The Beginning Is Near

Posted: November 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, American Jobs Act, Baby Boomers, Bailout Blues, Banksters, Black Agenda Report, commercial banking, Economy, income inequality, investment banking, jobs, unemployment | 27 Comments

Maybe it’s my age [and no, I’m not telling] but I find great promise is those four words scrawled on a makeshift sign.

 

I’m sure–in fact, I know–there are others of my generation [Boomers] who look at the Occupy Wall St. [OWS] Movement, read the signs and scratch their heads.  Or more likely they criticize the primarily young protesters as naïve, idealistic, disorganized, wanting something for nothing. Why don’t they just get a job? many say.

These reactions miss the point, as far as I’m concerned.  These youngsters want something all right.  They want their futures.  They want to control their own destinies with a measure of integrity, a sense of possibility rather than bending to the yoke of a failing system, one that only works for those on the top of the heap.  The statistics are there for everyone to read. No mystery! Wages of ordinary Americans have been stagnant, while the rich have become richer than Midas.  Jobs have been sent willy-nilly beyond our shores but the trade-off  [we’ve been told numerous times] are cheap consumer goods, the more the better. 

He who has the most stuff wins.  Many people bought into that.  For a while.

Throw in 9/11, multiple wars, massive unemployment, rising health care costs, climate-related weather events, the negligence in the Gulf of Mexico, etc. and the shine has definitely come off the latest gadgets and toys.  As an electorate, we’ve had a slap upside the head.

What I find astounding is people blaming this particular group—the OWS protesters, primarily the Millennials–for what is clearly our responsibility, a product of our refusal to hold our politicians accountable and demand justice–a return to the Rule of Law–instead of foisting the unpleasant, annoying task on our children [or grandchildren, as the case may be]. We’re the ones who bought into the Big Lie. Or worse, pretended it didn’t exist. These young students and 20-somethings had no hand in what we watched and allowed to develop.

The kids are making us look bad. They’ve endured dismissal, ridicule, concrete beds and lousy weather.  And they’re called the slackers?

Nor should we forget that Boomers are running things right now.  Our generation sits in the halls of Congress and refuses to pass legislation to put the country back to work.  Boomers sit in the offices of the White House and pretend to hold a populist agenda, while doing the bidding of their monied benefactors.  They sit on the Supreme Court and try to convince us that corporations = personhood.  And they certainly populate Corporate America and Wall St., where repeated decisions and deals have been made to maximize profits at the expense of ordinary citizens.  Not all Boomers, of course.  But our generation is well represented in the lever pushing–the Make Love Not War crowd.  Time to own it.

But even if we’re far, far removed from the corridors of power, just living our lives, I would suggest quiet acquiescence of the status quo isn’t working either.  Hello, Boomers.  The confidence fairy that has been running [ruining] our financial system will not be coming to spread pixie dust over the wreckage and make things right.

Not going to happen. And the young?  They see right through it.

For over thirty years, corporate greed has grown, metastasized to the point that nothing is sacred—not the health or education of our people, not the environment [on which we depend to exist], not our principles of equal opportunity, not even our insistence that The Rule of Law is imperative for our Democratic Republic to survive. 

And what was the trade? Constant debates that American health care is the best in the world without adding the qualification: only if you can afford it.  The refusal to admit that the decreasing quality of our primary and secondary educational systems condemns many of our citizens to poverty and the staggering increase in university tuition costs and subsequent debt saddles our college graduates to years of unmanageable debt.  The reckless and short-sighted risk-to-wreckage of our environment be it through fracking or drilling or proposed tar sand pipelines, while we turn up our noses to promoting and supporting green technology. The cruel pretense that all our citizens start off on a ‘level-playing’ field, while the evidence of privilege and influence-driven access to favors are as acute now as during the Gilded Age.  The unwillingness to investigate and prosecute those involved in the biggest heist in history, the very same financiers and corporate bigwigs, who continue to exert control over our political system. 

Two years ago, Dick Durbin stood before Congress and said: The banks own the joint.

