Will Senate Take Real Action on Jobs—or Just Pander to Republicans?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5520/will_senate_take_real_action_on_jobs_--_or_pander_to_republicans/

Friday February 5 10:03 pm

In yet another search for bipartisanship, Senate Democrats seem willing to abandon strong measures to create jobs in order to find enough tax breaks for businesses to appeal to Republicans. And in the eyes of progressives, there wasn't much comfort to be taken from the unemployment rate announced this week taking a slight dip downwards to 9.7 percent with 20,000 jobs lost, especially since extended unemployment insurance runs out on February 28th, unless the Senate takes immediate action.

As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pointed out (via AFL-CIO Now blog):

We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December. These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along. Working families need bigger and bolder actions—in the short, medium and long term—to create jobs in the immediate future—or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.


Unfortunately, as the Campaign for America's Future Robert Borosage points out, we'll need at least 400,000 new jobs created each month to bring down unemployment rates to the levels they were before the recession hit.

Borosage observes:

In order to simply recover the jobs lost during the Great Recession, we would need to create more than 400,000 jobs a month for each of the next three years. The House’s “Jobs for Main Street Bill” is a step in the right direction and the Senate needs to pass this vital legislation without delay.

But the House bill is only a start, and is not sufficient to overcome mass unemployment. We need a far bolder commitment to put people to work, including direct public service jobs that can be targeted to those areas most devastated in the downturn...

With nearly 26 million Americans out of work or underemployed, now is not the time to be trying to cut deficits and freeze spending. The Obama budget projects unemployment to be at 9.8 percent when the domestic discretionary spending freeze kicks in, and the biggest danger is that spending restraints will stall recovery—and increase deficits as mass unemployment continues.

The House has acted. The president has called for a jobs bill. It is time for the Senate to pass the bill as a first step to the bolder investment agenda we need.


FULL story at link.

they can kiss their asses goodbye - Hell I don't even want a strong jobs bill

I WANT A GODDAMN WPA PROJECT PUTTING EVERYONE TO WORK THAT WANTS A JOB - MAN UP OBAMA OR STFU