The subject of AFofL-CIO President George Meany's labor Day address that September of 1967 was The Long Hot Summer. That was a popular phrase to characterize what went on that year, and what had gone on in previous years. The amount of unrest and social upheaval visiting our cities during those years was something to behold. Our society was going through an intense growth process and the political solutions were hard pressed in coming.
Then as now there was a growing disconnect with government from all segments of American society. The Labor movement was feeling the sting of unemployment; a problem multiplied by the plight of cities.
George Meany: “Congress holds the key to the future. Congress must use that key to open the gates of progress. Progress that, today is not just desirable, but urgently necessary.”
In retrospect, 1967 was probably a calm year compared to the year that followed. But the problem remained the same, as it's the same now; disconnect and polarization with no middle ground. The difference is, the disconnect and polarization are fueled by a media seeing a buck to be made in stoking discontent. In 1967 the media was attempting to be part of the solution. In 2010, mainstream media has become part of the problem.
And so it goes, and so it went in George Meany's time. Happy Labor Day.
CNN's Candy Crowley sat down with the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka and the National Small Business Association President Todd McCracken to discuss jobs and the economy. Trumka reminded the viewers just who put the economy into the ditch in the first place, that everyone knew the stimulus bill was too small but it was all that could get passed due to the Republican obstruction in the Senate and that there are 400 bills sitting on the doorstep of the Senate that also have not been passed because of Republican obstruction. Most have not even been allowed to come up for a vote. As Trumka notes much of what's in those bills would be helping our economy now.
Republicans seem determined to take this country into a ditch if it means them winning the mid-term elections. They'd be less likely to be rewarded for it if we had a few more like Trumka on the television not allowing our media to give them a pass for their behavior and having Republicans come on the air day after day and claim that the stimulus failed completely and we just need more tax cuts to revive the economy without being challenged.
CROWLEY: Mr. Trumka, tell us what the president has done right, first of all, in trying to deal with this economy. And where do you think he's gone wrong?
TRUMKA: Well, first of all, he did the stimulus package. You know, let's remember what he inherited. He inherited a banking industry or an economy that that was about to fall off the end of the cliff. He inherited a recession.
So he's brought us back. He's brought sanity back to the financial system here. He has brought the economy back somewhat. He's created more jobs in this recession than George Bush did in eight years as president with a surplus. So he's done that.
CROWLEY: But 62,000 jobs last month is not enough.
TRUMKA: Oh, of course it's not enough.
CROWLEY: Right.
TRUMKA: We need between 400,000 and 500,000 jobs a month.
CROWLEY: So you think the stimulus package was a good idea and you think it saved us from going off the cliff?
TRUMKA: I do. It was too small at the time, and everybody knew it was too small, but it was all they could get passed because of Republican opposition.
CROWLEY: And so, first, what makes you think you can get anything passed the Republican opposition at this point, especially since the country has gotten more and more concerned about the deficit? But -- but, secondly, to my first question is, what has he done wrong, do you think?
TRUMKA: Well, the first thing that was done wrong in the stimulus package was, when we did infrastructure, it only addressed short-term infrastructure projects, so that we couldn't get a project that would take three or four years to complete and create a lot of jobs. They were all smaller jobs.
It should have been geared toward longer stuff. More of the money should have been structured towards infrastructure and helping state and local governments, because what we see right now is, the extraordinary spending of the federal government is being negated by the contracting of the state and local government...
CROWLEY: Sure.
TRUMKA: ... and that's why we're seeing the -- the...
CROWLEY: Yes, where they're going to still look at more teachers and firefighters, policemen, and that's part of the AFL-CIO, that are getting laid off now because those state budgets have to be balanced.
TRUMKA: But if we hadn't given them aid, we could have lost 900,000 teachers, firefighters and police. That's not good for the country. That's not good for our children. That's not good for our future.
CROWLEY: Mr. McCracken, what has the president from your point of view done right and what has he done wrong?
MCCRACKEN: He really has focused on the lending stuff for small companies, and I think that's a really productive thing. He seems sort of -- sort of gets the need to really -- to inject credit capital in small companies and how it's really the lifeblood of what they do.
And what he's done wrong, I think, is not really focus on that nearly early enough. I mean, we're talking about a small-business lending fund now in September into the end of a recession. This should have been on the table a year-and-a-half ago, and things like this should have been on the table a year-and-a-half ago.
And now they're also talking about a payroll tax holiday of some substance. We were talking about that also a year-and-a-half ago. We think something like that should have been in the first stimulus package, and things would have been -- we would have been in better shape than we are right now.
TRUMKA: You know, Todd, in all fairness to the president, the House of Representatives has passed 400 bills that are sitting at the doorstep of the Senate. And because of the obstructionism of the Republicans right now, they haven't been able to be passed. Much of what you've talked about are in those 400 bills that Democrats and the president advocated.
CROWLEY: But he was advocating -- I mean, he was -- had his hands full and was advocating something larger and some other things. Let me ask you something, because I had two men in here who were heads of very large companies who said the president just has this anti- business tone, businesses are worried about like what's coming next, there's this uncertainty. Do you think that the president has an anti-business tone?
