Jobs and the U.S. Economy
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-07/jobs-and-us-economy
![President Barack Obama attends a breakout session, "Creating Jobs Through the Rebuilding of America's Infrastructure," during the White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Dec. 3, 2009 - Official White House photo by by Pete Souza via Flickr](http://thedianerehmshow.org/sites/thedianerehmshow.org/files/imagecache/620xH/images/headline/obamajobs.jpg "President Barack Obama attends a breakout session, "Creating Jobs Through the Rebuilding of America's Infrastructure," during the White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Dec. 3, 2009 - Official White House photo by by Pete Souza via Flickr")
President Barack Obama attends a breakout session, "Creating Jobs Through the Rebuilding of America's Infrastructure," during the White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Dec. 3, 2009
Official White House photo by by Pete Souza via Flickr
President Obama and others are pushing for tax breaks and initiatives to help small businesses, which are widely considered to be critical job generators. Diane and guests explore the struggle to address persistently high unemployment rates, wage inequality and fundamental shifts in the U.S. economy.
Guests
R. Glenn Hubbard
dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers 2001-2003.
Author of "Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity"
Dean Baker
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of "Plunder & Blunder the Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy" (PoliPointPress)
Greg Ip
U.S. economics editor, "The Economist" and author of "The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World"
Jared Bernstein
Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser for Vice President Biden and Executive Director of the Vice President's Middle Class Task Force.
Comments
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Suggestion: Use the administrative structure of the military to identify, assign, and oversee work on needed nonmilitary infrastructure projects....high speed internet access, construction, power generation, etc., etc., etc. Assign the unemployed to work in their areas of expertise, e.g., IT, management, accounting, legal, administrative, construction. Some of the military oversight effort could be performed by those in positions being eliminated by Gates. Some of the projects could be focused on bringing our inner cities back to full function. -- Ray and Peggy Kruse, St. Louis
There will be no job growth and that is just what the Republican Congress wants. They want President Obama to sink and the whole United States with him just so they can get back in power. But guess what, after they take over it will be G. W. Bush all over again. Voters have a short memory span lately.
Thank you,
Barbara, Saginaw, MI
First it is bailing out the large corporations, now the small businesses. When do the poor and working class get a break?
I agree that work programs that draw in the unemployed skilled workers to upgrade and maintain our infrastructure would benifit the country as a whole, and additional taxes to the wealthy should help pay for it. A sound infrastructure benefits business as well as raises the quality of living for the rest of us.
Hi Ray and Peggy, while I admire the idea, the military has enough work to do abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan acting as those nations' security forces. The Army Corps of Engineers has not always been the most reliable organization; e.g., its failure to re-establish pumping stations in New Orleans. I think a new, and temporary, WPA-type agency, with preferential hiring of veterans, injured and not, and unemployed with expertise as you outline, would be a more focused and productive approach. - Steve Jones, Scottsdale, AZ
Mr. Hubbard, isn't it changes to income that are considered permanent that have the largest multiplier impact on the economy? Investment tax breaks, even if companies needed them (and they do not), exert little more than a temporary impact. If you are going to use tax policy as a tool, then isn't it best to provide long-term relief (such as lowering tax rates)? Cash-for-clunkers and housing credits have only had short-term impacts.
On April 5th, Larry Summers declared that the economy was entering “escape velocity”; then on June 17th, Obama proclaimed this to be “Recovery Summer”. If this is the case, why then the need for more government intervention? The government debt-to-GDP ratio rapidly heading for triple-digits. Why would this stimulus work when it didn't in the past?
Frank
In 1938, a "conservative coalition" of U.S. Senators, which favored a balanced budget, states' rights, and restrictions on labor unions, managed to repeal FDR's key job creation programs. In a "Conservative Manifesto", a South Carolina Senator promised the public, "Give enterprise a chance, and I will give you the guarantees of a happy and prosperous America."
Their actions resulted in a major economic setback and the continuation of the Great Depression in 1939, which ended only with FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy" policy, which helped create full employment and stimulated manufacturing and economic growth with favorable government contracts, even with a very high rate of taxation.
The Republican spokesmen in Congress today are advocating exactly the same negative approach as that advocated by the conservative coalition in 1938.
A lot of talk has been the "unemployment" and "tax cut". It sounds illogical to talk about tax cuts when people don't have jobs and income to be taxed? Tax cuts don't help the unemployed!? We need to clearly define our conversation and talk about policies which tackles unemployment directly and immediately.
Second question I like to pose is that many of the policies, such as investment in green economy are long term plays. It'll take years for that to mature and payoff. What industries or technology should we be investing in today for immediate growth?
The Republicans often tell us that the public sector (i.e. government) cannot create jobs or improve the economy. My question is can the private sector along create jobs need to improve the economy, if so how?
Yet another jobs show that won't even say the words of Corporate Responsibility. Corporations are firing, corporations are sitting on capital, keeping up bonuses etc. Time for corporations to do their fair share in these hard times.
We have three main groups: people, government, and corporations. The only real source for jobs are corporations. The main group firing is corporations. The main group not doing anything to hire is corporations. The only one that is not taking their fair share of responsibility is corporations. Corporations, it is time to stop firing and start hiring - put patriotism ahead of profits in these hard times. Do corporations have to? No. Do we have to keep buying their products NO. Why support them when they put greed and bonuses ahead of helping, Time for a backlash against corporations that don't help in these hard times and support those that do help.
