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Obama Unveils Huge Jobs and Infrastructure Plan
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama unveiled plans Monday to spend at least 50 billion dollars to expand and renew US roads, railways and airports, in a fresh bid to fire up sluggish economic growth.
Obama unveils huge jobs and infrastructure plan. (AFP) Obama, under intense pressure over November's mid-term congressional
elections, in which his Democrats fear heavy losses, was set to
formally make the announcement in a speech in Wisconsin, an official
said.
The event, marking Labor Day, the traditional kick-off for US election campaigns, heralds a week in which Obama also travels to another struggling state, Ohio, and holds a press conference in a bid to ease his political woes.
A White House official said that the "bold" infrastructure plan will be front-loaded, target six years of investments and make significant progress in the first year, in a bid to stimulate the sagging economy and create jobs.
It appeared unlikely however that Obama could get the plan passed through Congress before the mid-term elections, which are effectively a referendum on Democratic economic management and a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.
Opposition Republicans who slammed Obama's 800-billion-dollar stimulus plan as a failure are also likely to hammer the proposed new investment as another example of the government doling out taxpayer dollars to little effect.
On Wednesday, in Cleveland, Ohio, Obama is expected to unveil another plank of his revised economic strategy, a series of tax breaks for small businesses worth 100 billion dollars.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama plan unveiled Monday would front-load 50 billion dollars of investment to jumpstart job creation.
The administration would work with Congress to offset the spending in other areas, to ensure it does not further inflate the budget deficit, the official said.
The plan, to be announced at the Milwaukee Laborfest, a union gathering, also targets improvements to the US air traffic control system, an acceleration of high-speed rail projects, and establishes an "Infrastructure Bank" to coordinate federal funding and planning for projects.
Critics have long complained that the US highway system is crumbling and suffers from underinvestment, so Obama will target modernizations which could quickly employ jobless workers while improving the US transportation backbone.
The White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said Obama would propose making a major new investment in the rail and transit system, including an overhaul of creaking Amtrak rolling stock.
The plan also envisages an overhaul of technology used in the crowded US air traffic control system, including the use of satellite surveillance, which it said could reduce travel delays and airport noise.
On Saturday, Obama vowed to expand a prosperous middle class and help his compatriots achieve the American Dream.
"This Labor Day, we should recommit ourselves to our time-honored values and to this fundamental truth: to heal our economy, we need more than a healthy stock market; we need bustling main streets and a growing, thriving middle class," he said in his weekly radio address.
The comments came after a new Labor Department report released Friday showed the economy lost 54,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.6 percent.
Although the job losses were much less than the 120,000 slump expected by Wall Street economists, hiring was not substantial enough to help millions of crisis-hit Americans to return to work.
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98 Comments so far
Show AllI think if anything Obama thinks of can be called socialist, he won't do and that covers just about everything.
It will be harder for the USA to change to a peace economy than any other country because it is the proud master of war in real time.
It is like the system is too big with unstoppable institutional momentum to be able to adjust to real events.
Where does one go for escape .... abandon Earth?
Or face the musak.
"It will be harder for the USA to change to a peace economy than any other country because it is the proud master of war in real time."
This is true, but I think it's due to the depth of influence the Propaganda and Indoctrination Systems have on the US citizenry and how they work seemlessly with regressive politicians. Alternative outlooks and narratives exist in publications like Yes!, Monthly Review and Z Magazine, but their readership is too small to defeat the Systemic Behemouths. And the longer substantive change is deferred, the more likely change is only going to come through revolution.
We need a Full Employment Clean Energy New Deal to stop global warming and revive our economy.
The scatter shot stimulus did not work well because it was so diffused that it had little follow on impact. It was like hitting the economy with a big soft pillow.
A Clean Energy New Deal is focused and urgently needed on many levels. It will capture the imagination of the Nation. There will be enormous follow on impact with a Full Employment Clean Energy New Deal.
The first phase should start by super insulating every house and building in America. Insulating work can start immediately, allowing US clean energy industries time to gear up production lines.
Clean energy, made in the USA.
Well, Golly Gee Whiz!
That's really huge! If I, myself, had that much dough, I could possibly be welcomed to play a round of golf with some of the Owners.
That's 3½ x more than a few Bankster-Crooksters were ‘rewarded’ in bonuses!
What if hundreds of millions of these Criminals would have required a bailout? Would there be enough money in Social Security funds to cover that?
"Think of the how little o gets accomplished for the people even with a majority in the house and senate," samosamo wrote earlier.
