"Where's the Obama speech making clear the top priority for now is putting America back to work?"

[Better Believe It]

Obama, Forget the Deficit and Take a Stand for Job Creation
Congress will either cut government outlay before a full economic recovery, or increase public spending and put Americans back to work. Much depends on Obama's leadership.
By Robert Kuttner
August 2, 2010


This fall, Congress will either follow the conventional wisdom and prematurely cut government outlay before an economic recovery arrives, or it will increase public spending, put jobless Americans back to work, and reduce the deficit in a less painful fashion thanks to increasing economic tailwinds. The road that Congress takes depends on presidential leadership.

Until very recently, deficit hawks were hogging every available megaphone, claiming that deficits and debts were more ominous than protracted joblessness and recession. But you know that this foolish consensus is beginning to crack when political moderates such as columnist Matt Miller, budget guru Robert Greenstein, and Yale economist Robert Shiller take a different view.

Greenstein, who heads the influential Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), bows to nobody in his longstanding concern about unsustainably large deficits. CBPP's latest paper, by Greenstein's close colleague Paul Van de Water, takes issue with the premise articulated by Erskine Bowles, chair of Obama's own commission on budget reform, that the federal budget should be balanced at about 21 percent of GDP, roughly the postwar average.

But as Van de Water points out in his paper, released July 28:

"Such recommendations, however, fail to take account of fundamental changes in society and government -- the aging of the population, substantial increases in health care costs, and new federal responsibilities in areas such as homeland security, education, and prescription drug coverage for seniors. These factors make the expenditure levels of several decades ago inapplicable today. A careful analysis of these factors indicates that it will not be possible to maintain federal expenditures at their average level for decades back to 1970 without making draconian cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and an array of other vital federal activities."

Another mainstream economist, Yale's Robert Shiller, author of the book that warned of the financial collapse, Irrational Exuberance, recently wrote in the New York Times that government needed to spend more money putting people back to work directly -- breaking an Obama administration taboo. Obama economic policy chief Larry Summers opposes Roosevelt-style direct jobs programs, and stimulus spending has been carefully directed to the states and the private sector.

But where is the high-profile Obama speech making clear that the top priority for now is putting America back to work, that deficit reduction will come when the economy is back on track -- and that the budget will not be balanced on the backs of those who depend on Social Security, Medicare, and other key social outlays?

The misguided Erskine Bowles, with his austerity program, did not drop into the budget debate from Mars. He was appointed by Barack Obama.

Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/147716/obama%2C_forget_the_deficit_and_take_a_stand_for_job_creation/?page=entire

[FiveGoodMen]

1. K&R

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. IF he gave the speech...

...no one would notice, and nothing would change.

And thus it has ever been so.

[uponit7771]

3. Obama gave that speech 3243o43nn times and no one paid attention

[Better Believe It]

4. Was that the speech setting up the Social Security/Medicare cutting commission?

I paid attention.

And so did everyone on DU.

[Fearless]

6. +1

[DrDan]

5. didn't his administration just announce a new training program for 3,000 IT workers?

that should lead to some full-time jobs.

oh, wait . .. . .

[Coyote_Bandit]

7. Leadership?

You mean like he offered in the healthcare reform debate? His contribution to that clusterfuck was to continually rachet down demands and expectations while trying to engineer some consensus. That's the work of a pragmatist that is more committed to getting a deal than enacting real reform. It certainly isn't the work of a strong principled leader.

So far as I can tell unemployed/underemployed Americans are little more than anecdotal tragedies to our President. It has been a long time since he lived on Main Street - and he's not likely to return. He personally has been insulated from Main Street tragedies for a long time. Yes, the same thing can be said of most of our other elected leaders.

Color me unimpressed. I am so over Barack Obama. And I am so hoping that somewhere there is a progressive alternative.