Source: Washington Post

Economic Crisis Boils Democratic Message Down to Jobs

Health Care, Energy Still Part of Agenda

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 16, 2008; Page A06

For most of his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama's economic message was a call to restore balance to an off-kilter system, with investments in health care and education and reforms to the tax code and labor laws. But the Democratic message on the economy is now boiling down to a more blunt and focused rallying cry: jobs, jobs, jobs.

With unemployment claims at a 14-year high, and with Goldman Sachs economists predicting that the jobless rate could rise to 8.5 percent by the end of 2009, Democrats are seizing on job creation as an argument for aggressive action that they say will be hard for Republicans to resist.

Democrats are using the promise of tens of thousands of new jobs building bridges, public transit lines and port facilities to push for an infrastructure program that carries echoes of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration. After Republican opposition last week scuttled talk of a more limited stimulus package in the short term, Democrats plan to wait until January -- when Obama takes office and an even larger Democratic majority controls Congress -- to move forward with legislation for the infrastructure program, which would be part of a stimulus package that some economists say needs to be at least $300 billion.

The Democrats' talk of energy is being framed more than ever around the prospect of more "green" jobs: building wind turbines and solar panels, for example, or retrofitting buildings to make them more efficient. Even Democratic plans to expand health coverage are being billed as job-creation measures. The thinking is that universal coverage will lower health-care costs and make companies more willing to hire, as well as create new health-care jobs.

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I look forward to January, when the repugs will be told to sit down, shut up & stay the hell out of our way. I don't pretend to be an economist - and from all appearances fancy degrees & years of experience don't amount to a hill of beans when it comes to putting theory into practice. It seems to me that taking action of some sort is better than doing nothing at all, and our infrastructure could definitely use some attention. Expansion of public transit is also high on my 'wish list' of what we as a nation need to be accomplishing.

Economic Crisis Boils Democratic Message Down to Jobs [View All]

Economic Crisis Boils Democratic Message Down to Jobs

Health Care, Energy Still Part of Agenda