A look at the first 'piece' of the jobs bill that Senate Democrats will bring up for a vote

[bigtree]

from Ezra Klein at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-case-for-rehiring-public-workers/2011/10/18/gIQAyfJ4tL_blog.html


This week, Senate Democrats will break up President Obama's jobs bill and begin voting on the pieces separately. First up is the $35 billion to state and local governments, $30 billion of which is earmarked for retain and rehiring teachers and $5 billion of which is meant to go to public-safety personnel. Senate Dems are proposing to pay for it with a 0.5 percent tax surcharge on income over $1,000,000 a year. Senate Republicans are proposing to filibuster. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says the bill is further proof that Democrats "are still focused on the same temporary stimulus spending that's failed to solve our jobs crisis."

But not all "temporary stimulus spending" is the same. The theory behind a temporary payroll tax cut, for instance, is that it gives Americans a bit more money to spend. But that only gets the economy moving in a significant way if Americans are sufficiently interested in spending that money. The argument against a temporary tax cut is that Americans know it's temporary and they know that they will eventually have to pay for this sort of spending and so they save the tax cut rather than spend it.

The case against a program to hire or rehire public-sector workers isn't, as McConnell suggests, that it's temporary. You can't put a job in the bank and save it for later. The case against a program like this is that you think a recovery is right around the corner and so it's better to let these workers remain unemployed so that the market can place them in the sort of jobs that the economy really needs. But anyone who thinks a recovery is right around the corner is not looking at the economic data that the rest of us are seeing. The real alternative here isn't that the market reemploys these workers. It's that nobody does. And then, in a few years, when the labor market does tighten up again, their skills have deteriorated, and employers feel nervous about hiring them, and they have gone from unemployed to almost unemployable.

Of late, economist Adam Ozimek has been asking people to list their "now-less-than-ever" ideas: Policies they would normally support, but would oppose due to the current economic circumstances. This bill is sort of the opposite of that: It's a "now-and-hopefully-never-again" idea. Of all the things you could do with federal dollars, helping state and local governments rehire people they have fired or expand their public-safety payrolls seems like the most absurd. In normal times, if the public-sector is downsizing, that's probably a good thing. But this is not a normal time. That's why the money is, as McConnell says, temporary, and also why it makes sense. It would be ideal if we could cut out the middleman and simply stick them in the industries of the future now, but we can't. And if we don't get them jobs soon, then the industries of the future aren't going to want to hire them anyway. This is not a policy anybody should, as a general measure, like. But until unemployment comes down and workers can find jobs on their own, it's a policy we need.


read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-case-for-rehiring-public-workers/2011/10/18/gIQAyfJ4tL_blog.html

related:

Poll: Americans Overwhemingly Support First Piece Of Obama Jobs Plan To Prevent Teacher, Firefighter Layoffs
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/17/346144/poll-americans-support-jobs-bill-prevent-layoffs/

[Javaman]

1. Piece meal for the poor...

that's what this amounts to. The repukes are dictating what needs to be done or, in this case, what's not to be done.

in the end, what ever is passed will be so watered down, so convoluted, so opaque that it won't matter at all. However, you can bet your ass the corps, the wealthy and the well connected repukes will certainly get their cut...at the expense of the middle and poor classes.

Meh.

[bigtree]

2. well, republicans won't get anything out of this effort

. . . this piece of the bill won't be 'watered down' for them, and, of course, republicans plan to block it with one of those cloture filibusters.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

18. Just as predicted right here when O first proposed this bill --

How many of us correctly called it? We said the goal from the beginning was that the plan would be broken up into little bits, with any tax cuts offered passed and any real benfits to the people offered voted down.

Just. As. Planned.

Damn, some of us a fucking psychic!

[bigtree]

24. the tax cuts in the American Jobs Act haven't been passed

. . . nor are they offered in any separate Democratic initiative that has any chance of reaching the floor. The FIRST piece of the jobs bill to be broken off and considered is the Teacher, Firefighter job portion as outlined in the op. It may well be voted down, but that doesn't automatically put the tax cuts up for a vote. The President and the Democratic leadership are re-starting the debate where they should - with the teachers and firefighters.

[Romulox]

3. We should be having this conversation...in 2009. nt

[bigtree]

4. we did

US House approves $155 billion jobs bill Reuters -Dec 16, 2009

By a vote of 217 to 212, the House approved additional spending for "shovel-ready" construction projects and money to avoid layoffs of teachers, police and other public employees.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/17/usa-congress-jobs-idUSN1612851020091217

[Romulox]

5. The President and Congress delivered a minimal stimulus in 2009, loaded with tax breaks

and then the President sat down with the insurance industry and Mitt Romney's ex-advisers and forged his mandatory private insurance bill.