We should have listened or turned up our hearing aides.  Because sadly, the man spoke the truth. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is not a strategy for the future.  It’s unsustainable.

So, when I look at the live streams of the cross-country demonstrations, read the twitter feeds, I don’t think slackers.  I think of a generation who has said what we, the grownups, should have said quite some time ago: Enough is enough.  Or as Bill Moyers said recently: “People are occupying Wall St. because Wall St has occupied the country.”

Yesterday, between 7 to 10,000 people took part in a general strike in Oakland.  They shut down the port of Oakland, a major access for Chinese goods, the 5th busiest port in the country.  Local businesses shut down in support of the effort.  To its credit, the protest has remained remarkably peaceful although early morning reports indicate that violence did break out before sunrise. Unfortunately, the authorities in Oakland nearly cost the life last week of a young Marine vet, Scott Olsen.  Discontent can have consequences.

But attitudes are shifting and changing. Voices are being heard.

Last April with little fanfare, Joseph Stiglitz stated in a Vanity Fair article:

“The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

Since the Occupy Movement started, this sentiment has been echoed, magnified:

On October 22, Noam Chomsky gave a speech on Dewey Square in Boston and said:

“I’ve never seen anything quite like the Occupy movement in scale and character, here and worldwide. The Occupy outposts are trying to create cooperative communities that just might be the basis for the kinds of lasting organizations necessary to overcome the barriers ahead and the backlash that’s already coming.”

At Black Agenda Report, Glen Ford recently wrote:

“There comes a time of awakening. We are now in that time – although some Black folks are not yet awake. Our job is to wake our people up, so that we don’t sleep through this moment.

The young people that began this Occupation Movement less than two months ago are not “us,” but they have done all of us a great service. They have shouted out the name and address of the enemy – the enemy of all humanity. The enemy’s name is Finance Capital, and the address is Wall Street, and that is the truth.”

Chris Hedges recently stated on Truthdig radio:

“But this is a widespread movement; it’s decentralized; it takes on its own coloring and characteristics, depending on the city that it’s in; and so there will be, you know—as you point out, I mean, movements are by their very nature messy and make steps forward and steps back. But I think that there is a resiliency to this movement because it articulates a fundamental truth of inequality that hits the majority of American citizens.”

Even House Speaker John Boehner remarked in a recent speech at the University of Louisville:

“I understand people’s frustrations,” he said. “The economy is not producing jobs like they want and there’s lot of erosion of confidence in our government and frankly, under the First Amendment, people have the right to speak out … but that doesn’t mean they have the permission to violate the law.”

Hey, it’s a start.  Certainly better than designating OWS as ‘The Mob.’

People are rousing from their long, restless slumber. The conversations have begun and are different from what we’ve heard or read before.  The protesters persist. They march, they endure.

The Beginning is Near.

Reid Goes Nuclear

Posted: October 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Democratic Politics, jobs, unemployment | Tags: , | 8 Comments

After endless Republican maneuvers to block any legislative progress in Congress, Harry Reid triggered the so-called “nuclear option” to stop a Republican attempt at symbolic vote on the President’s job bill that was bound to embarrass Reid.  This move is a rarely used procedural option.  The goal is to block republican amendments that are proposed after the senate has moved to vote on final passage of the bill.

Reid’s coup passed by a vote of 51-48, leaving Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fuming.

The surprise move stunned Republicans, who did not expect Reid to bring heavy artillery to what had been a humdrum knife fight over amendments to China currency legislation.

The Democratic leader had become fed up with Republican demands for votes on motions to suspend the rules after the Senate had voted to limit debate earlier in the day.

McConnell had threatened such a motion to force a vote on the original version of President Obama’s jobs package, which many Democrats don’t like because it would limit tax deductions for families earning over $250,000. The jobs package would have been considered as an amendment.

McConnell wanted to embarrass the president by demonstrating how few Democrats are willing to support his jobs plan as first drafted. (Senate Democrats have since rewritten the jobs package to pay for its stimulus provisions with a 5.6 surtax on income over $1 million.)