What about restoring the tax system we had before the "supply side" experiment was imposed upon us during the Reagan administration. I personally believe that the tax system we have had since Reagan (who was the first president to ever run up a double digit deficit) is a failed experiment and that we should return to a system of classical progressive income taxation. During the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration, we had a broad and prosperous middle class, with few at either end in poverty or extremely wealthy. We must, I believe, go back to the Eisenhower era's system of progressive income taxation in order to restore an order in which everyone pays their fair share and we have a hope of bringing deficits down below double digits and perhaps even to zero. We know this system works and that the current version of "supply side" tax policy does not. Is there any reason we should not return to a true progressive income tax system?
While I think it is unfortunate and true for most people, I am skeptical about people saying they can't find a job, any job. I have heard too many people say that they're taking unemployment even though they've decided to retire. I've also know several people taking unemployment while working for cash under-the-table. To get their money, all people have to is push a few buttons on the phone once a week.
Are we headed for a "double-dip" recession?
I agree with the caller who felt the show would be more educational, if guests were always called on comments that don't agree with the public record. Ms Rehm does this gracefully, and it adds clarity to issues. It adds spice to the show as well!
1. Raise the taxes on the supper rich, remove all those tax breaks (like the one for NASCAR’s tracks).
2. Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about the bottom line, we gave millions of jobs to China, India, and other countries. We put all our jobs in the “consumer spending”. We not only gave the jobs, we sold the factories. We compensated it by borrowing money,
Why don’t we face the fact that we need manufacturing jobs, we need Computer related jobs!
The jobs that need to be created should come in a two pronged approach. For the immediate future we need to upgrade our infrastructue, not only roads and rails but water and power as well. This could provide many jobs for several years for both the young (brawn) and older (experience) workers. The long term jobs could be in newer "green" technologies as well as high tech work. This will require tome for R&D as well as the learning curve for the work force. We can't rely on private industries to kick start this work. In spite of all the caterwalling about "free enterprise" we need a federaly funded nation wide project to steer the country in this direction.
While I was driving, I heard Guillermo's comment and it resonated. There is a disconnect among the media, some of your guests and the real world for America's middle class. Much of the media coverage does not accurately report what's happening for us nor does it reflect what we are thinking. Many of the pundits run with the "flavor of the day". I am a supporter of President Obama and hope he is re-elected. I appreciate Diane's show for the hard, analytical, intelligent questions she poses to the guests.
Thank you.
Whether the Republicans want Obama to sink or not doesn't matter. Obama is sinking because voters don't like massive debt, unemployment, and non existent leadership. Or maybe the voters have been "hoodwinked" by those nasty Republicans. Of course when they voted for Obama it was with courage and inspiration.
Why should the wealthy pay for it? I supposed it serves them right for working hard and trying to get ahead. The top 40% of tax payers already pay about 90% of tax bill. Maybe it should be the top 1% should pay 100% and the rest of us can be freeloaders.
An excellent point. If it wasn't for this one repeal - no Great Depression. FDR's four terms has no affect whatsoever.
If you give tax cuts to small business companies can more freely hire someone. If you give tax cuts to indivduals they can choose to spend it. The people unemployed can be hired by companies or the money inviduals spend will go to companies which will hire people based on need. Giving money directly to people without jobs, they will spend it, and guess what no jobs.
Dean Hubbard's book should be titled Seeds of Destruction: How the Path to Economic Ruin was Blazed by Ronald Reagan. I was stunned to hear one canard of supply-side fantasy after another cited, like how the Kennedy tax cuts produced a revenue increase -- revenue did increase, but it was not the tax cuts per se that raised revenue, it was the deeper restructuring of the tax code, closing of loopholes and ending of tax dodges. The insinuation was that Reagan's tax cuts and all other tax cuts produce similarly, and that's just hooey. I was stunned that the rest of the panel let him get away with such a simplistic cheap shot.
I missed the opening of the show, and was running errands through most of the program, so it wasn't until I just sat down that I read Mr. Hubbard's credentials, and I must say I'm even more horrified at him getting away with a kind of nyuk nyuk skimming the surface of a very serious discussion; people are in horrible shape out here, households are coming apart in desperation. I really want to hear a show on economics in which the likes of Baker are encouraged to call him on his BS instead of giving a supply sider the last word.
It is time to make supply side sweat. Do they really believe the economy will get better when fewer and fewer families have any disposable income at all? Do they really believe that making the rich richer, cutting their taxes and perpetuating outlandish compensation for "management" is going to magically put money in the hands of the people who are desperate? Please pull the other leg, it's got bells on it.
1) What Carol Harlow said;
2) @andreaaka_99 -- I flagged your comment as offensive.
3) @Derrick -- the weathy should pay for it because they've been coasting along on Reagan's sweet flat tax for the affluent for 30 years. What they've paid is disproportionate with the benefit they've reaped. Only the less affluent and poor should be dinged when they do a little better? See point 1, and remember how much better the economy was under Clinton with just a little additional progressivity.
@Jeany : I'm not a big fan of wealth redistribution. Taking one person's money and giving it to a favored political group or entity at the force of jail does not seem like a business our government should be involved. Americans are the most generous of all peoples and private charities work better than government programs.
I don't recall having a flat rate during Reagan's years. It was progressive or in other words not fair. "Only the less affluent and poor should be dinged"? - That's the beauty of a flat tax - everyone gets taxed and because its a percentage the more you make the more you pay.
Clinton did fairly well after he lost the mid-terms and Gingrich forced a balanced budget on him.
Please bring on an economist from the austrian school - like Peter Schiff or Thomas Woods. Your panels of so-called economists are Keynesians and supply-siders that lack credibility. They are part of the economic establishment that got us to where we are today.
As far as policy direction - the best way forward is to cut federal government spending, starting with our wasteful empire and wars abroad. When deficits come down, across the board tax cuts are feasible.