The results speak for themselves. :shrug:

[bigtree]

7. left out a few things

. . . like how many working-class Americans are actually benefiting from provisions in the health law. No mandate in place yet.

And, while it can certainly be argued that the recovery act should have done more, it's a curious argument against it to downplay the infrastructure spending and job stimulus that actually occurred as a result of the compromise bill. I wouldn't argue against all of the tax breaks in the legislation either. The bill was crafted and voted on in a divided Congress in an atmosphere of national economic crisis.

Ezra Klein reflected on the spending this week: (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/10/didnt_the_stimulus_take_care_o.html)


___ The proposal finished at $787 billion. Of this, infrastructure accounted for a bit more than $100 billion. Where did the rest go? Well, $288 billion went to tax cuts and incentives. Another $150 billion went to the health-care system, most of it to help Medicaid and COBRA deal with the millions of Americans who'd lost their jobs and, thus, their health-care coverage. Education got another $100 billion, with most of it going to local school systems so they could avoid layoffs and continue with needed building maintenance. About $82 billion went to aid for unemployed workers, including unemployment benefits and food stamps. About another $50 billion went to scientific research, housing subsidies, miscellaneous other items like law enforcement.

Should the stimulus have been all infrastructure? Or more infrastructure? I'd say unemployment benefits, food stamps, state and local aid, and Medicaid and COBRA benefits were the most pressing priorities. Infrastructure would come next in my book. Then the long-term investments, like health information technology, research funding and other items that were aimed at keeping our long-term growth prospects healthy. The tax cuts don't quicken my pulse, though I see the case for them. President Obama is right to be self-critical, I think, in reflecting on his decision to simply add his own tax cuts and assume that would be seen as a bipartisan compromise rather than forcing Republicans to offer up a proposal and take ownership over part of the package. But that's a political argument.

Whatever we should have done on infrastructure spending doesn't change what we did do on infrastructure. About $100 billion, spread over two or three years. Let's call it $40 billion a year for the first two years, with the rest trickling out after that. According to official data, that's funded about 30,000 infrastructure projects across the country so far. That's a lot.

We've got about $2.2 trillion in needed infrastructure spending. A bipartisan group of former transportation secretaries released a report saying we need about $194 billion in annual infrastructure spending through 2035. To improve our infrastructure, we need more than $200 billion every year. There's no way the stimulus's $40 billion or so could've wiped that out.

The bottom line on infrastructure is the same as the bottom line on stimulus: The fact that we did a lot doesn't mean we did enough. The fact that the numbers were large doesn't mean that the needed numbers weren't larger. This is perhaps clearer on infrastructure than on stimulus. The stimulus arguments rely on calculations of the "output gap," which are necessarily abstract. When it comes to infrastructure, if the stimulus didn't give the state enough money to fix a particular road, those potholes remain present when you drive it.

[Romulox]

9. The *results* speak for themselves. The President's mandatory insurance bill didn't help employment

:shrug:

[bigtree]

11. that wasn't its goal

. . . and none of its provisions that Americans are currently benefiting from are 'mandatory'.

Of course, the job-creation as a result of the stimulus was overwhelmed, nonetheless, by the massive hangover from the Bush recession. Even so, the non-partisan consensus 7-8 months ago was that about 1.6 million jobs were either created or saved up to that point, predicting what the unemployment rate would have been if not enacted.

[Romulox]

13. Right. Employment should've been the President's #1 goal, going back to 2009. That's what I said.

"and none of its provisions that Americans are currently benefiting from are 'mandatory'."

This is the worse sort of disingenuousness. We both know about the mandatory private insurance part. Unless you are hoping for repeal (or SCOTUS strike-down,) it's coming. :hi:

[bigtree]

14. the mandatory provision may never take place, in my view

. . .or else be so vague and unenforceable as to make it meaningless. You have your view, I have mine. At any rate, that provision has nothing at all to do with the benefits from the legislation that Americans are already taking advantage of. And, the health bill has almost nothing to do with the efforts in the recovery act to stimulate or preserve jobs. Read what Klein outlined:

$150 billion went to the health-care system, most of it to help Medicaid and COBRA deal with the millions of Americans who'd lost their jobs and, thus, their health-care coverage.

Got a problem with that? Most of the republicans did.

Education got another $100 billion, with most of it going to local school systems so they could avoid layoffs and continue with needed building maintenance.

