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Published on Sunday, December 7, 2008 by YES! Magazine
The Obama Economic Stimulus -- Will It Take Us Where We Need to Go?
Dear President-elect Obama,
The economic stimulus package you laid out today in your weekly radio and internet address is a great starting point -- very much needed as the downward spiral of the economy takes away the breath of even the most level-headed observer.
Your plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs by investing in energy efficiency, infrastructure, and schools are all things we called for in the agenda we laid out in the Fall issue of YES!, and are all favored by a large majority of Americans.
Let's look a bit more closely at your specific plans:
This is an excellent place to start. Increasing the efficiency of buildings reduces greenhouse gas pollution, and cuts dependence on both imported energy. It sets a higher standard for building owners to emulate, and jump starts what could be one of the best new sources of stable, family-wage employment -- refurbishing the built environment for energy efficiency. And it is an investment that will quickly begin saving us tax dollars.
Will you, as promised, create an affordable system of health insurance that will cover everyone? The analysis we did for the YES! issue, Health Care for All, shows that keeping the private insurance industry as the dominant player in the system, makes universal coverage difficult, if not impossible. Canada and every other wealthy country deliver health care security to everyone by eliminating the expense, bureaucracy, and dominant role of the profit motive from the health care payment system. Medical services are still provided by a combination of private, public, and non-profit medical facilities.
These systems work -- few Canadians or Europeans would trade their system for the expense, ineffectiveness, and insecurity of the U.S. system. And little wonder; they live longer and healthier lives than Americans, and can take access to medical care for granted. In spite of the absence of these proposals from most public debate, Canadian-style, single-payer health care is favored by an overwhelming majority of Americans, who now live in fear of losing health coverage due to a job loss or some other change in circumstances.
One other element of the economic plan that Americans favor -- please, Mister President-Elect, extend unemployment benefits for those losing their jobs and unable to find a new one in a downsizing economy. Doing so will immediately put money into the pocket of hard-pressed Americans, who will immediately spend it on providing necessities for their families -- a great investment in our children and our future, and an immediate stimulus to the real economy of Main Street. (If you have any doubt about the pain ordinary Americans are feeling, check out these stories on the Huffington Post.)
In summary, your plan is a great starting point. But the economic collapse (and pending environmental collapse) shows the need for much deeper restructuring. Some ideas about what that might mean are here.
The economic stimulus package you laid out today in your weekly radio and internet address is a great starting point -- very much needed as the downward spiral of the economy takes away the breath of even the most level-headed observer.
Your plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs by investing in energy efficiency, infrastructure, and schools are all things we called for in the agenda we laid out in the Fall issue of YES!, and are all favored by a large majority of Americans.
Let's look a bit more closely at your specific plans:
"First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."
This is an excellent place to start. Increasing the efficiency of buildings reduces greenhouse gas pollution, and cuts dependence on both imported energy. It sets a higher standard for building owners to emulate, and jump starts what could be one of the best new sources of stable, family-wage employment -- refurbishing the built environment for energy efficiency. And it is an investment that will quickly begin saving us tax dollars.
"Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money."Investment in national infrastructure is desperately needed after years of neglect by leaders hostile to government projects. But we are entering a new era, when everything we build must be assessed for its climate impacts. The potential catastrophe of run-away climate meltdown could make the economic melt down look minor by comparison. Infrastructure investments must be used to build to climate friendly projects -- bridges that accommodate mass transit, bike lanes, and pedestrians, for example. And roads that encourage compact communities rather than expensive and wasteful sprawl.
"Third, my economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools."Great plan. Our kids should not be going to run-down schools that kill the spirit and signal to them that we don't care. Instead, schools should be filled with beauty and light -- qualities that can improve learning and cut energy costs. More than any other group, our young people have a stake in a sustainable future, and we can rebuild schools that give them hope. While we're at it, we can address another of your top priorities, health, by connecting the schools with local farmers, so kids get healthy, fresh, local meals.