MCCRACKEN: I -- I think it can be perceived that way, because the -- a lot of things that have come out of -- of Washington in the last year-and-a-half do inject a degree of uncertainty into the economy. And that does hurt job growth, because you have to realize that for a company adding another job or adding (inaudible) is a long- term decision. It's not something they do lightly.
And they have to look into the future and know what's -- what they think is coming and whether they're going to be able to sustain this. And -- and the financial reform, the -- the -- the health care reform, and now all the uncertainty over what tax policy is going to be over the next few years does sort of add to that general unease. And there's no getting around that.
CROWLEY: And keeps jobs from coming, because I don't want to hire, because we don't really know what's going to go on. But let me move you on to...
TRUMKA: But wait, wait, wait. All of those were absolutely essential, and it's unfair to say that the president is anti-business. This president has done more and given more to tax cuts to business than -- than anybody before.
CROWLEY: He did say -- he saw how it could be perceived that way.
TRUMKA: Well, and, you know, he has -- we had no choice but to rein in Wall Street. We had no choice but to rein in health care costs. We have no choice but to look at a tax code that now rewards people for taking jobs offshore and trying to reverse that.
All of these things have come about because of the bad policies of the last 30 years, and this president is trying to correct them.
We've had our differences. But because we're looking at a major disaster for the Democrats in November, I'm hoping for once you're willing to look for advice that doesn't reinforce what you and the other DLC-Third Way fetishists already believe.
If you preside over massive electoral losses in November, you have no one to blame but yourself. But you have some options, and if you're willing to take some bold steps that excite Democrats and independents, you can still mitigate your losses. When in doubt, ask yourself what FDR would do -- and do it! Talking like a real Democrat got you the White House. Acting like one will help you keep it.
The large health care expenses that many older adults incur raise the costs of employing them and may reduce their employment options. Employers who provide health benefits face higher insurance costs from older workers, and age discrimination rules limit their ability to offset these costs by paying lower wages. As a result, employers may prefer younger workers, reducing the demand for older employees.
One way to lower employment costs for older workers and perhaps improve their employment opportunities would be to raise the share of health care expenses paid by Medicare. Under current rules, Medicare is the secondary payer of health care costs for most workers ages 65 and older with employer-sponsored insurance. Employer-sponsored insurance reimburses health care costs first, while Medicare pays only for Medicare-covered services that it does not cover. But the available evidence suggests that making Medicare the primary payer for older workers would not substantially improve employment options for older adults, because the savings for employers would amount to only a small share of total employment costs.
What a great relief this would be, to so very many people right now. And short of funding WPA-style work programs, this would be the single best way to get people back to work.
2. Stop being so damned timid about fixing the economy. You have a lot of Wall St. lackeys working for you, Mr. President, and they have done an excellent job convincing you the only real economy is the one that makes millionaires happy, and not the rest of us. FIRE THEM. NOW. Then go full throttle on pushing public demand for a massive direct-stimulus package. No more pussy-footing around with tax breaks for businesses or all the other Republican-lite bones you love to throw to the Republicans. Announce that no one should have to worry about the rent because they lost their jobs, and demand that Congress provide unemployment benefits for anyone whose checks have already run out.
Oh, and appoint Elizabeth Warren right now, and fight like a pit bull for her. Blood on the floor would be good. It would help, a lot.
Thanks to the historical record, we know that you're now following in the footsteps of FDR when he screwed up in 1938: In the early years of the Depression, he listened to the Republicans who demanded he start cutting the deficit. BIG mistake. You're a smart man --- what's the point of studying history, yet still eagerly repeating it?
Haven't you figured out yet that the Republican's aren't going to support your plans anyway? You can churn up enough public support to back them into a corner. Shoot the moon!
Which brings me to my next recommendation.
3. Go all out in defense of Social Security. We know what you're up to with the Catfood Commission, and we won't let you do it. So the best thing you can do right now is to back off -- publicly, loudly. "Social Security is the backbone of our social safety net, and not only will we not cut it or attempt to raise the retirement age, we will look at expanding it, to fill the gap left by so many disappearing public pensions destroyed by greed."
Now, I don't believe you'll do any of these things. I hope so, but I doubt it. I don't know whether it's tunnel vision, intellectual arrogance or plain old stubbornness, but the odds are slim to none.
But you won't be able to say no one ever told you.
Lindsey Graham apparently thinks that President Obama hasn't reached out to Republicans quite enough and that him "governing from the left" is the source of his woes and those of Democrats this midterm election. Former C&L contributor Steve Benen broke down this nonsense much better than I am capable of over at his blog at the Washington Monthly.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) thinks he knows exactly what would improve President Obama's political fortunes. Take a wild guess what he suggests.
"The only way the president could possibly survive is come back to the middle," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press." [...]
Graham accused Obama as running as a centrist but governing "from the left," acquiescing to the politics and agenda of the House.
The South Carolinian added that the White House's agenda has been the "most liberal agenda of modern times."