Reid’s move strips the minority of the power of forcing politically-charged procedural votes after the Senate has voted to cut off a potential filibuster and move to a final vote, which the Senate did on the China measure Tuesday morning, 62-38.

Reid said motions to suspend the rules after the Senate votes to end debate — motions which do not need unanimous consent — are tantamount to a renewed filibuster after a cloture vote.

“The Republican Senators have filed nine motions to suspend the rules to consider further amendments but the same logic that allows for nine such motions could lead to the consideration of 99 such amendments,” Reid argued before springing his move.

Reid said Republicans could force an “endless vote-a-rama” after the Senate has voted to move to final passage.

This move came as a result of Reid trying to usher through a vote on the China currency bill.  McConnell wanted to force the vote on the Obama jobs bill to demonstrate the split in the Democratic caucus on the measure.  As outlined below, McConnell tried to attach the jobs bill to the Currency bill.  Reid outmaneuvered them.

 Tonight, McConnell made what’s called a “motion to suspend the rules,” to allow a vote on the amendments. Such motions are almost always defeated, because they require a two-thirds majority to pass. But they’re another way for the minority party to force uncomfortable votes. Even though the minority party doesn’t get a direct vote on the amendment, how somebody votes on the motion becomes a sort of proxy for such a vote. In this case, for instance, if Democrats had voted down a motion for a vote on Obama’s jobs bill, it would have put them in an awkward spot.

Though it’s been the standing practice of the Senate to allow such motions by the minority, tonight Reid broke with precedent and ruled McConnell’s motion out of order, and was ultimately backed up by Democrats.

So, the end result is that by a simple majority vote, Reid was able to effectively rewrite Senate rules making it even harder than it already is for the minority party to force votes on any amendments. Should Republicans retake the Senate next year, it’s something that could come back to haunt Democrats in a major way.

And just to clear up some confusion, what happened tonight was different than the so-called “nuclear option” to end filibusters. While triggering the “nuclear option” requires a Majority Leader to use the same sort of strategic maneuvers as Reid just did, tonight’s move had to do with the amendment process, not filibusters.

As I mentioned the other day, there are a lot of really nervous DINOs who are balking at the measures proposed by Obama to pay from the jobs act.

Democrats in the Senate were divided over the president’s original offsets to pay for his plan, most notably his call to cap deductions for families that earn more than $250,000 annually. But to unite their party, they scrapped his proposed offsets and instead added a 5.6 percent surtax on those who earn more than $1 million annually as the main way to pay for the $447 billion in spending on infrastructure and incentives for companies hiring new workers.

Before those changes were made and sensing Democratic divisions on the original plan, McConnnell went to the floor earlier this week and demanded that the president’s bill be voted on immediately — given the president’s repeated demands to pass his bill “now.”

But Reid blocked that effort, and Democrats are now moving forward with plans to bring the latest version to the floor early next week. Reid and his Democratic leadership team plan to meet at the White House on Thursday evening to talk about their strategy for the plan.

Republicans are opposed to the tax increases and spending levels in the plan and are well-positioned to block it next week since 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster. And there isn’t unanimity even among the 53-member Senate Democratic Caucus.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat who faces a tough reelection next year, said he’ll vote against efforts to bring the bill forward for debate.

If you want more background on the Democratic infighting, you can check out my post from a few days ago here.  My guess is that the current polling situation has begun to make it clear to the Democratic party officials that they’re in a heap of trouble.  Obama’s polling worse each day.  Reid undoubtedly doesn’t want to lose his position in the Senate leadership.  I keep wondering why they haven’t pulled the rug out from Mitch McConnell much earlier but I’m assuming they’ve taken their cues from the White House.  Maybe this is the start of a bit more gumption.