"As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world."Agreed. Kids must have access to the extraordinary range of information available on the internet and to the tools needed to create their own on-line spaces, where they can express their own ideas and talents, not just be passive consumers of information and entertainment. We need to find the right balance, though, between kids spending time in the electronic world of the internet, and interacting with real people, real spaces, and real plants, animals, soil, water, and sunshine. In other words, the virtual world is no substitute for the real world.
"... the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year."Fine, but let's not get distracted from the real crisis: access to health care.
Will you, as promised, create an affordable system of health insurance that will cover everyone? The analysis we did for the YES! issue, Health Care for All, shows that keeping the private insurance industry as the dominant player in the system, makes universal coverage difficult, if not impossible. Canada and every other wealthy country deliver health care security to everyone by eliminating the expense, bureaucracy, and dominant role of the profit motive from the health care payment system. Medical services are still provided by a combination of private, public, and non-profit medical facilities.
These systems work -- few Canadians or Europeans would trade their system for the expense, ineffectiveness, and insecurity of the U.S. system. And little wonder; they live longer and healthier lives than Americans, and can take access to medical care for granted. In spite of the absence of these proposals from most public debate, Canadian-style, single-payer health care is favored by an overwhelming majority of Americans, who now live in fear of losing health coverage due to a job loss or some other change in circumstances.
One other element of the economic plan that Americans favor -- please, Mister President-Elect, extend unemployment benefits for those losing their jobs and unable to find a new one in a downsizing economy. Doing so will immediately put money into the pocket of hard-pressed Americans, who will immediately spend it on providing necessities for their families -- a great investment in our children and our future, and an immediate stimulus to the real economy of Main Street. (If you have any doubt about the pain ordinary Americans are feeling, check out these stories on the Huffington Post.)
In summary, your plan is a great starting point. But the economic collapse (and pending environmental collapse) shows the need for much deeper restructuring. Some ideas about what that might mean are here.
28 Comments so far
Show AllThe real question is will he take us where the bankers want us to be?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936
Thank you _L A F F I N G B E A R _,
The video is excellent, and vary detailed -- although 3.5 hours is very long !
Namaste
No, it's a lackluster band-aid. Obama isn't serious about the economy until he sticks to his campaign promises -- repeal Bush tax cronyism and tax the stuffing out of windfall oil profits.
All these plans are just window dressing. The REAL problem is BIGNESS. BIG BUS. and BIG GOV't have squeezed everyone else out of the game and are deeply entwined now. Even with all this look at all the BIG companies failing. But do u see any lay offs from Gov't? No way. I have friends that work 6 mos. of the yr. and make 90K as teachers and they get full benes and a pension at 75% of their salary when they retire. Nobody wants to talk to this problem. When millions are losing their largely private jobs the public sector is either expanding or allowing an expansion of salary and benefits. This can't go on without a private economy. The private non-government related economy is dying. The public sector needs a wake up call as well.
Dear Sarah...unfortuntely, you have no idea what you're talking about. None. Odd that your piece would even be printed here. Doesn't say much for CommonDreams, actually. I guess CommonDreams has become an ideologically driven enterprize rather than a truth seeking one: kind of like Michael Moore. and I'm a Lefty, so this isn't a right wing rant. I have bad news for Mr. Obama..and for you Sarah: this is not a slow down. This is an economic disaster that will DWARF the Depression of the 1930s in scope and toll. It's hard to know where to begin, but here are 10 reasons why considering the current economic situation a "slow down"---and thus relying upon Friedmanite stimulus plans to save the day---is totally wrong.