To prove his point, Graham noted that the administration has prepared to try terrorists in criminal courts on American soil. Of course, the Bush/Cheney administration did the exact same thing, without complaint from Republicans like Graham, but it's "tone-deaf" liberalism now because, well, Graham says so. He added that the president is "certainly tone deaf on the economy," though he didn't say why.
It's an absolute, guaranteed, mortal lock that if Republicans make huge gains in the midterms, as seems likely, Graham's rhetoric will be the accepted conventional wisdom, if it isn't already. Pundits, politicians, and the establishment in general will simply accept as fact that Dems would have fared far better if only they hadn't governed "from the left." Obama, we'll hear, has no choice but to go "to the middle."
And every time this nonsense is repeated, an angel will lose its wings. [...]
The conventional wisdom will be that liberalism did Democrats in, despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite the fact that liberals were right, especially about the economy. And we'll be reminded again as to why the accepted political truths are often neither conventional nor wise.
The sorry fact here is that as Steve acknowledges, I think this is already the Villagers' conventional wisdom. I expect as he does for it to get worse if the Republicans get back either the House or the Senate.
GREGORY: Is there room for compromise on tax cuts? Say, if the president were to extend all the tax cuts for a period of a couple of years, would that be able to attract Republican support?
GRAHAM: It might. There's certainly some room to compromise on the death tax. In January it goes back to 55 percent, at the end of this year it's at 0. So maybe you could find a way to compromise on the death tax to have something below 55 percent, a $5 or $6 million exemption for American families out there that would prevent devastation to small business and family farms. But if the--the idea of increasing taxes now, David, makes no sense to most people. And the agenda the president and his Democratic colleagues has offered the country has increased the deficit, increased the role of the federal government. And he ran as a centrist, and most Americans would say, "Well, I never believed he would do all this." And everything has been so partisan. There was a bipartisan bill on health care, Wyden-Bennett, that was rejected. Senator McCain had a $450 billion stimulus bill. But we didn't go down any of these compromise roses--roads, just big government, more spending. And the Democrats don't have a whole lot to talk about going into November other than more debt and more government.
GREGORY: Well, let's talk about November and let's talk about the political landscape. Do you think there is irrational exuberance among Republicans who think they're going to take over the House and perhaps even the Senate? Or do you think the Democratic control is indeed in jeopardy?
GRAHAM: I think if we voted tomorrow we would do very well. But the truth of the matter is that most of this is a rejection of a Democratic agenda that did not meet the expectations that President Obama created about a new way of doing business. The healthcare bill not only is a monstrosity in terms of growing the government and cutting out the private sector, the way it was passed was sleazy. Every old Washington trick was used to pass the healthcare bill. But, from a Republican point of view, we need to bring checks and balances, tell the American people if we get back in control, we're going to check this Obama agenda that has no limits and we're going to bring about balance by controlling spending, relooking at the healthcare bill, and trying to be more fiscally responsible. But a lot of this has to do without people saying--with people saying no to the Democrats, not saying yes to the Republicans.
GREGORY: Well, so what happens then in the fall? Do you think Republican control--or rather, Democratic control is in jeopardy?
GRAHAM: Yes. I think if the election were held tomorrow, it would be. There's a couple of months to go, and at the end of the day, I don't know what their agenda's going to be between now and November. But what they've done in the past no one seems to like. The healthcare bill is not being talked about by any Democrat. The stimulus bill has been an absolute flop. So I don't know what they do between now and November other than run against us.
GREGORY: Right. Isn't part of the issue, though--you talk about the ways of Washington. Do you think anybody's going to look at Washington and absolve Republicans for opposing just about everything the president proposed?
GRAHAM: I'm glad we--well, there was a better way. There was a bipartisan approach to health care that was rejected. There was a $450 billion stimulus package that cut taxes, helped the unemployed, and did infrastructure projects. They've rejected this approach. They've gone hard to the left, and now they have nothing to show for their efforts but bigger government and more debt. There was a better way; they chose not to go that way. Now they own this agenda that I think has been the most liberal agenda in modern times. And, at the end of the day, the public is not in the left ditch, they're not in the right ditch, they're in the right center of the road. And the only way the president can possibly survive is come back to the middle. He's tone deaf. Putting KSM on trial in New York City made no sense. Interjecting himself into the mosque debate made no sense. He's tone deaf on terrorism issues, and he's certainly tone deaf on the economy.
The Barack Obama who showed up in Milwaukee today is the one I remember from 2008 who seemed to disappear over the past year or so. If he keeps this tone between now and November, I'll bet on the press narrative changing from "Dems are hosed" to something far more positive. With a mix of humor, sarcasm and a generous dose of fire, Obama put Republicans on notice: Their days of obstruction are numbered.
I was struck by how different he is when he has a crowd. It was clear they were completely with him and he with them. If I were in charge of White House communications, I'd lose the prepared speeches in front of the Oval Office and make every camera opportunity one with people, because it's clearly where he's most comfortable and at home. It also plays well in the sound bite arena.
