The Liberal Path to Jobs

David Dayen at Firedoglake offers offers some proven, practical ideas for giving the country what it needs most right now: lots of good jobs in a strong, stable economy.

In a couple days, the President will convene a jobs summit, amidst pervasive calls to deal with the budget deficit during a recession. Sadly, both the issue of jobs and the deficit are being dealt with in Congress through conservative frames, with policies like across-the-board, untargeted tax cuts for job creation, or “entitlement reform” commissions basically oriented to cutting social services programs for the deficit, favored by centrists and the lobbyists who love them.
However, a wealth of policies that would seek to create perhaps millions of jobs, while responsibly paying for the investment and then some, are taking shape on Capitol Hill. Democratic leaders and the White House simply cannot say there are no ideas on the shelf but tax cuts and cat food commissions that would accomplish the same goal. Here’s just a sampling:

JOBS
• The American Jobs Plan: Conceived by the Economic Policy Institute, the five-point plan includes the following provisions: 1) stregthening the social safety net by extending unemployment benefits, the COBRA subsidy and food stamps benefits, giving people economic security and some money to spend; 2) aid for state and local governments, which are facing cutbacks of at least 900,000 jobs in the next fiscal year if they receive no federal help; 3) public investment in transportation infrastructure and educational facility repair to the tune of at least $30 billion; 4) direct employment through public service jobs through the Community Development Block Grant program, jobs like cleaning up vacant lots or staffing child care and Head Start programs or renovating and maintaining public spaces; 5) a two-year job creation tax credit equal to 15% of expanded payroll costs.

Four of the five are unquestionably progressive; the fifth, the job creation tax credit, I still have trouble with because it’s likely to be easily gamed, but it couldn’t hurt at this crisis stage.

• Small business lending through remaining TARP funds. The only part of the AFL-CIO’s jobs package not overlapped by EPI’s recommendations is this idea, which would take the over $200 billion in the TARP and distribute it to community banks to lend to small businesses, which are still having trouble finding capital in the tight credit markets.
• small-bore “Cash for Caulkers”-type programs. Cash for Clunkers was unquestionably successful in creating economic activity and moving out some auto inventory. There are even better ideas for using direct funds – encouraging energy checks of homes, or painting energy-efficient white roofs, or trading in energy-sucking appliances – that would probably lead to even more job creation than Cash for Clunkers did.
There are other ideas, like fast-tracking the transportation bill, or increased physical infrastructure spending, but in general, you can envision a dozen ideas or more to create lots of jobs in America.

SNIP

Nobody is saying that any or all of these programs would fix the unemployment rate in a week, or completely eliminate the federal deficit (although if you reduced the defense budget, maybe you’d get somewhere). But they would all be a far more powerful corrective than plans that come from the some conservative orientation that brought us into this mess, or the mushy-middle “centrism” that has provided a jobless recovery. There are literally dozens of ways to provide jobs and revenue in ways that are balanced and reasonable; the only thing missing is political will.

Read the whole thing.

As Steve M.explains:

On domestic issues, progressivism is beyond the pale -- too much fat-cat money is involved for truly left-liberal ideas to gain purchase. So, on health care and the stimulus, Obama probably assumed that right-wingers would pull one way, liberals would pull the other, and he'd seem like the reasonable guy in the middle. But domestic-issue progressives are utterly marginal. Nobody wanted to pay attention to advocates of a $2 trillion stimulus package or single payer.

So all the pulling came from the right, and on domestic issues, we are where we are.

The categorical refusal of a national Democratic Party that took the White House in a landslide with super-majorities in both houses of Congress to even consider proven liberal economic solutions is not a "bipartisan" game any more; it's literally killing the country.

Liberal solutions to our many problems are thick on the ground for anyone willing to see, bend and pick them up.