Almost All of the banks of the world are, essentially, bankrupt. They have no capital. Capital has been summarily destroyed over the years by falling interest rates, rampant bond speculation and governmental check-kiting, fraudulent accounting, fraudulent valuation, the elimination of reserve ratios, the creation of money by federal decree (fiat currency), hidden off-book "assets" in the tens of TRILLIONS of dollars, a shadow banking system driven by derivative betting scams that globally reach toward half a QUADRILLION dollars in scope, etc. Were you to go the radical route of declaring a bank "holiday" and forcing the banks of the world to "open" their vaults and hard drives for objective inspection, what you'd find is trillions of pieces of worthless paper. If Assets = Liabilities + Equity---and in a world where many if not most of these institutions are leveraged 30:1, 40:1 and beyond---then the assets currently held by the world's banks are worthless. The housing implosion is surreal in the level of capital destruction that is ongoing and that is not even close to "bottoming":It is impossible to valuate CDOs that hold mortgages because it is impossible to untangle them. No longer do banks hold the loans from which they have profited: they are packed together with hundreds of other "like" assets and sold on the market to greedy investors. (Of course those days are gone, but the detritus remains)Nobody trusts valuations anymore anyhow. The agencies who were supposed to valuate securities accurately did nothing of the kind. The depth of mistrust--and rightly so---is SO deep that, in fact, all of the moves to prop up the system are viewed by the public as ways in which the rich can make themselves richer. Claims to the contrary by Paulson et al are met with anger and amazement: "Do they really think we are that dumb?!?"
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com
A stimulus is simply a game plan to delay what is in store for us.
The destruction of our industrial base that has been given to China
has ruined our economy and an effort to disguise the damage by introducing
this new game plan, A "Stimulus" will not work.
We are in a major depression and it's time to admit it. The Clintons and the
Bush Family have created this problem and no brainwashing will undo it.
Rewarding all those former Clinton and Bush Apostles with appointments in
the new administration is a hoax being purpetrated on the population.
By his appointments Obama has convinced us that he has no political or
business experience.It's time for Obama to interview the Main St Merchants
and get his information directly from the horse's mouth.
A few more days and it will be to late to rescue Main St..Hooray for the Banking
system. It was in 1975, that Congressman Wright Patman warned us that the
new Robber Barons would not be the RailRoads, but the Banking Industry.
He has been proven right, and the government will not take any action
against this crowd.
Answer this:
Where are we getting the money for these projects?
Rarely do I take any book in the words of Fred Thompson, but he should be given consideration on this following:
"Fred Thompson of the Economy"
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=7IrR3o7x1ps&ref=patrick.net
The government of Amerika is broken. It's been polluted and corrupted by greedy corporations and the sellouts who occupy high political office in this country.
Barack Obama won the election after promising "change we can believe in," but he was already on the corporate payroll. His confident and reassuring oratory is simply one tool that every con man carries in his bag of tricks.
Until elections are publicly financed with no corporate money allowed and all the elected offices are term limited, things will only get worse.
If Obama was serious about successfully implementing these important programs he..
(1) Wouldn't have actively lobbied for the passage of the Treasury's $800 billion gift to criminal bankers for committing crimes.
(2) Would've voted AGAINST every war funding and defense bill.
(3) Would be demanding the abolishment of the Federal Reserve for secretly giving away 3 Trillion dollars to criminal bankers for committing crimes (with a pledge to give $4 billion more).
(4) Would be raising rates on the upper income tax bracket to pre-Reagan era of 70% (Obama has already backed down on his campaign pledge to end the Bush tax cuts).
(5) Would be demanding that Hedge funds be taxed at the rate of regular income, not 15%.
(6) Would remove parasitic insurance companies from the halthcare equation to drive costs as low as possible to provide full coverage to all.
we can't afford any of this. we couldn't afford a war, bailouts, tax cuts, and we can't afford stimulous packages. if we keep spending like this the currency could collapse.
Oh we can afford to do it. It's just a matter of taxing the right people. You know the greedy dastards who feel like they have to make more money in a year than 99 percent of the people will ever spend in a lifetime. Elimination of corporate welfare and loop holes that allow major corporations to operate tax free. Things like that. I believe that anyone who makes more money than it takes to provide the minimum of basic needs should be paying much higher taxes. Everybody should be paid a living wage tax free, anything after that is luxury and should be taxed.
Rickster
.We simply cannot afford NOT to do this. If President Elect Obama follows through on his pledge to inspect the budget line by line, if he ends this stupid war in Iraq there will once again be plenty of money available. The numbers of people who would be employed in tis endeavor would be a boost to the economy as well.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Single-payer Healthcare under HR676, the expanded Medicare for All bill, would give us a nonprofit system similar to Canada's and free up $400 billion currently wasted on insurance bureaucracy, bringing our per capita costs in line with other developed countries. Obama's proposal CAN NOT do that, as you point out unless it adopts a single payer system that eliminates private insurance & their control over coverage. Hr676 thus solves healthcare, economic & budget problems. Please see www.Healthcare-Now.org for details why.