I loved this small personal dig at the CEOs and Republicans who think free speech means slander and libel. From his prepared remarks:
Milwaukee, that’s what we’re going to do again. That’s what’s been at the heart of all our efforts: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn’t just survive this crisis – but thrives once we emerge. And over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for too long.
And then he jumped off the script for this:
You know who they are. They talk about me like I'm a dog.
Right back on script again:
That’s why we passed financial reform that provides new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; reform that will stop credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes; reform that ends the era of taxpayer bailouts for Wall Street once and for all.
This is what fired everyone up in 2008 -- his passion. Only this time, he's using the last two years of Republicans' obstructionist ways to zing it up and fire up the base. Let's see if it continues. The full text of his prepared remarks follow, but I really recommend just watching him. There are more than a few moments worth the time.
Hello, Milwaukee! Thank you to the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and to all of my brothers and sisters in the AFL-CIO for inviting me to spend this day with you – a day that belongs to the working men and women of America.
I want to acknowledge your outstanding national president, a man who knows that a strong economy needs a strong labor movement: Rich Trumka; Dave Newby, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO; and our host, your Milwaukee Area Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer, Sheila Cochran, who I hear has a birthday tomorrow. I’m proud to be here with our Secretary of Labor, a daughter of union members, Hilda Solis; and our Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood. And let’s hear it for the folks at the forefront of every fight for Wisconsin’s working men and women – Senator Herb Kohl; Congresswoman Gwen Moore; and your outstanding mayor, Tom Barrett. Your other great senator, Russ Feingold, was here with you earlier, standing with you and your families just like he always has, but he had to head to his hometown of Janesville to participate in their Labor Day parade.
So it is good to be back in Milwaukee. Of course, this isn’t my first time at Laborfest. I stood right here with you two years ago, when I was still a candidate for this office. During that campaign, we talked about how, for years, the values of hard work and responsibility that built this country had been given short shrift, and how that was slowly hollowing out our middle class. About how some on Wall Street took reckless risks and cut corners to turn huge profits, while working Americans were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat. And about how the decks were too often stacked in favor of the special interests and against working Americans.
What we knew, even then, was that these years would be some of the most difficult in our history. And then, two weeks later, the bottom fell out of the economy. Middle-class families suddenly found themselves swept up in the worst recession in our lifetimes.
So the problems facing working families are nothing new. But they are more serious than ever. And that makes our cause more urgent than ever. For generations, it was the great American middle class that made our economy the envy of the world. It’s got to be that way again.
It was folks like you, after all, who forged that middle class. It was working men and women who made the twentieth century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today – the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans, those cornerstones of middle class security that all bear the union label.
And it was that greatest of generations that built America into the greatest force for prosperity, opportunity and freedom the world has ever known. Americans like my grandfather, who went off to war just boys, returned home men, and traded one uniform and set of responsibilities for another. Americans like my grandmother, who rolled up their sleeves and worked in factories on the home front. When the war was over, they studied under the GI Bill; bought homes under the FHA; raised families buttressed by good jobs that paid good wages with good benefits.
It was through my grandparents’ experience that I was brought up to believe that anything is possible in America. But they also knew the feeling when that opportunity is pulled out from under you. They would tell me about seeing their fathers or uncles losing jobs during the depression; how it wasn’t just the loss of a paycheck that stung. It was the blow to their dignity; their sense of self-worth. I’ll bet a lot of us have seen people changed after a long bout of unemployment; how it can wear down even the strongest spirits.
So my grandparents taught me early on that a job is about more than a paycheck, as important as that is. A job is about waking up every day with a sense of purpose, and going to bed each night fulfilled. A job is about meeting your responsibilities to yourself, to your family, to your community. I carried that lesson with me all those years ago when I got my start fighting for men and women on the South Side of Chicago after their local steel plant shut down. I carried that lesson with me through my time as a state senator and a U.S. Senator. I carry that lesson with me today.
And I know that there are folks right here in Milwaukee and all across America who are going through these kinds of struggles. Eight million Americans lost their jobs in this recession. And while we’ve had eight straight months of private sector job growth, the new jobs haven’t been coming fast enough. Now, the plain truth is, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem. Even when I was running for this office, we knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade’s worth of policies that saw a few folks prosper while the middle class kept falling behind – and it will take more time than any of us wants to dig out of the hole created by this economic crisis.
But on this Labor Day, there are two things I want you to know, Milwaukee. Number one: I’m going to keep fighting, every single day, to turn this economy around; to put our people back to work; to renew the American Dream for your families and for future generations.
Number two – and this I believe with every fiber of my being: America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class. A middle class built on the idea that if you work hard and live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead – and enjoy some basic guarantees in life. A good job that pays a good wage. Health care that’ll be there when you get sick. A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. An education that’ll give our kids a better life than we had. These are simple ideas. American ideas.
