Republicans Are Too Expensive – In Jobs and Dollars – For America

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/09-1



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Millions Left Behind

The story begins with the financial crisis and recession of 2008. Reports say that the incoming Obama administration reduced its proposed stimulus because it thought Republicans would reject the actual level of spending needed to rescue the economy. The resulting stimulus package saved or created millions of jobs, but the country remained in the grip of an ongoing recession that limited both job creation and wage growth. Further stimulus spending became politically unfeasible after Republicans won the House in 2010.

The result? Wealth inequality has become worse since the crisis. The top 1 percent of American earners saw their income increase by a staggering 32 percent in 2012, even as millions of others remained mired in an ongoing de facto depression. For the first time since they began tracking the numbers a century ago, the wealthiest 10 percent of the country captured more than half its total income.

It didn’t have to be this way. A number of jobs proposals were put forward that would have helped the “99 percent” obtain more jobs and strengthen its wage base, including the Economic Policy Institute’s “American Jobs Plan” and our own “Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future” (from the Institute for America’s Future).

These programs would have created jobs and strengthened the economy for everyone, while also enhancing education and funding urgently needed repairs to the nation’s infrastructure. We still need those investments, and they would still create jobs.

[RC]

1. Just jobs or Living Wage Jobs? All they will talk about are Just jobs.

The resulting stimulus package saved or created millions of jobs, but the country remained in the grip of an ongoing recession that limited both job creation and wage growth.

Most of those jobs were Just Jobs. They were and still are, too busy eliminating or shipping our Full Time, Living Wage Jobs overseas. Is it any wonder we have never really recovered, even after more than enough time has passed for a decent recovery? The secret is getting money calculating in the economy. To do that you need Living Wage Jobs. All the part time burger flipping jobs and broom pushing jobs in the world will not foster any kind of real economic recovery.