This is an important point to remember about o's alleged "impotence". But I was even more struck by samosamo's use of the lower-case 'o' to refer to the perp. This looks very useful, indeed.
My only question is, "Should we read this 'o' as in "OH, bummer!", or as 'o', namely the number (I usually read) "zéro"?
Could we just call him "NAUGHT", for short, as in "Aught Naught to Be President"? (I know, it's a stretch - but so's o's transconstitutional "energy in the executive", itself).
His Transconstitutional Naughtness?
Or just plain "Noddy"?
50 billion dollars? 50 states. That money won't even cover the necessary graft under the table.
How about the 79 billion that was supposed to fend off foreclosures which has only helped half a million people restructure their mortgages so that they are even more indebted to the banks. (and many of those loans are failing now too).
I can't do the math - this is giving me a headache.
Corporate front man Barack Obama (President ZERO) announced today another taxpayer paid for corporate welfare scam! $13 trillion in bailouts for the banksters and Wall St. and a measly $50 billion to create jobs for 15 million out of work Americans! While American business gets $100 billion in tax credits and tax breaks!
13 trillion divided by 350 million people.
We all coulda had 37 grand instead!
Jill, I agree -- we need to hit the streets like the French do. As you mentioned, we could learn a few things from them.
La beaute est dans la rue!
Jobz R US, ehh? The big lesson to learn from the devastating results of elite ambition is that holistic thinking is crucial to the people's well-being.
Jobz R US is myopic, not holistic, thinking. When we connect the dots in our minds we see that the economy is merely a means to and end, not an end in itself.
The proper end is the people's well-being. This may or may not call for jobz. And in the current environment, it certainly does NOT call for jobz.
In the current environment, the people's well-being calls for caging the elites. They've plundered the earth and enslaved the people. Enslaved the people to unnecessary wars and you know quite a number of other horrific things.
And... WE'VE HAD ENOUGH.
We only need economic activity as part of a system of activities that facilitate the people's well-being, i.e. universal equity/justice. It's mostly non-economic.
Most of the status quo economic activity in the USA today is wasteful, useless plunder. We need to cut economic activity by 75% and re-direct what remains to TRULY BENEFIT THE PEOPLE. And we're doing it too. We're shifting our personal exchange/association to the local community, small farmers, craftsmen, merchants.
We notice that the thronesquatter isn't focused on building the system toward the end of universal equity/justice. He isn't thinking holistically. And it should come as no surprise: He's a member of the elite establishment and holistic thinking displays the grotesque injustice of the elite agenda.
So Jobs R US is the elite prescription, to pacify the people while denying the people self-determination. Are you going to swallow it, or spit it back into the elite's face?
Right on.
Isn't all this just a political proposal knowing that the next congress won't give Obama shit.
For Obama do get anything done as a lame duck he will have to exercise executive authority and in emergency cases (What is not an emergency now?) he could tell the Fed to give the new Workers Czar all the cash they need to build a sustainable infrastructure for all the people of every class including the middle Class.
Off course that will not happen, Obama like many CIA insiders is only posing as a Commie.
Things are gonna get Weird..
love
Oilbomber has already sent Rahm Emmanuel Rove to consult with Pelosi and Reid, regarding making sure the Republicrats don't pass any such measure.
It's a pure political stunt, trying to throw some bread crumbs of "hope" too all of the Professional Leftists, in a last ditch effort to fool them into voting Democratic just one more election.
Katrine, thanks a lot for that great information. Knowing now how this is "rigged", I tend to agree with you, there is indeed great potential for this to be successfully passed through the legislature, unfortunately.
the military needs good roads and rails and safer skies if they're to control the masses.
American politics is pro wrestling with the entertainment deleted. Both parties are owned by the same power brokers. If one still thinks not one is not thinking and is being manipulated by the blame game.We are screwing ourselves by allowing ourselves to be manipulated into blaming "others" when it is us that are so willingly being screwed and pointing fingers at each others while the REAL criminals are laughing their guts out at the manufactured drama. Please check my style out for non issues.
Barack Obama climbed to the political pinnacle by carefully avoiding anything that resembled leadership or independent thinking. If the ruling class had ever detected anything resembling a backbone in this "triangulator" in the image and likeness of Bill Clinton they never would have allowed him to pretend to be President.
But he was willing, no eager, to disown and renounce truth-tellers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and surround himself with calculating political hacks like David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel who pass down his marching orders from the banks.