I was thinking about this last week. On the day I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq, I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and veterans. This new generation of troops coming home from Iraq has earned its place alongside that greatest generation. Like them, they have the skills and training and drive to move America’s economy forward once more. And from the time I took office, we’ve been investing in new care, new opportunity, and a new commitment to their service that’s worthy of their sacrifice. But they’re coming home to an economy hit by recession deeper than any we’ve seen. And the question is, how do we create the same kind of middle class opportunity my grandparents’ generation came home to? How do we build our economy on the same kind of strong, stable foundation for growth?
Well, anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it’ll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up – they just haven’t studied our history. We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn’t come this far by letting special interests run wild. We didn’t do it by just gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We did it by producing goods we could sell; we did it with sweat and effort and innovation. We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up – workers, and middle-class families, and small business owners. We did it by out-working, out-educating, and out-competing everyone else.
Milwaukee, that’s what we’re going to do again. That’s what’s been at the heart of all our efforts: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn’t just survive this crisis – but thrives once we emerge. And over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for too long.
That’s why we passed financial reform that provides new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; reform that will stop credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes; reform that ends the era of taxpayer bailouts for Wall Street once and for all.
That’s why we eliminated tens of billions of dollars in wasteful taxpayer subsidies to big banks that provide student loans. We’re using those savings to put a college education within reach for working families.
That’s why we passed health insurance reform that will make coverage affordable; reform that ends the indignity of insurance companies jacking up your premiums at will or denying you coverage just because you get sick; reform that shifts control from them to you.
That’s why we’re making it easier for workers to save for retirement, with new ways of saving your tax refunds, a simpler system for enrolling in plans like 401(k)s, and fighting to strengthen Social Security for the future. And to those who may still run for office planning to privatize Social Security, let me be clear: as long as I’m President, I’ll fight every effort to take the retirement savings of a generation of Americans and hand it over to Wall Street. Not on my watch.
That’s why we’ve given tax cuts to small business owners. Tax cuts to clean energy companies. A tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised you on the campaign. And instead of giving tax breaks to corporations to create jobs overseas, we’re cutting taxes for companies that put our people to work here at home.
That’s why we’re investing in growth industries like clean energy and manufacturing. And you’ve got leaders here like Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle who have been fighting to bring those jobs to Milwaukee and to Wisconsin. Because we want to see the solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of tomorrow manufactured here. We don’t just want to buy stuff made elsewhere; we want to grow our exports so the world buys products that say “Made in America.”
Because there are no better workers than American workers, and I’ll place my bet on you any day of the week. When the naysayers said we should just let the American auto industry vanish and take hundreds of thousands of jobs down with it, we said we’d stand by them if they made the tough choices necessary to compete once again – and today, that industry is on the way back.
Now, another thing we’ve done is make sound and long-overdue investments in upgrading our outdated and inefficient national infrastructure. We’re not just talking new roads, bridges, dams and levees; but also a smart electric grid and the broadband internet and high-speed rail lines required to compete in the 21st century economy. We’re talking investments in tomorrow that are creating hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs today.
It was because of these investments, and the tens of thousands of projects they spurred all over the country, that the battered construction sector actually grew last month for the first time in a long time. Still, nearly one in five construction workers are unemployed. And it doesn’t do anybody any good when so many American workers have been idled for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America to rebuild.
That’s why, today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads, rails and runways for the long-term.
Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads – enough to circle the world six times. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways – enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers – something I think folks across the political spectrum could agree on.
This is a plan that will be fully paid for and will not add to the deficit over time – we’re going to work with Congress to see to that. It sets up an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments. It will continue our strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion, travel times, and harmful emissions. It will cut waste and bureaucracy by consolidating and collapsing more than 100 different, often duplicative programs. And it will change the way Washington spends your tax dollars; reforming the haphazard and patchwork way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and more on competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck.
All of this will not only create jobs now, but will make our economy run better over the long haul. It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support. It’s a plan that says even in the still-smoldering aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can act to shape our own destiny, to move this country forward, to leave our children something better – something lasting.
So these are the things we’ve been working for. These are some of the victories that you helped us achieve. And we’re not done. We’ve got a lot more progress to make. And I believe we will.
But there are some folks in Washington who see things differently. When it comes to just about everything we’ve done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said no. Even where we usually agree, they say no. They think it’s better to score political points before an election than actually solve problems. So they said no to help for small businesses. No to middle-class tax cuts. No to unemployment insurance. No to clean energy jobs. No to making college affordable. No to reforming Wall Street. Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was “Yes We Can?” These guys are running on “No, We Can’t,” and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?
To steal a line from our old friend, Ted Kennedy: what is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?
When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said “no” to that, too. In fact, the Republican who’s already planning to take over as Speaker of the House dismissed them as “government jobs” that weren’t worth saving. Not worth saving? These are the people who teach our kids. Who keep our streets safe. Who put their lives on the line for our own. I don’t know about you, but I think those jobs are worth saving.
We made sure that bill wouldn’t add to the deficit, either. We paid for it by finally closing a ridiculous tax loophole that actually rewarded corporations for shipping jobs and profits overseas. It let them write off the taxes they pay foreign governments – even when they don’t pay taxes here. How do you like that – middle class families footing tax breaks for corporations that create jobs somewhere else! Even a lot of America’s biggest corporations agreed the loophole should be closed, that it wasn’t fair – but the man with the plan to be Speaker is already aiming to open it up again.