Any stimulus based on tax dollars and borrowed money is just not going to work. We have an 11 trillion dollar national debt and 70 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. Government needs to issue it's own debt free money for this, but the banksters won't like it since thats profit out of their pocket, so he will not do it.
But hey, if people do not educate themselves and allow themselves to be conned with proposals such as these, why should I care.
Hi _ M i M i C c S,
Perhaps in acknowledgment of the outright class warfare and theft behind the trillion$,
__ we might just spit into the vacuous eyes of the bankers,
__ and cancel the debt as illegitimate ?
¿ Since when has there been any honor among thieves ?
Namaste
My concerns with Obama’s economic stimulus package is that it dovetails with the economic trends of the last two decades in that a lot of it is far more capital intensive than labor intensive. Retrofitting existing buildings so they are more energy efficient is reasonably labor intensive…so long as the new heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, energy saving bulbs, energy efficient windows, doors, and insulation are domestically manufactured and installed by legal workers. (The construction industry is one of the largest employers of illegal workers.)
Building roads and bridges is very capital intensive; the percentage of funds going to labor is not nearly as great as in other sectors of the economy like much needed improvements in the care for the aging.
I have real problems with this part of Obama’s proposal; “Third, my economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools."
While there are many school systems here in Indiana that dearly need improvements in their facilities I suspect that there are even more that would benefit from hiring more teachers and reducing class size. As jobs here in the Midwest were outsourced population has moved out of the area so the problem is not having enough classrooms, rather the problems is affording to hire enough teachers. Since school budgets here are primarily financed locally in the larger cities the rich suburban school districts tend to have better school systems than the poorer school systems that are located in the inner cities. Some Federal dollars to address this problem would be money well spent.
A second educational issue that has not been addressed is that of academic content and extra curricular activities. In many school systems the art and music programs have suffered as budgets were slashed. Another unaddressed problem is school systems where the “Social Conservatives” have hijacked the School Boards; in the public school district just west of me their curriculum includes the teaching of creationism as an alternative to evolution.
As schools have been forced to cut back their budgets, programs like math club, Spanish club, and the speech and debate teams have disappeared. (If you want to see the local citizens take in interest in the school budget propose that the Basketball teams be eliminated.) The skills that I learned in art class and on the speech team have been far more valuable than those I picked up in any other high school class except Driver’s Ed.
Any steps toward universal health care would require the creation of lots of new health care jobs.
Obama’s call for universal Electronic Medical Records to “cut red tape” is really a call to streamline the existing privatized health insurance / health care provider industry. Modern medical information technology does provide vast savings for both the providers of medical services and the health insurance industries with vast savings of employment costs for both industries.
Have these savings been passed on to the consumers? When was the last time your health insurance premiums, co-pays or doctor bills went down?
"(If you want to see the local citizens take in interest in the school budget propose that the Basketball teams be eliminated.)"
I firmly believe that sports should be remove from the schools. I believe that local governments should provide the facilities(stadiums, ball fields, pools, etc. for sports and local non-government groups should organize and finance the opportunities for youth to participate in each of the sports. This would allow the facilities to be multi-use to all citizens.
Rickster
MORE TEACHERS, MORE TEACHERS' AIDS, HIGHER SALARIES, SMALLER CLASSES.
Yes, Madhoosier, Thank you.
Hiring new teachers and assistants can happen much faster than building new schools, and will put more people to work. And higher teacher salaries are indispensable.
One dirty little secret of American education is that education majors are drawn mostly from the lower 25th percentile of college students. The best and the brightest do not go into teaching. Why should they when an engineer or an MBA can make much more money in the first year than a teacher will make after 30 years of experience? The second little secret is that teachers are insanely overworked. Class, plus grading, plus preparation can add up to an 80 hour week. So low pay and overwork rarely attract the top of the class.