The collapsing capitalist US economy will soon be in need of a scapegoat. If Barack Obama doesn't get lucky and the Generals and Bankers don't call for war on Iran, he's going to be it! Obama will not make it to 2012 as President. I hold no ill will towards him as a man and he has a beautiful family and those two innocent little girls, so I hope his penalty will not be imprisonment or worse. But that's a decision his masters will make.
Geez, where have I heard this before? Oh wait, here's Obama Nov. 22nd 2008 just after the election:
"We have acted boldly, bravely, and above all, together," Obama said. "That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come. It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will."
The problems are these:
1. 2.5 million jobs ain't jack. The immediate need is for three times that many, and maybe much more.
2. 2.5 million jobs for $600 to $800 billion ain't jack. This is way too capital intensive for a recessionary jobs program.
3. There is no attempt to correlate what "infrastructure" yields versus what is lost in the course of the economic crisis. And they want to laugh at economic planning under socialism?
4. There is no capacity for such a program. Yes, this is construction trades shit but... it is the wrong ones.
5. There is no direct creation of jobs but an indirect one, let out through contracts and bids. The direct wage impacts of this are one fifth of the total... and the materials content won't spill into other U.S. industries. The U.S. impact is perhaps another fifth. The problem is that 35-40% of the total creates "jobs", and those disappear as soon as the projects are done... and they are in the wrong localities, wrong trades, in some of the most corrupt segments of the economy - think "Big Dig" in Boston, promoted and advanced through the existing pork barrels.
6. There is no implicit guarantee or even a "hope" of jobs, food, shelter or health care here; no organization, like the NRA, responsible for mobilizing for that purpose; and no political recognition of the crisis whatsoever.
7. Sure, there will be one project that almost everyone would like BUT that is just a greased rail for the greased pork goin' down the track.
In truth, this is a bunch of neo-liberal assholes using the emergency to push through some insane blueprint of their own, in the guise of "helping the masses".
This is let them eat cake of the highest order.
As you all say:
A Day Late and a Dollar (or $200B) Short!!!!!!
A Little Stimulii
Speaking of doling out taxpayer dollars to little effect,
still sucking are the black holes for money and lives.
The longest military wars that still go on without respect,
the king of killing budgets, for murder, occupation and corruption slaves.
And in order for the very richest peoples wealth to protect,
payouts for schemes of fraud and theft, those institutional saves.
This goes to show that the winners control those they elect.
There may be a few good intentions they let pass down the road that hell paves.
But those things that might really save are already marked to reject.
Like peace, infrastructure, and energy renewables, the heavenly aids.
These are hostages to the fortune, power and status by the few self select.
The absolute corruption of absolute power chooses how the wealthy behaves.
So be thankful for the small crumbs, for all the rest is already taken.
The entire world has already been carved up, by the big players so craven.
Let's look at this rationally. The banksters already have virtually everything. There is a huge labor market out there beginning to starve, losing their homes, suffering illness and poor nutrition.
History has always shown that these conditions make a great incentive for people to join the military and feed ever expanding wars. Then, the $30bn, extorted from We the People will probably go to a job stimulus program. People can work in the armament industry, making shells and bombs for more war, at minimum wage.
Of course, SS, Medicare, education, housing, will all go down the tubes in the name of austerity. Who knows, the government might start putting us elderly to sleep, like the pound does to unwanted dogs and cats, out of pity and concern of course, so we don't suffer.
It certainly worked in Germany in the '30s, why not here?
OilyBomber could try doing something effective to stop foreclosures, like the cramdown he refused to adhere to.
Forget Obama, he is a liar. He cares nothing about you. He only cares about the rich. His legislative actions further enrich the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Obama will hurt the working man.
Isn't it about time to give up on the American Dream, otherwise known as the American Way of Life (AWOL)?
I haven't owned a car in many years, can't afford it, so I won't be able to drive on those new or refurbished highways, even if the gas is available after Peak Oil.
We need some new dreams. Lately I'm thinking local.
More new roads, highways, and buildings. As if we don't already have too many? Who cares about the environment and people's health?
Yeah, just what we need - more stinking asphalt!
Isn't that about equivalent to the same amount he gave GM? I guess now that Wall Street has been taken care of he's gonna throw the average American a bone now.
A day late and a dolla short Bammy. Wish I could have my vote back and cast it for Cynthia McKinney or even Palin at this point in the game.
Didn't he do this same thing about a year and a half ago? I think that money was supposed to employ people, too. However it never made it past Wall Street and the banks.