More benefits that you're dismissing.

About $82 billion went to aid for unemployed workers, including unemployment benefits and food stamps. About another $50 billion went to scientific research, housing subsidies, miscellaneous other items like law enforcement.

Brush that off if you like, but if the President and the Democrats (especially in the House) had their way, those figures would be larger. But, it's convenient to pretend like Democrats and the President had carte blanche to do what they pleased with the historically massive spending bill. The reality is that they achieved quite a great deal with the compromise recovery bill, and are still fighting to continue the effort with this latest piece of legislation.

And, look. Anyone who didn't see the President fighting for ways to stimulate employment from the beginning of his term hasn't been paying any attention at all to what he's actually been proposing and initiating.

[Romulox]

15. You minimize the centerpiece of the President's first term as a way to praise him?

It's a strange tack. At any rate, the economy speaks for itself. To argue that every move of the President's was a right one is not helpful, when, three years on, the economy is not much improved.

[bigtree]

17. the 'centerpiece' has always been the economy

The magnitude of the economic crisis certainly does speak for itself, that such a huge expenditure (the money that everyone agrees actually reached average Americans) made such a small dent in the jobs numbers. It's just sophistry to argue that there was no benefit. In fact, there was a record stimulus from the federal government. People benefited, despite the fact that employers haven't begun to take on new workers at higher rates. Local economies benefited, even though they certainly are still struggling. That's the impetus behind this jobs bill. It is another attempt to stimulate employment along the lines of the second stimulus plan that the republicans blocked, including most of the infrastructure spending that was stalled.

I don't understand all of the blame you're heaping on the White House for the lesser amount of money Congress agreed to allocate than he proposed.

[bvar22]

6. All predicted on DU.

The "pieces" that will be allowed to pass:

*More Free Trade".

*De-funding Social Security & Connecting SS to The Deficit (Payroll Tax Holiday).

*Tax Cuts

Aside from that,
How are you enjoying the Kabuki Theater?
The Illusion of A Choice must be maintained.

[bigtree]

8. while it's true those initiatives were passed

. . . they weren't part of the jobs bill under discussion.

Of course, the way you characterized some of those has been debated here . . .

[Romulox]

10. The President mentioned his free trade package in most of his speeches supporting his "jobs bill"

I think it's being a pedant to separate the two, when the President explicitly linked them.

[bigtree]

12. well, you can say what you want

. . . but those were never a part of this jobs bill that was blocked by republicans. This next vote will be the FIRST piece of the legislation considered outside of the original bill.

[bvar22]

16. The Three Free Trade Treaties WERE a part of the "Jobs Bill"..

... that Obama presented to the nation during his Prime Time Joint-Session Congressional Address.

You remember,
they were IN the "Pass This Bill" speech.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/text-obama-s-jobs-speech-there-are-steps-we-can-take-right-now--20110908





You will know them by their WORKS.

Solidarity99!
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[bigtree]

20. THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT -(Not a word about 'free trade' in the act)

from the WH: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act


1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.


2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs,while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers, including:
Work-Sharing: UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where those displacedtake temporary, voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.
A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment, innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan.To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

[bvar22]

22. Will you attempt to deny ...

...that the Free Trade Treaties were part of the "Pass This Bill Speech" that Obama gave to the nation in his Prime Time Address?

The predictions that I referenced were posted after his Prime Time Address,
and have been manifested as predicted so far.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their obfuscations.

Solidarity!
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[bigtree]

23. part of a speech, not part of this jobs bill under discussion and consideration

You're correct, if you're asserting that only those parts of his speech moved forward. But, this thread is about the jobs bill. There's almost as much diversion and distraction from that initiative in these responses than in Congress. To what end?

[bvar22]

25. Part of a Speech where the President said ..

"Pass This Bill" 17 times.

Also part of his After Speech Barnstorming Campaign where he repeated "Pass This Bill" uncountable times.


He was probably quickly advised to Split Out the Trade Treaties soon after his "Pass This Bill" speech
before submitting the final copy to Congress.

.
.
.
...probably after reading my post correctly predicting this exact dynamic on DU
immediately after he gave his "Pass This Bill" speech. :smoke:

[bigtree]

26. the trade treaties mentioned in the speech were never part of the American Jobs Act

More distortion here than in the media. For what purpose? Isn't this type of prevarication *that we properly excoriate the media for?

from the speech:

The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away. But we can’t stop there. As I’ve argued since I ran for this office, we have to look beyond the immediate crisis and startbuilding an economy that lasts into the future – an economy that creates good, middle-class jobs that pay well and offer security. We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out-build, out-educate, and out-innovate every other country on Earth.