Jobs Bill is a Work in Process

Posted: October 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: jobs, unemployment | Tags: | Comments Off on Jobs Bill is a Work in Process

President Obama announced his American Jobs Act with repeated calls to just pass the bill on a Thursday night. The following Monday, he provided a list of revenue sources for the bill to head off Republican complaints on its potential deficit implications.  He then took to the countryside to try to drum up support for the measure.  That was three weeks ago around Labor Day, remember?  So, where’s the bill? As expected, the bill raised a number of issues from both sides of the aisle.  The Republicans are still determined to say no to everything and the Democratic Caucus was less than enthusiastic on many of the bills provisions.  There is some more detail coming up on all of that today so I thought I’d share it.

Senate Democrats have taken issue with the Monday list of things suggested to pay for the bill. As economist, it does seem odd to try to pass a piece of legislation made to jump start the job creation process while offsetting the impact with recessionary fiscal measures.  The President is still more interested in meeting the Republicans more than half way than actually achieving effective legislation, imho.

Reid indicated he is going back to the drawing board to shore up wavering Democratic support for the $447 billion jobs bill.

Reid told his Democratic colleagues Tuesday that he would put together a new plan to pay for the package after rank-and-file colleagues balked at proposals to limit tax deductions for the wealthy and raise taxes on oil and gas companies.

“There are a wide range of things that we’re looking at, because the only objections I’ve heard from my caucus on the president’s jobs bill deal with the pay-fors,” Reid said. “So we’re resolving that issue as we speak.”

The real issue appears to be the tax increases for the extremely wealthy.  It appears to be highly unpopular with the usual group of DINOs.  Most of them are more concerned about their job safety than the jobs that any plan could potentially create. My Senator is still basically representing her donor base.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D), who faces a tough election in conservative Nebraska, said he would vote against a motion to begin floor debate on Obama’s bill.

“No, no, no,” Nelson said, when asked if he would roll the dice by allowing the bill to come to the Senate floor in hopes of amending it. “With the current offsets that are essentially tax increases? No.

“This is a time to be cutting. The cutting stops when the taxes increase,” he said.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), another vulnerable incumbent, said Tuesday he would oppose the jobs bill as Obama drafted it.

“I can’t support it in its current form,” he told The Hill.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a critic of the oil and gas tax provisions, which would hurt a crucial industry in her home state, said she had yet to make up her mind.

“I’m going to listen to what the leadership says and make a decision about that later,” she said.

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) said she would prefer raising new revenues through comprehensive tax reform instead of zeroing in immediately on specific tax increases.

“I think we’ve got to have comprehensive tax reform,” she said. “I’m always interested in looking at what we can do from a comprehensive standpoint.”

Max Baucus is testing the waters with a surtax on millionaires to fund the act. This measure is considered less controversial for Democrats.

Now, driven by party leadership and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), whose powerful Finance Committee has jurisdiction over the jobs bill, they’re considering a simpler, less parochial, and thus less divisivemeasure.

A Senate Dem aide cautioned that nothing’s final yet, and the party could ultimately settle on different measures. And there’s a history of broad Democratic support for raising taxes on millionaires.

During the health care debate in 2009, House Democrats backed a similar surtax on millionaires that would have raised over $500 billion over 10 years — more than enough to pay for Obama’s bill. Republicans and conservative Senate Democrats objected, and the measure didn’t make the cut in the final bill.

During the tax fight last December, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed a creating a new millionaires tax bracket, rather than letting the Bush tax cuts expire for income above $250,000. It failed to overcome a filibuster but garnered broad Democratic support. And it also would have more than paid for Obama’s jobs bill.

That’s why something along these lines seems likely to bring most, if not all, Dems into the fold.

However, that still leaves the Republicans who continue to hold the economy hostage for their political purposes.  Republicans are said to be more united in their opposition to the American Jobs Act than the Democrats care about getting the act into law.  No surprises there! Anyway, the bill–as well as the current budget fight–seems like just another political prop in a campaign election season.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of information being released today on the job market.  None of it is good.   Announced job cuts are said to be more than three times what they were this time last year.

U.S. employers announced the most job cuts in more than two years in September, led by planned reductions at Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and in the military.

Announced firings jumped 212 percent, the largest increase since January 2009, to 115,730 last month from 37,151 in September 2010, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Cuts in government employment, led by the Army’s five-year troop reduction plan, and at Bank of America accounted for almost 70 percent of the announcements.