This time big construction companies will be the ones bailed out.
Obama to introduce another business tax cut - $200 Billion
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/07/obama.business.taxcut/index.html?hpt=T2
More trickle down. Surprise! Surprise! $50 Billion for jobs and $200 Billion in tax cuts for wealthy business owners.
The laws of physics apply to Obama. Obama has a trajectory. In the beginning he selected Geithner and Emanuel. Nothing has changed. An arrow shot does not make a U-turn. Obama won't either. Wake up America! Obama is what Obama does not what Obama says.
This can't be right.
Americans supposedly pulling out of Iraq, sanctions being applied to North Korea and Iran, Afghanistan still boiling over and with Karzai saying he's going to deal with the Taliban for peace talks, and now Barry Obama's going to apply the single double-A battery powered defibrillator paddles to America after only a couple of years of laughing at the patients problems.
20-30 years of letting the country's infrastructure literally fall apart & fall behind the rest of the world, then now suddenly without a green revolution and societal paradigm change a big band-aid is going to be applied.....well hopefully as Barry is promising, merely to just continue on as before as if nothing has changed and ignoring stuff like peak oil, climate disruption, environmental rape & failure, depression (not recession), and with a zombie financial system that's been on life support that's ready to implode again real soon. - The clowns are clapping whilst the circus tent is burning down.
And good ol' Osama bin Laden hasn't had time to deliver his latest threat yet. (audio only because he can no longer appear on video probably since the American-manufactured Osama doubles never looked quite right to begin with)
I mean c'mon......we're not even treated to a Max Headroom style Osama bin Laden like the effective soda bar caricatures in "Back To The Future"?
I feel cheated.
Never mind, plenty of time to wheel out the threat stuff later on as the buildup to the great corporate-sponsored American election coming up soon. Gonna be some great graphics and CGI mixed in amongst the plastic hairdo's of the plastic candidates and policies.
Remember to vote because you know the game is all above-board and your voice counts.
Live Free or Diebold Trying
'Diebold Trying'
Now, that's hitting below the bolt. At least our elections are honest. And, if there's any doubt, we can count on The Supremes.
>>In 2005, the Bush administration signed a transportation bill that cost $286.4 billion over five years, or just under $50 billion a year.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s07.shtml
He has his Bush impersonation down to an art form.
As repeated over and over again...What EARTH needs is fewer people NOT 'more jobs'. Attrition (natural) will attend to the balancing of Earth's resources (and jobs) IF we do not add more to the populations of the world which surpasses that attrition.
We, surely, all KNOW Earth's resources are not infinite.
The wars are getting rid of millions upon millions of people. But, destroying the land on which they are occurring. Contaminating water, air and soil. Uselss for growing food.
Obama made it clear, in his Berlin speech, that there are to be no walls between nations... no nations having their own arms... "A New World Order", he said must ensure those walls are TORN DOWN. !
Who, then, we ask, is meant to govern these 'wall-less' nations? Keep the 'law'? Why, said Einstein, who but the most powerful elite of the world, as they form, collectively, a World Government, which rules according to : 'Law'.
I mean, Obama said (in Berlin - not when he was later elected President of the USA) 'no borders between nations. Mind you, he has deployed 'protective' measures with drones for his own borders. Tsk
That is the aim. You will find, when you check. Could be the best thing to do...no warring between nations, no selling of arms (for both, or all sides!) from the Arms Manufacturers.... Who knows? One thing I think most of us do know is that, countries are waging war at the rate of knots.. And 'we' are waging wars 'everywhere'..creating wars where no wars were going on.
~ S.C.
As long as 48.000.000.000 of it is spent on a "nationalized" rail network I would agree.
However I understand that after bailing out the Auto Ind,
(after the banks)....all these new cars of yours need good roads...and cheap gas,and cheap credit, and a job to pay for it all, but you know that.
Railroads deliver the goods that keep you alive at a fractiom of the cost of long haul trucks (the primary culprit in the
wear&tear of the highway system) the fuel taxes of which go into "General Revenue".
Cheap fuel is over.
Cheap "credit" is over.
Jobs.......What's that?
Makes one think that there's some ulterior motivators
pushing this agenda.
As a PS:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7985812/China-to-build-2bn-railway-for-Iran.html
It's about time someone is doing something about the unemployment rate. I think this is a great idea, America needs to get back to work. LiUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America http://bit.ly/9ZVcaM) estimates 1.5 million men and women in the construction industry are jobless. That's unacceptable, somethings gotta be done