This task, of making America more competitive for the long haul, is a job for all of us.


The trade initiatives were part of a 'competitiveness' strategy for stimulating the economy, not part of any plan to jump start employment.

[bvar22]

27. Depends on what the definition of "is" is.

The distinction upon which you are basing your entire argument
makes absolutely NO difference to the Real World outcome.

The Working Class will be faced with the LOSS of MORE Jobs as the direct results of these new treaties
which Obama Proposed in his "Pass This Bill" speech,
and reiterated during his "Pass This Bill" barnstorming tour.

I have "prevaricated" nothing.
My posts predicting this exact results after president Obama's "Pass This Bill" Speech
where he included the new Trade Treaties are in the archives.
So he broke out the Trade Treaties and offered them separately before submitting the Final Bill to Congress is arguing the irrelevant Minutiae.
It is like insisting that Obama did NOT campaign on a Public Option.

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their Irrelevant Minutiae.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[bigtree]

28. heh

The way you're stretching to distort the President's jobs bill is right out of the opposition playbook. To what end? The bill is a sound one which deserves support. This 'piece' which is the subject of the op is a worthwhile and correct place to throw down the gauntlet and force the republicans to vote again -- in isolation from the rest of the bull they argue about. In isolation so that folks in opposition won't be able to divert and distract from the actual purpose of the legislation.

Again, the jobs bill was meant to be immediate stimulus, immediate aid to states and was presented as separate from the other initiatives he outlined in his speech.

It didn't take a genius to predict that the trade treaties would receive more support than the more populist planks of his economic plan, but nobody expected Congress to shut down until the jobs plan was allowed to advance. The jobs bill was presented as a way to immediately stimulate and preserve employment. Whether you agree with them or not, most of the rest of his proposals in the speech are part of a longer term strategy for economic development.

[bvar22]

29. "right out of the opposition playbook" ?

I don't use anybody's "playbook",
and don't need one.
"Question Authority"
and
"Think for Yourself"
are guiding lessons I learned many years ago.


I have openly and consistently OPPOSED the unprecedented attacks on Social Security/Medicare disguised as a "holiday".
Payroll Tax Holiday Directly Connects Social Security to The Deficit

The other Tax Cuts are a conservative approach,
and have been shown to be the least effective method for Stimulus & Job Creation.

The ONLY part of the Bill I support IS the Unemployment Extension, and the Direct Government Spending on Jobs Related Programs.
If I remember correctly, this amounts to about $100Billion over 10 years.

"Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum."

The only criticism I have is that this spending is several Orders of Magnitude too small to have any REAL effect.
And, THIS crumb is the "Before Compromise" offering.
I WILL be surprised if this piece makes it through the "Negotiations".


Your attempt to discredit my position by labeling it as "out of the opposition playbook"
IS a Logical Fallacy,
and a big FAIL.

Attacking somebody for Using a Playbook,
and then posting direct Cut & Paste from whitehouse.gov is deliciously ironic,
don't you think?




Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[bigtree]

30. your 'position' seems sound

. . . your misrepresentation of this jobs bill on this thread (conflating it with the other initiatives in the President's speech) is a piece of work

[bvar22]

31. And THAT is your "opinion" about what you have decided

is a "misrepresentation".

I have been very clear that I was referring to the plan presented by President Obama in his "Pass THIS Bill NOW" speech,
and referenced my remarks to the predictions I made BEFORE he presented his Final Bill to Congress.

To go forward,
which parts of THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT do you believe are going to be Compromised Away?

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Odin2005]

21. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Poll_Blind]

33. Yup.

PB

[Sheepshank]

19. Let me see if I have this straight.

The Republicans would not vote for the entire jobs bill. You know how huge bills can get passed in whole or part with little detailed knowledge by the general public.....well......

They are now going to be presented the bill in bites. So that each bite can be clearly visualized by the public and and each portion of the bill will have a clear record of who voted for and against any portion of the entire bill.

This is the public detailed scrutiny the Republicans wanted? They want their obstructionism under this type of a magnifying glass, right now while the partisan issue is so negative with the 99% ers? Are they even bigger fools that I thought?

[NNN0LHI]

32. Note to self: If you ever feel like getting in a pissing contest make sure it isn't with bigtree

This thread is a perfect example of why to avoid that.

:hi:

Don

[Hubert Flottz]

34. Don't you just love all that "Bipartisanship" president Obama gets?

I mean, it just makes me glad to be anywhere!