Bottom line is, these guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade. You know that philosophy: you cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut rules for special interests; you cut working folks like you loose to fend for yourselves. They called it the ownership society. What it really boiled down to was: if you couldn’t find a job, or afford college, or got dropped by your insurance company – you’re on your own.
Well, that philosophy didn’t work out so well for working folks. It didn’t work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
I’m not bringing this up to re-litigate the past; I’m bringing it up because I don’t want to re-live the past. It would be one thing if Republicans in Washington had new ideas or policies to offer; if they said, you know, we’ve learned from our mistakes. We’ll do things differently this time. But that’s not what they’re doing. When the leader of their campaign committee was asked on national television what Republicans would do if they took over Congress, he actually said they’d follow “the exact same agenda” as they did before I took office. The exact same agenda.
So basically, they’re betting that between now and November, you’ll come down with a case of amnesia. They think you’ll forget what their agenda did to this country. They think you’ll just believe that they’ve changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class and drive our economy into a ditch. And now they’re asking you for the keys back.
Do you want to give them the keys back? Me neither. And do you know why? Because they don’t know how to drive! At a time when we’re just getting out of the ditch, they’d pop it in reverse, let the special interests ride shotgun, and hit the gas, careening right back into that ditch.
Well, I refuse to go backwards, Milwaukee. And that’s the choice America faces this fall. Do we go back to the policies of the past? Or do we move forward? I say we move forward. America always moves forward. And we are going to keep moving forward today.
Let me just close by saying this. I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried, and there’s still a lot of hurt out here. I hear about it when I spend time in towns like this; I read about it in your letters at night. And when times are tough, it can be easy to give in to cynicism and fear; doubt and division – to set our sights lower and settle for something less.
But that is not who we are. That is not the country I know. We do not give up. We do not quit. We are a people that faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats; and lit the way for the rest of the world. Whenever times have seemed at their worst, Americans have been at their best. Because it is in those times when we roll up our sleeves and remember that we will rise or fall together – as one nation, and one people. That’s the spirit that started the labor movement. The idea that alone, we are weak. Divided, we fall. But united, we are strong. That’s why we call them unions. That’s why we call this the United States of America.
Milwaukee, that’s the case I am going to make across the country this fall – yours. And I am asking for your help. If you are willing to join me, and Tom Barrett, and Gwen Moore, and Russ Feingold, we can strengthen our middle class and make our economy work for working Americans again. We can restore the American Dream and deliver it safely to our children. That’s how we built the last American century. That’s how we’ll build the next. We don’t believe in the words “No, we can’t.” We are Americans, and in times of great challenge, we push forward with an unyielding faith that we can. Yes, we can. Thank you, God Bless You and the work you do, and God Bless the United States of America.
Filthy. Parasites. Disgusting, overbreeding candidates for sterilization and extermination. Possessed of false morals and a “breeding culture.”
Hitler talking about the Jews? Nope. This is Discovery Channel hostage-taker James Lee talking about ... human beings. Compared to Lee, Hitler was a piker, philosophically: Der Fuehrer only wanted to kill those he considered “subhuman.” Lee considered all humans to be subhuman.
Lee was a nut, an eco-freak who said he was inspired by Al Gore’s environmental scare-documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” His badly written “manifesto” underscores his craziness. He hated “filthy human babies.”
But, of course, Lee’s not alone. Looking at the environmental literature, we find terms like those used above -- the currently stylish description is “eliminationist rhetoric” -- used widely, and plans for mass sterilization are fairly common.
Oh really? This is an extraordinary claim. Can Reynolds provide his readers with any examples of this kind of rhetoric from "the environmental literature," let alone any evidence that it's "used widely"?
Well, no. The best he can come up with is the completely discredited claims about John Holdren -- indeed, repeating the 'Lie of the Year' nominee as though it were fact, and then saying merely that Holdren "distanced" himself from the supposed beliefs -- plus some nutty chatter at Internet forums and the results of Google searches. He cites Al Gore specifically, but cannot present any examples wherein Gore might even half-suggest such anti-humanist sentiments as those used by Lee in his manifesto.
In fact, Reynolds' description of all this is breathtakingly dishonest, since the language of Lee's that he cites largely comes from this passage in Lee's manifesto:
Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
That rhetoric, particularly the "anchor baby" stuff, is not at all common among environmentalists, except perhaps for the tiny contingent of John Tanton fans out there. But it is extremely common on the right -- particularly among the nativists who have been populating the broadcasts at Fox News for the past several years, notably in recent months as they advocate for repealing the 14th Amendment.
It's clear that Lee's radicalism is an amalgam of right- and left-wing ideologies. But the violent behavior he exhibited has been far more common the right -- particularly on immigration issues -- than it has been on the left, for many years now.
Now, it's tempting to revert to Glenn Beck mode in dealing with this: to claim that they're all just nutcases, and that nothing anyone says should be held responsible for the violent acts of the mentally ill.
