The unemployment situation remains dire…
What’s needed from the Administration and Congress at this point is a serious public works and economic policy program.
What we’re getting instead is absolutely nothing.
Call it a stimulus, call it a rethink, call it a revelation, here are the basic elements:
1) A WPA-like program that would hire unemployed Americans to fix our basic infrastructure: schools, roads, bridges, green technology installations, etc. and to be deployed in rebuilding Haiti.
2) Guarantee all state government budget deficits for the next 3 years. This will save millions of jobs and prevent the ongoing Herbert Hooverization that comes with state balanced budget amendments.
3) Extend unemployment and COBRA benefits for the next 3 years.
4) Allow bankruptcy court judges to reduce principal owed on existing underwater mortgages (aka “cramdown”).
5) Extend Medicare to cover everyone over the age of 50.
These will not be easy things to achieve, but they establish a policy identity for the President and the Democratic Party that has been sorely lacking in the past 12 months.
If the Know Nothing Party decides to vote against everything, then their lack of leadership must be called to account on election day.
The days of pretending about bipartisanship should be over.
Gorilla says: “Leadership requires hard choices, what we’re getting is no choices, time to get everyone back to work!”
