local Governments
The second component of the American Jobs Plan is to provide additional fiscal relief to state and local governments. The recession has led to much lower tax revenues at the state and local levels and to higher spending for state safety net programs.
We recommend that the federal government extend the state and local budget relief provided in the Recovery Act by $150 billion over the next year and a half, through state fiscal year 2011. The additional relief will save between one million and 1.4 million jobs.
Investments in Transportation and Schools
The third component of the American Jobs Plan is increased investment in transportation infrastructure and the repair and modernization of the nation’s school buildings and facilities.
In addition to increased investments in transportation infrastructure, we recommend the allocation of $30 billion to school districts for school modernization according to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s Title I formula to ensure that the money reaches every school district quickly and efficiently.
Public Service Jobs
The fourth component of the American Jobs Plan is to create jobs directly by putting unemployed people to work in jobs that will benefit their communities. If the private sector can’t put people back to work, then the public sector must. We know from those experiences that a large-scale jobs program can be geared up quickly and help put a million of our citizens back to work in jobs that will improve their communities and contribute to shared prosperity.
We recommend that the federal government spend $40 billion per year over the next three years to directly create jobs that put unemployed Americans back to work serving their communities.
Job Creation Tax Credit
The fifth and final component of the American Jobs Plan is a tax credit for new job creation deployed over the next two years. According to our estimates, a tax credit for firms equal to 15% of expanded payroll costs would lead them to hire an additional 2.8 million employees next year.
To encourage employers to expand their workforces, we recommend a refundable tax credit, worth 15% of expanded payroll in the first year and 10% in the second, for businesses, nonprofits, and state and local governments that enlarge their payrolls through hiring, adding hours, or increasing wages.
Paying for the American Jobs Plan with a Financial Transactions Tax
(This is my Favorite Part)
Enactment of the American Jobs Plan would have immediate benefits for employment, but as long as the impact of the recession continues to weigh on the job market next year and through 2011, government economic policy must remain expansionary. In years three through 10, all of this spending could be recouped through a financial transactions tax.
We recommend a modest 0.5% tax on financial transactions to pay for the American Jobs Plan. The tax would take effect three years after the implementation of the plan, and at year 10 it would
cover the plan’s entire cost, making it deficit-neutral.
There is a lot here and I apologize both for its length
I strongly recommend that you read through this and support the policy. I have already sent links to various people that I do hope that they will read it.
Please read. http://www.epi.org/index.php/american_jobs/american_jobs_planhttp://epi.3cdn.net/10947c79c16a93247f_qsm6isvxe.pdf
Click to access 10947c79c16a93247f_qsm6isvxe.pdf
Now we can all have an answer when the Rethug says “We need jobs, What is the plan. Whaaa”
bito
Bito: I had several choices, and that one floated to the surface.
I will try to maintain my decorum here. Or go over to the land of the trolls with my double blade troll slayer and work up a good sweat.
Monk , you may be right, it did seem similar.
New York is the Las Vegas of the rich.
Wall Street is the Las Vegas Strip of the rich.
The stock exchange is the gambling hall of the rich.
Investment banks are the croupiers of the rich.
And you are the chips.
Mo, that is why I like the FTT (Financial Transaction Tax) in the above plan.
The FTT is about to come in Europe soon, too. The Brits are fighting it desperately, as always, because they are minions of the Canary Wharf (Britpendant to Wall Street).
The german government is negotiating the details of a german domestic FTT already, France is mulling it, and even PM Brown knows exactly, that GB is broke, and simply NEEDS the cash generated by an FTT, to stayafloat.
So Brown, like the other european governments, is actually pushing this FTT through, even if it may be the last thing he will ever do as PM (Which I hope it is…)
That is good to hear. It has made the house here, but so far just talk, very little talk.
Yeah, it’ll be a miracle if that gets passed here.
The Brits have now what they call the “stamp tax” on just stock transactions, not all financial trans actions. the y are taxed at a
0.2% rate. Seems the bankers are fight the same tax on all their “exotic” trades.
And they all seem to live here in Fairfield County, CT and Westchester County, NY…They look down on you if you are not one of them, they call you a “Townie”, even though some of us have lived and worked here for generations.
They buy up older homes, sometime beautiful historic ones and raze them to the ground to build their McMansions. But if you look into the windows of these monstrosities, very few rooms are furnished, it’s all show for their neighbors.
They want the best, but don’t want to pay the going rate or a livable wage. They have nannies, most times illegal aliens, that they pay under the table, well below minimum wage, in cash, thus avoiding payroll taxes and unemployment insurance which is mandatory for all employees.