While the bulk of firings are not “directly related” to economic weakness, they “could definitely be a sign of more cuts to come,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement. “Bank of America is not the only bank still struggling in the wake of the housing collapse, and the military cutbacks are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to federal spending cuts.”

More reductions will add to the pool of job seekers competing for work as policy makers, including President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve officials, strive to spur the labor market. Payrolls probably didn’t rise fast enough last month to lower the jobless rate, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists before the Labor Department’s monthly jobs figures in two days.

However, Obama’s efforts appear to be paying off a little bit because the level of disgust with Congress is hitting a record high.  While Obama isn’t fairing much better, his bright spot was on who was more able to take on the nation’s jobs problem.

But the president’s new jobs package, which is supported by a narrow majority of the public, has bolstered his position on the issue. He now holds a 49 to 34 percent advantage over congressional Republicans when it comes to the public’s trust on creating jobs. That is a change from September, when they were evenly split at 40 percent each.

It’s hard to image that this entire situation could get much worse, but from the recent forecasts I’ve seen–including a new on from Goldman Sachs–there appears to be a consensus building that unemployment will go up again shortly.  This is certainly not good news for any one.  However, there seems like anything but a sense of urgency to do something about these forecasts within the beltway.  As usual, the only jobs they care about are their own.

The First Amendment is Well and Truly Dead.

Posted: September 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Human Rights, jobs, Labor unions, Patriot Act, The Bonus Class, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, Violence against women | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 46 Comments

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

NYC Policeman reaches over barricade and pulls hair of female protester

From the New York Daily News: Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march

Hundreds of people carrying banners and chanting “shame, shame” walked between Zuccotti Park, near Wall St., and Union Square calling for changes to a financial system they say unjustly benefits the rich and harms the poor.

Somewhere between 80 and 100 protesters were arrested, and according the Occupy Wall Street website, some of them were held in a police van for more than an hour, including a man with a severe concussion. Back to the Daily News article:

Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face.

A video posted on YouTube and NYDailyNews.com shows uniformed officers had corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away.

Footage of other police altercations also circulated online, but it was unclear what caused the dramatic mood shift in an otherwise peaceful demonstration.

“I saw a girl get slammed on the ground. I turned around and started screaming,” said Chelsea Elliott, 25, from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who said she was sprayed. “I turned around and a cop was coming … we were on the sidewalk and we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

It’s over folks. We live in a police state. The right of the people to “peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” is no longer recognized by the powers that be. In the age of the Patriot Act, peaceful protest is no longer permitted. The government requires that groups have a permit before they can gather on the sidewalks of New York. Oh, and BTW, a number of people were arrested yesterday because they filmed incidents of police brutality.

Via Yves at Naked Capitalism, Amped Status reports that Twitter is now following the example of the corporate media in ignoring or blocking information about peaceful protests in the U.S.

On at least two occasions, Saturday September 17th and again on Thursday night, Twitter blocked #OccupyWallStreet from being featured as a top trending topic on their homepage. On both occasions, #OccupyWallStreet tweets were coming in more frequently than other top trending topics that they were featuring on their homepage.

This is blatant political censorship on the part of a company that has recently received a $400 million investment from JP Morgan Chase.

We demand a statement from Twitter on this act of politically motivated censorship.

It’s all very exciting when Egyptians or Libyans protest their governments, but when it happens here, well, the media pretends its not happening. So much for the First Amendment.

In an op-ed at The New York Times yesterday, Michael Kazin asks: Whatever Happened to the American Left?

America’s economic miseries continue, with unemployment still high and home sales stagnant or dropping. The gap between the wealthiest Americans and their fellow citizens is wider than it has been since the 1920s.

And yet, except for the demonstrations and energetic recall campaigns that roiled Wisconsin this year, unionists and other stern critics of corporate power and government cutbacks have failed to organize a serious movement against the people and policies that bungled the United States into recession.

