Who ya Gonna Call?

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.