They want beautiful landscaped yards, not because they love nature, it’s because the rest of the neighbors have it. Mind you, once you have created this landscape, they take 60-90 days to pay you. Then they refuse to have a reliable landscape company maintain it, too expensive, opting for another illegal alien, paid in cash, who has a truck and a lawn mower.
They have to have the latest and greatest, Connecticut has become the Lexus/BMW/Mercedes SUV and Crossover capital of the US. They park where they want, they talk on their cells as they run red lights and stop signs were made for us and not them….
The movie “The Stepford Wives” was filmed here, in New Canaan, CT…and I will tell you, it was spot on, this movie truly captured what it is like here in lower Fairfield County, CT…this is where I live and these are my husband and my clients, we are at their mercy in order to survive.
Time to move to Canada and start a self-sufficient life, BigDogMom.
Don’t you think?
This is why the coast of Maine or the Cape are looking real good right now…but, we may make a killing on our old house here on the water, they just love houses/ppty on the water!
BDM – I try not to stereotype people but I am afraid you are right about the general character. The empty rooms in those mansions are the perfect metaphor for that lifestyle and value system.
These are the people that we have to deal with day in and day out…they truly believe that they are “The Chosen Ones”.
That’s why I’ve adopted my mothers attitude of smiling all the time, and saying ‘bless your heart’, it really freaks them out and I love it!
Do you live in the area where Made-off had his offices? AIG?
Madoff’s central offices were in NYC, but a lot of his clients were funnelled through some hedge fund companies located here in Fairfield County, CT.
The “Fairfield/Greenwich Hedge Funds” of Greenwich, CT, being the largest one, with the most victims.
This area has attract more and more of these hedge fund companies, cheaper to set up shop here than NYC and closer for the client, since they all live here.
Ugh. That’s why I’m not in any sort of customer service job. I wouldn’t be able to maintain that smile.
Just watching Obama’s jobs town hall. What I’m hearing is that a lot of small businesses still cannot get credit from their banks. My brother’s construction company has had the same issue. That seems to be a huge bottleneck. Most businesses operate off their line of credit and they can’t do it if the bank won’t extend the credit. The banks need to loosen up the credit supplies. If they won’t do it, we should create a federal lending bank.
Credit Unions now are going after the Small Business market, smart move since the banks are not lending.
All of my small business clients have always used their line of credit for inventory and material purchases, they are all hurting now, credit has been shut off for even the best customers. No credit means no inventory/material, which means they can’t produce/sell, which means lay offs….
There should have been restrictions on the money lent to the banks such as mandatory lending and credit lines kept open for existing customers of good standing.
BDM, you have mail.
Thanks Big Guy!
Just missed it. The banks do seem to be the largest bottle neck for small business. I read and heard many stories like your brothers’
Same problem here in Europe. The banks are hoarding cash, rather than lending it.
About the scale of the problem, see here:
US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession
“Both bank credit and the M3 money supply in the United States have been contracting at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression since early summer, raising fears of a double-dip recession in 2010 and a slide into debt-deflation.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/6190818/US-credit-shrinks-at-Great-Depression-rate-prompting-fears-of-double-dip-recession.html
So what the hell are the banks doing with all that cash? Going to casinos?
Balancing their own accounts, which they had looted and burned through during the last boom’s gambling spree, until the bubble went bust in September 2008.
Basically, the people have re-funded the banks the cash they have gambled and lost before, while paying out huge bonuses to those, who CAUSED that mess, TWICE since.
Figure this: The accumulated 2009 Wall Street-bonuses are expected to be 60 percent HIGHER than the bonuses of 2008 – and this, while 2009 is the first full year of the economic crisis!
Unfathomable? No, systemic.
Mo–that’s the sort of thing that I can’t even stand to think about. It’s beyond my control and will only give me an anger-ulcer if I dwell on it.
Mo, How does Germany handle salaries and the year-end bonus system of their bankers?
The share of fixed income for bankers in continantal Europe – less “Great” Britain, of course… – is higher by far than in the US-american banks’ salary systems.
Also: Over here, bnuses have to be EARNED – i.e. bonuses will only be paid, if the bank does better than expected at a certain point, but they will be nixed, if it fares worse than anticipated.
And here go the greedy Brit bankers:
From The Times
December 4, 2009
“Defiant banks pay millions in bonuses”
A fresh row over City bonuses is set to engulf ministers after it emerged last night that 200 executives at Lloyds, the partly state-owned bank, are set to receive one-off payments worth up to 80 per cent of their annual salaries.