Instead, the Tea Party rebellion — led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires — has compelled politicians from both parties to slash federal spending and defeat proposals to tax the rich and hold financiers accountable for their misdeeds. Partly as a consequence, Barack Obama’s tenure is starting to look less like the second coming of F.D.R. and more like a re-run of Jimmy Carter — although last week the president did sound a bit Rooseveltian when he proposed that millionaires should “pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare.”

I’m sure Kazin is a good guy–after all he is a co-editor of Dissent Magazine and wrote a book on the changes the American Left has accomplished. His op-ed is a fine historical article, but still, he does mention Wisconsin. It might have been nice if he had noticed that some young people are attempting to organize a peaceful protest on Wall Street and are being victimized by brutal NYC police for their efforts. Perhaps Kazin didn’t know about the NYC protests because of the media blackout.

At the Guardian UK, David Graeber had some kind words for the Wall Street protesters.

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?

There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.

Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?

I salute the young men and women from Occupy Wall Street who are fighting back as best they can against corporate-fascist law enforcement and the corporate-controlled media. I really hope it’s not too late for these young people to make a difference.

Who ya Gonna Call?

Posted: September 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: jobs, unemployment, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

Evidently, the new Jobs Plan is a Jobs Bust in the eyes of the electorate.  A few villagers may have gotten those tingly leg sensations, but the public is much more skeptical.  Try this one on for size!

A majority of Americans don’t believe President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate, skepticism he must overcome as he presses Congress for action and positions himself for re- election.

The downbeat assessment of the American Jobs Act reflects a growing and broad sense of dissatisfaction with the president. Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy by 62 percent to 33 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted Sept. 9-12 shows. The disapproval number represents a nine point increase from six months ago.

The president’s job approval rating also stands at the lowest of his presidency — 45 percent. That rating is driven down in part by a majority of independents, 53 percent, who disapprove of his performance.

“I don’t think he’s done as good a job as I think he could have,” said Paul Kaplan, 58, an unemployed Democrat from Philadelphia. “We were hopeful that things would improve in the economy and they’ve only gotten worse. People in Washington just don’t seem to want to cooperate with each other and work for the people.”

The poll hands Obama new lows in each of the categories that measures his performance on the economy: only 36 percent of respondents approve of his efforts to create jobs, 30 percent approve of how he’s tackled the budget deficit and 39 percent approve of his handling of health care.

I still have to think that some of this has to do with the fact that we all were glad to be rid of Dubya and his horrible policies and now we realize it’s just more of the same!

By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans doubt the package of tax cuts and spending proposals intended to jumpstart job creation that Obama submitted to Congress this week will bring down the 9.1 percent jobless rate. That sentiment undermines one of the core arguments the president is making on the job act’s behalf in a nationwide campaign to build public support.

Compounding Obama’s challenge is that 56 percent of independents, whom the president won in 2008 and will need to win in 2012, are skeptical it will work.

Even members of the Democratic Party in Congress are skeptical.  Notice that the bottom line is still all about the politics instead of the people.

President Barack Obama’s new jobs plan is hitting some unexpected turbulence in the halls of Congress: lawmakers from his own party.

As he demands Congress quickly approve his ambitious proposal aimed at reviving the sagging economy, many Democrats on Capitol Hill appear far from sold that the president has the right antidote to spur major job growth and turn around their party’s political fortunes.

“Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”

“That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”

“I think the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), discussing proposals to slash the debt by $4 trillion by overhauling entitlement programs and raising revenue through tax reforms. “That’s better than everything else the president is talking about — combined.”

And those are just the moderates in the party. Some liberals also have concerns.

“There is serious discomfort with potentially setting up Social Security as a fall guy because you’re taking this contribution out,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, referring to Obama’s proposal to further slash payroll taxes.

Democrats in large numbers will still back the president’s overall jobs package, and when the plan heads for House and Senate consideration, some of these same skeptics will very likely vote to advance the measure. But as details of the plan began to be vetted on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, it was clear that the White House needed to redouble its sales job — or tweak its plan — to force Democrats to fall in line at a pivotal point in Obama’s presidency.