A "professional" is someone who is thought intelligent enough to be trusted with a wide degree of independence, and who is regulated not primarily through a hierarchy, but through elected associations of peers. Think the American Medical Association.
When teachers are compelled to "teach for a standard test" by the "No Child Left Left Behind" act, they are being told that they are not really professionals. Only higher pay and smaller classrooms will begin to give our teachers the dignity needed to teach with imagination and love. But then, that is not the kind of teacher (or student) that the Republican Party wants, is it? Obama can revolutionize education while energizing the economy. Will he? We'll see.
Bring back the draft and use it to use the best and brightest to teach in the schools. Sort of a national service, like Mormon kids have to do.
an interesting point about the distinction between capitol versus labor intensive investment. however, capitol intensive investments are the most important for economic growth in the long run. the long term reward for capitol investment pays huge dividends in both growth and efficiency of domestic business, as well as limiting those advantages to domestic business. It might not be the most direct method of transferring money to labor, restoring consumer confidence and spending, but it is probably the most efficient allocation of investment, that is investment in infrastructure.
same argument goes for the electronic medical records, not a labor intensive process but capitol intensive. everyone seems to like that one though???
investment in infrastructure an important common ground for both the left, middle and even the right.
also, a quick note on educational curriculum. While investment in less affluent districts is necessary, federal control of the curriculum is not. Any competent educator will tell you that control of the curriculum is essential. it doesn't make much sense to teach a city kid agriculture. aren't there tests that measure competency of specific schools?
"it doesn't make much sense to teach a city kid agriculture."
Your mostly right, a city kid doesn't need hands on experience in agriculture but he could still have a short course in the basic processes of agriculture. You might even be able to come up with a whole new course taught in the ninth or may eleventh grade. Call it an introduction to the trades such as engineering, nursing, electronics, etc.
Rickster
Let's have the federal government only make labor intensive investments and let money trickle-down to capitol intensive investments.
"and put new computers in our classrooms"
This is something that should stand far behind restoring real education, teaching real history and information to our students. Otherwise it sounds good.
.The use of comnputers allows students access to reams of information and teaches them skills they will need in our increasingly technologically based world. I would suggest that such access is paramount to the educatory process, not secondary as you suggest. The computer is like having a second teacher in the classroom.
Insert witticism about Texas and computers here......
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Excellent. Obama is a breath of fresh air!!!
For 35 years I've been waiting for a president to actually enunciate the word-Infrastructure. or even use the word Green! and today to actually say in an interview we must support our returning troops! For gods sake our bravest men and women coming home to homelessness and mental trauma was a disgrace and today Obama is making real changes by appointing retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who clashed with the Bush administration as Army chief of staff, to head the Department of Veterans Affairs . I feel the gigantic ship of state is beginning to shift LEFT! HURRAH!
This is a shift to the left, thanks for recognizing that.
Rico, Thomas More, it's nice to agree with people on CD, for a change.
Gen. Eric K. Shinseki will finally give Vets the quality care they deserve. No expense should be spared. No more moldy hospitals like Walter Reed. These young men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for us, or at least, that's what they thought they were doing when they signed up. So regardless of your stance on the war (and I agree that Iraq was a "dumb" war) we owe them respect and gratitude for their service. Caring for them should be our top priority. Rightly or wrongly, they are willing to die for our freedom. How many of us can say that? How many of us can match their bravery? I'll admit, I can't. I'd be scared to fight in a war. I try to help by donating to Veterans groups or praying for peace. It's not much. But at least I'm doing something.
I think all of us should find some small way to support our returning troops who will desperately need our help. Organize a benefit for widows, for amputees, or for Vets with PTSD. Plan or march in a pride parade, or if you operate a business offer a military discount. Volunteer at a VA or homeless shelter, but please, do something to show your support for the troops (not the war, mind you, but the troops). We can all find some way to help. We don't want a repeat of what happened with Vietnam.
.Absolutely the best way to support our troops is to ensure that they are never again misused as they have been in the Iraqi invasion.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
HURRAH indeed! Shinseki is a great choice.