They will receive the money for integrating Lloyds with HBOS, which has led to more than 11,000 job losses at the combined bank since January.
It comes amid signs that the Government will not stop Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by the State, from paying massive bonuses to 20,000 investment bankers.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6943583.ece
If there has ever been ample proof, that corrupt politicians are COMPLETELY in the bag with the banksters, it’s THIS.
Good link, Mo.
“GREED IS GOOD!” – Mitt Romney, err…
Morning Mo, how are you? Making fresh sea scallops wrapped in bacon tonight for dinner….I’ll save you some!
You caught me here, BDM. HI!
Today, I am playing it safe and easy, and will cook myself a chicken soup, too.
Temps have fallen substantially over the past 24 hours in Germany. So a bowl of steaming hot soup is exactly, what my mom’s son needs right now to stay strong and healthy.
😉
Our temps here in CT are all over the map, yesterday it got up to 68 degrees and today we are back down to the high 40’s…expecting our first snow storm this weekend, just don’t know how to dress anymore.
It is 8 Fahrenheit where I live.
That’s like -18 in the civilized world, I believe.
Burrr. It’s about 20 degrees here in Colorado this morning.
-18 degrees Centigrate is rich, Pepe.
Where do you live? In Omjakonsk/ Siberia?
Close.
Montana.
Actually, I got that wrong, it’s more like -13 C.
I wonder if they have internet access in Omjakonsk/ Siberia?
We barely have Internet in Montana. I had to go with a wireless modem because the phone lines are too crappy for DSL.
Wish I was in Germany right now. Even though we’ll have a high of 16 C and a low of 4 C. I so do want to have a chance to visit the Christmas Markets there so when I have the money to enjoy such.
BTW, Kris Kristofferson wrote “Me and Bobby McGee”, Joplin, along with others, sang it.
I’M NOT WORTHY! 🙂
That’s what they all say. 🙂
NPR had a very upbeat story this morning that the private sector only lost 11,000 jobs last month? Anyone else hear that story?
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…” – Janis Joplin
Pepe, I heard that story. They were all encouraging numbers.
Unemployment rate down hiring of both temps and fulltime jobs up. Longer work week. All positive, let’s hope.
How are the US-exports doing actually?
It’s the exports of manufactured goods which will drive the REAL recovery!
Mo, I haven’t seen those numbers, they do not come out of the Dept. of Labor. Hmmm, have to do a search. There was discussion on that yesterday at the jobs summit, sounded like they were all in agreement on the need for more exports. Major problem.
Update: next report due Dec 10.
Your good news are our bad news:
Yesterday, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz stated, that the new C-class Mercedes, which is the cash-cow of the Merc model range, will be built in the Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, USA http://mbusi.com/ , because it would cost 1600 Euros less to manufacture it there, than in Germany.
This is the strong side of the weak Dollar: It makes the USA an interesting location for manufacturing goods for exports, again.
Next_ Electric cars, wind turbines and large solar power arrays, please!
Sorry Mo, this is what we need here, we need to bring back the manufacturing jobs back to the US.
Has there been any mention on stopping jobs going overseas?
I think I mentioned before we’ve got a huge wind turbine (Danish) plant ramping up in my area this coming January.
This is GOOD!
Which is ample reason for any “decent” Republican to fight it tooth and nail… 😉
I do not agree with your premise considering the fact that the US hasn’t had a strong manufacturing sector since the early 80s. Moreover, the manufacturing industries has benefitted so much from government handouts and subsidies that it has put itself in this position. Not allowing true competition in the market, imposing tariff barriers on product coming from other countries such as Japan has led to its downfall. The same could be said about the sugar industry, corn, etc.. The US now has to make more tangible eco-friendly products to kickstart its economy and focus on services outside of the financial world. Third rate manufacturing jobs are not where the US needs to focus for its rcovery
MissF, Question. What service jobs pay a livable middle class wages? What do you mean by “3rd rate manufacturing jobs?”
Bito: I hear that attractive men and women in a certain service industry are decently compensated until their looks or freshness goes. Unfortunately, I doubt either of us qualify for that recession proof industry.