Wow!  I’d like to think it’s all those economists–like Robert Reich and Martin Wolf and the IMF–getting out there and explaining that austerity is killing middle class incomes, the basic problem is a lack of aggregate demand and that tax cuts are kind’ve worthless right now that’s moving the people. I actually believe that most people have a lot more common sense when it comes to economics than beltway-disabled politicians. You can see the contrast right up there in all those quotes from people v. politicians.

The centerpiece of the proposal — and the plank that Republicans have said they are most willing to consider — is a cut in payroll taxes, which cover the first $106,800 in earnings and are evenly split between employers and employees.

Respondents are evenly split at 45 percent on this approach, which would cost $240 billion to the U.S. Treasury. Independents oppose it 47 percent versus 43 percent who favor it.

Think about it.  We’ve had 11 years of deregulation of financial markets and banks, tax cuts, bail outs for failing businesses, government largess to corporations, and your basic Republican Voodoo economics and what do we have to show for it?  Higher Poverty rates.  Lower median incomes. Huge long term joblessness.  High unemployment.  What rational person thinks that more of the same is going to do anything?  You don’t need an economics degree to see that none of this stuff has worked in the past.  But, thankfully, you do have some economists out there backing up our gut feeling with solid economic theory.  Here’s something from Martin Wolf at FT just as a reminder.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, fiscal policy is not exhausted. This is what Christine Lagarde, new managing director of the International Monetary Fund, argued at the Jackson Hole monetary conference last month. The need is to combine borrowing of cheap funds now with credible curbs on spending in the longer term. The need is no less for surplus countries with the ability to expand demand to do so.

It is becoming ever clearer that the developed world is making Japan’s mistake of premature retrenchment during a balance-sheet depression, but on a more dangerous – far more global – scale. Conventional wisdom is that fiscal retrenchment will lead to resurgent investment and growth. An alternative wisdom is that suffering is good. The former is foolish. The latter is immoral.

Reconsidering fiscal policy is not all that is needed. Monetary policy still has an important role. So, too, do supply-side reforms, particularly changes in taxation that promote investment. So, not least, does global rebalancing. Yet now, in a world of excess saving, the last thing we need is for creditworthy governments to slash their borrowings. Markets are loudly saying exactly this. So listen.

Here’s Robert Reich showing his chops on what the real problem is in our economy.  If only Obama, would find out the real problem from real economists and stop it with the political pandering to the Republican Party.

We don’t need a Texas Economy.

States don’t have their own monetary policies so they can’t lower interest rates to spur job growth. They can’t spur demand through fiscal policies because state budgets are small, and 49 out of 50 are barred by their constitutions from running deficits.

States can cut corporate taxes and regulations, and dole out corporate welfare, in efforts to improve the states’ “business climate.” But studies show these strategies have little or no effect on where companies locate. Location decisions are driven by much larger factors — where customers are, transportation links, and energy costs.

If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas’s workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

Texas has also been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose from 221,000 to 550,000 – that’s an increase of nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below – compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state also has the highest percentage of workers without health insurance. Texas schools rank 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

The Perry model of creating more jobs through low wages seems to be catching on around America.

According to a report out today from the Commerce Department, the median income of U.S. households fell 2.3 percent last year – to the lowest level in fifteen years (adjusted for inflation). That’s the third straight year of declining household incomes. Part of this is loss of jobs. Part is loss of earnings.

More and more Americans are retaining their jobs by settling for lower wages and benefits, or going without cost-of-living increases. Or they’ve lost a higher-paying job and have taken one that pays less. Or they’ve joined the great army of contingent workers, self-employed “consultants,” temps, and contract workers – without healthcare benefits, without pensions, without job security, without decent wages.

It’s no great feat to create lots of lousy jobs.

We just don’t need no stinkin’ jobs.  We need real jobs.  For that, it takes a lot more than tax cuts, rhetoric, and political pandering.  So, I’m not calling Rick Perry or Barrack Obama any time soon.  It’s real jobs or bust for me.

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