Because it's one thing if a mentally unstable person acts out violently because of some perception or belief they obtained on their own -- when, for instance, someone shoots up a classroom or school because they heard voices telling them to do it, or from reading hidden messages into Metallica lyrics.
It's quite another if a person acts violently out of rhetoric specifically intended to inspire action, particularly radicalizing rhetoric. There are two specific kinds of rhetoric in this category that become profoundly irresponsible in this context: eliminationist rhetoric -- that is, words that demonize and dehumanize their subjects by characterizing them as toxic objects fit only for elimination -- and conspiracist rhetoric, which creates a state of paranoia and a feeling of helplessness among those who believe it. A final factor -- provable falsity -- often exponentially raises the effects of these kinds of rhetoric, because it has the real-world effect of driving a wedge between the believer and objective reality: people are far more likely to act out violently if they are disconnected from the real world.
There is, moreover, an important distinction between this kind of rhetoric on the left and the same kind on the right -- because it can indeed be found on both sides of the political aisle. But as we can see from Glenn Reynolds' weak examples, its appearance on the left is relegated largely to a tiny fringe of radical extremists who have no discernible influence on the national discourse outside of a handful of little-read Internet forums.
Its appearance on the right, however, is not merely pervasive, it is wielded by prominent national opinion leaders and public figures. Reynolds may want to blame Al Gore for James Lee's eliminationist rhetoric, but he is unable to point to a single instance of anything Gore has written or said that would lead to or even remotely suggest that eliminationism. On the other hand, we can point to any number of major right-wing pundits, politicians, and cultural leaders who not only have used the kind of hateful rhetoric that inspired Lee, but a number of other violent acts -- ranging in the recent past from Jim David Adkisson's hateful assault on a liberal church in Knoxville, to Scott Roeder's assassination of Dr. George Tiller, to the recent shootout in Oakland with a gunman inspired by Glenn Beck to go attack the Tides Foundation -- can all be directly and concretely tied to major-media right-wing pundits.
The increasingly nasty tone of liberal rhetoric in recent years, especially on an interpersonal level, is also important to note. Some of the examples Malkin cites are ugly, indeed, as are some of the examples of bile directed toward George W. Bush in recent years.
However, most of the examples Malkin and her fellow conservatives point to involve anger directed at a specific person—most typically, George Bush or Dick Cheney—and often for reasons related to the loss of American and civilian lives in Iraq. Few of them are eliminationist—that is, most do not call for the suppression and eradication of an entire class or bloc of people. Rather, the hatred is focused on a handful of individuals.
In contrast, right-wing rhetoric has been explicitly eliminationist, calling for the infliction of harm on entire blocs of American citizens: liberals, gays and lesbians, Latinos, blacks, Jews, feminists, or whatever target group is the victim du jour of right-wing ire. This vile form of “anti-discourse” has been coming from the most prominent figures of movement conservatism: its most popular pundits and its leading politicians. And the sheer volume and intensity of the rhetoric dwarf whatever ugliness is coming from the liberal side of the debate.
The Adkisson case is particularly instructive, because when police went through his belongings, they discovered that his library was filled with books from the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage.
Moreover, he too left a manifesto -- and unlike Lee's manifesto, which mentions Gore only as an inspiration for environmental action, but then goes on to criticize it as well for not going far enough, Adkisson's document specifically describes how he was inspired by mainstream right-wing pundits:
This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence.
Moreover, the train of logic that he followed in reaching his decision to take violent eliminationist action was directly driven by ideas that could be found broadcast on any Fox News or Rush Limbaugh show:
In a parallel train of thought; It saddens me to think back on all the bad things that Liberalism has done to this country. The worst problem America faces today is Liberalism. They have dumbed down education, they have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attack'd every major institution that made America great. From the Boy Scouts to the military; from education to Religion. The Major News outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, they're Marxist, socialist, communists.
There's no logical connection between Gore's warnings about global climate change and James Lee's belief that anchor babies and illegal immigrants are destroying the environment -- that is, the belief that inspired his violent act.
However, the same cannot be said regarding the things that major-media right-wing pundits say on a daily basis and their relationship to, say, Jim David Adkisson's belief that liberals are evil and need to be eliminated, or Scott Roeder's belief that George Tiller was committing infanticide, or Richard Poplawski's belief that Obama was going to take his guns away, or Byron Williams' decision to go shoot up the Tides Foundation.
At least Glenn Reynolds and his fellow right-wingers are now conceding that ugly and irresponsible rhetoric can have violent consequences -- and that the people who indulge in it bear some culpability for those consequences.
That's a start. Now they need to think it through.
As Atrios would say: Maybe someone should do something? Instead, we have the administration talking about token solutions that don't really address the unemployment problem. But why should they? They're only geared at dealing with the political problem of Republican attacks. Since the Republicans will attack them no matter what they do, perhaps the administration might consider the possibility of presenting bold, courageous solutions?
Hah hah, just kidding! That's just crazy talk!
What some economists now project — and policymakers are loath to admit — is that the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 9.6% in August, could remain elevated for years to come.