Nor can I afford it. 🙂
Hmmm… are you serious about this question? Service jobs in the knowledge industry is worth six figures! With the green industry opening the door wide open on opportunities, this is where you will find the “blue collar” type jobs for the new generation. Moreover, there will always be a need for plumbers, electrician, etc… The only thing you need to do is get rid of the unions in these profession to allow new entrants in the market. As for 3rd rate manufacturing jobs, I am talking about those that have been sent to China, SE Asia and other emerging and less developed markets. These jobs are not viable here anymore. Its time to embrace the future
Are you kidding about knowledge industry jobs? Those are the ones we deal with every day when we call for product assistance, ect, and find we’re connected to the other side of the globe. Not going to happen.
As for doing away with Unions? If you like cheaper and cheaper wages and less and less benefits, by all means do away with employee representation. But before you do, learn what it was like before representation and how it is now elsewhere without representation.
I’ll trust a Union craftsman far further than some non union person who has served no apprenticeship and is possibly self trained.
FeloniousMonk, the knowledge industry is not strictly confined to the consumer service area, it encompasses all jobs that is not agriculture or machinery-based. Here is the four categories that comprise the knowledge industry
T = Technology and R&D Innovation
A = Arts and Culture
P = Professional and Managerial
E = Educating and Training
Most of you work in the knowledge industry, I would have thought that would be easy for you guys to understand what I mean by that sector
MissFrenchy: Is that you, AC?
Yes, many of us are in the information business. And many of us have no jobs because our expertise has been exported overseas. I am a professional engineer, and what I’ve done is mostly outsourced to China and India and Russia and… Everywhere but here. Because the corporate bosses want more profit for themselves, even if it means a lesser product.
Miss F, Still a bit ambiguous. I need some examples, not categories. Education?
We have school teachers buying paper for their classrooms, some on food stamps. And don’t get me started on Unions!
Monk, “is that you, AC?” 😆
Sorry, MissFrechyUSA,
I seriously doubt that 16 – 20 million jobs will be created by the eco-green industry. Furthermore, re-tooling buildings to be green WILL require skilled labor (union labor). Would you like your building to burn down? Because these folks don’t deserve to make six figures. Union Labor = Trained Labor.
Plus, all of us are not the same.
Some are real smart, some are smart, some of us are just average, while others struggle with day to day life.
I believe every country should embrace “3rd rate manufacturing jobs”. That is how you maintain a diverse economy for all it’s citizens.
Good comment Feed, I am 4th generation Trade-Unionist. My family went though times when heads were busted, blood was shed to get wages and rights for workers. My father got a “visit” by the FBI during the red scare in the 50’s. Why? because he was a Union Organizer. Scared the shit out of him!
While Mitt Romney maybe considered a successful businessman. Putting him in charge of America’s Economic Future would be the final nail in the coffin for the American Worker.
Bain Capitol (Mitt Romney’s Global Empire) purchased American Standard after slicing and dicing the company it is now called Trane. However, the American worker in Ohio and other parts of the country paid the price.
http://newsblaze.com/story/2007120508400200001.ew/topstory.html
You always have to dig deeper into the core of what these elitist say and what the real truth is.
That was Bain Capitiol’s MO. I don’t know how many companies they did that to. Worked for him and all his partners. While, the working class suffered. He’s a piece…..
Here’s Mitt Romney’s plan for jobs –
http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2009-12-03-column03_ST2_U.htm?csp=34
If you love the rich and corporations, this is the plan!
Thanks j’avaz, Romney’s plan reads like the same old supply side econ. Reagan trickles on the people again.
The division between the haves/have nots is as vast as it was pre depression
Someone here called it “The Flood Up/Trickle Down” economics, which says it all.
Of course I know everyone here is in the top 10% so the FTT will hurt you. LOL
“A 2009 analysis of data from the Survey of Consumer Finance shows that the mean holdings of financial assets by the wealthiest 10% of households is 45 times greater than the mean holdings of the bottom 75% of households”
Makes you feel as small as looking at those Hubble pics.
Good plan, b’ito!
Have copied the link and sent to friends and family.
The stimulus plan did not work!
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/03/gop-cbo-stimulus/
They just wont quit. Ignore the facts. Oh look, is that a squirrel?
Is that something shiny over there?
That is funny Bito. I was looking up some negative numbers on Bush for job creation and these people had the best info. I wonder who is behind them. I am going to use your link and log them as favorites on my system.
The site has a bunch of info on it. Graphs, charts, Nekkid women!
LOL, I will take the nekkid men though. Gotta be fireman, from firestation 6 in Concord Ca. I tell you when they showed up for inspection at Wells Fargo, all the girls were hanging at the windows lol. My friend was a captain there and he could not believe it when I told him they were being spied on lol.
I should have added that I have nothing to do with this organization.