The nation's job deficit is so deep that even a powerful recovery would leave large numbers of Americans out of work for years, experts say. And with growth now weakening, analysts are doubtful that companies will boost payrolls significantly any time soon. Unemployment, long considered a temporary, transitional condition in the United States, appears to be settling in for a lengthy run.
"This is the new reality," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "In the past decade we've gone from the best labor market in our economic history to arguably one of the worst. It's going to take years, if not decades, to completely recover from the fallout."
Major employers including automakers and building contractors were at the core of the meltdown this time around. Even when the economy picks up, these sectors won't quickly rehire all the workers they shed during the downturn.
Many small businesses, squeezed by tight credit and slow sales, similarly aren't in a hurry to add employees. Some big corporations are enjoying record profits precisely because they've kept a tight lid on hiring. And state and local governments are looking to ax more teachers, police officers and social workers to balance their budgets. Meanwhile, U.S. legislators have shown little appetite for a new round of stimulus spending.
It all points to a long slog for the nation's unemployed. In May, a record 46% of all jobless Americans had been out of work for more than six months. That's the highest level since the government started keeping track in 1948, and it's about double the percentage of long-term unemployed seen during the brutal recession of the early 1980s.
Jobless Americans such as Mignon Veasley-Fields of Los Angeles don't need government data to tell them that something has changed. A former administrative assistant at an L.A. charter school, she has searched fruitlessly for employment for more than two years. She's losing hope of ever working again.
"If I were 18, I'd say, 'I can bounce back.' But I'm 61," said Veasley-Fields, a dignified woman with graying, close-cropped hair. "It's really scary. It's like someone just put a pillow over your head and smothered you."
If it's Sunday, it's another week of Republican politicians repeating more of their lies on the bobblehead shows. Lindsey Graham really wants to keep those Bush tax cuts in place and when asked by David Gregory if there's any way the Republicans will compromise with the Democrats on taxes, he offers up being willing to work with them on the "death tax" -- or the more aptly named estate tax, as it used to be called before the Republicans started paying Frank Luntz -- which he claims needs to be fixed before it's reinstated to "prevent devastation to small business and family farms."
GREGORY: Is there room for compromise on tax cuts? Say, if the president were to extend all the tax cuts for a period of a couple of years, would that be able to attract Republican support?
GRAHAM: It might. There's certainly some room to compromise on the death tax. In January it goes back to 55 percent, at the end of this year it's at 0. So maybe you could find a way to compromise on the death tax to have something below 55 percent, a $5 or $6 million exemption for American families out there that would prevent devastation to small business and family farms. But if the--the idea of increasing taxes now, David, makes no sense to most people.
And the agenda the president and his Democratic colleagues has offered the country has increased the deficit, increased the role of the federal government. And he ran as a centrist, and most Americans would say, "Well, I never believed he would do all this." And everything has been so partisan. There was a bipartisan bill on health care, Wyden-Bennett, that was rejected. Senator McCain had a $450 billion stimulus bill. But we didn't go down any of these compromise roses--roads, just big government, more spending. And the Democrats don't have a whole lot to talk about going into November other than more debt and more government.
That's some major projection Graham's got going on there when it comes to partisanship and the failure to compromise. He needs to go take a look in the mirror if he wants to see what a partisan hack looks like. And The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has more on why Graham's statements about the estate tax are ridiculous. It doesn't need to be fixed so that it doesn't "devastate family farms". It didn't do that before and won't after it is reinstated next year.
First, there is overwhelming evidence that the estate tax does not pose a significant problem for farmers. The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center estimates that fewer than 110 small-farm estates in the entire nation would likely face the tax in 2011 if Congress reinstated the tax at its 2009 levels, as President Obama has proposed. Moreover, estate tax opponents have not been able to produce a single case in which a family farm had to be sold to pay the tax, even before the 2001 tax law began phasing down the tax significantly. [...]
In fact, the vast majority of small-farm estates already are exempt from the estate tax under the 2009 rules. The TaxPolicyCenter estimates that only 110 small-farm and small-business estates nationwide will owe any estate tax in 2011 if the 2009 estate tax levels are reinstated.[3] Since that figure also includes small business estates that are not farms, this means that fewer than 110 small-farm estates are likely to face the estate tax in 2011 if the 2009 rules are reinstated.
Moreover, this handful of taxable small-farm and small-business estates would owe only 11.3 percent of the estate’s value in tax, on average, according to the Tax Policy Center — well below the average effective tax rate of 18.9 percent for all taxable estates (and far below the top marginal rate for the estate tax of 45 percent under the 2009 rules).[4] One reason for the low effective tax rate is that the first $3.5 million of any estate (effectively $7 million for a couple) is entirely exempt from estate tax, and this large exemption generally protects a significant share of the value of small-business and small-farm estates from the tax. In addition, a number of special estate tax provisions targeted to small-business and small-farm estates (see page 4 for details) allow them to significantly reduce the amount of tax they owe, effectively increasing the exemption to $9 million per farming couple. Read on...
