Valerie Jarrett: Bob Herbert is 'Simply Wrong'

[bigtree]

Posted by Valerie Jarrett on the White House blog: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/31/prioritizing-low-income-families-and-creating-pathways-opportunity-all-americans



May 31, 2012

Throughout his distinguished career, Bob Herbert has helped shine a spotlight on the lives of Americans living in poverty – a group that is too often ignored. That was certainly true of his May 21st column, in which he told the story of 20 poor children from the Bronx who are growing up in truly appalling conditions. It was heartbreaking to hear about the children Mr. Herbert met: The girl who told him, “I never feel safe.” The child who said she felt there was no purpose to her existence. The stories they told about too many shootings, and too few jobs.

Mr. Herbert expressed understandable frustration that our political discourse rarely focuses on the notion that the American dream is closed off to far too many of our citizens. But when Mr. Herbert suggested that President Obama has “given up” on the idea of opportunity and upward mobility, he was simply wrong.

There’s a basic bargain in America. It says that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules you should be able to find a good job, feel secure in your community, and support a family. I have worked in the White House since the day President Obama took office. At every juncture-every big decision, every major policy development, every negotiation -- I have seen President Obama fight for the things that help our country preserve that bargain for all Americans, rich or poor.

There are times when this bargain is tested. Economic crisis is one of those times. When President Obama took office, the United States economy was losing over 800,000 jobs a month. For some, it’s possible to get by without a job for a while. But for too many Americans working hard to be a part of the middle class, job loss means slipping into poverty. That’s why during his first months in office, President Obama took swift action to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs-giving tax cuts to working families, keeping teachers in the classroom, and keeping first responders on the streets.

For those Americans who fell on hard times and lost their jobs through no fault of their own, President Obama has acted to prevent millions from slipping into poverty and helped build a path to the middle class. To help families put food on the table and make ends meet, President Obama signed an expansion of the SNAP program and nine extensions of unemployment insurance. There are new opportunities for those on unemployment as well. Two months ago, in addition to extending benefits, President Obama signed unemployment insurance reforms to help job seekers develop the skills they need for their next job through apprenticeships and training programs.

Our country has been struggling with these issues for decades before the economic collapse in 2008. And while we won’t solve these problems overnight, President Obama believes the first step in the process is to invest in an education system that opens up opportunity to every hard working student.

President Obama has invested in early childhood education, including Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care assistance, benefiting more than 360,000 poor children. We have invested in new child nutrition programs, to make sure more young people have enough to eat, and have the chance to eat healthy food. The President has devoted more than $4 billion to turning around our lowest performing schools, many of which have already made double-digit gains in reading and math proficiency.

President Obama has also fought to make college more affordable. He has supported an expansion of Pell Grants to 3 million more students and raised the maximum Pell Grant award by nearly $1,000. In addition, President Obama established the American Opportunity Tax Credit, providing over nine million students and families with up to $10,000 for four years of higher education. Because of President Obama’s commitment, more children like the ones Mr. Herbert documented will be able to go to an early childhood education program, a high-performing public school, and a two-year or four-year college.

Of course, these are just a few of the initiatives the Obama Administration has undertaken to help more Americans reach the middle class. One of the first bills the President signed into law, the expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, has helped ensure that millions of children have access to health care. In fact, the number of uninsured children fell by one million between 2006 and 2010.

We have built on the success of not-for-profits such as Harlem Children’s Zone, and worked with partners in government, business, and the not-for-profit sector to introduce innovative new approaches to fighting poverty. This includes our Summer Jobs+ program, which will provide more than 250,000 poor youth with a pathway to employment this summer.

Over the last two years – time and time again -Republicans in Congress have sought to ignore, or harshly cut, the investments we need to create opportunity and pathways to the middle class. There’s no way to know what would have happened if President Obama didn’t act when the economy was on the brink of collapse, but to this day Republicans in Congress treat the Recovery Act like a political football. In fact, when tax relief for working families was scheduled to expire at the end of 2010 and 2011, President Obama stood up to Republicans attempts to block the extension. Today, a combined 17.6 million low-income working parents are still eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit because of the President’s leadership.

Almost every Republican lawmaker voted to reduce funding for the SNAP program by nearly 20 percent, and cut Medicaid by one third. Representative Paul Ryan, who authored the Republican budget, has said our social safety net is in danger of becoming a “hammock,” and argues it must be radically scaled back. As President Obama has publicly pointed out, this vision of America would hurt poor children, kids with disabilities, and students.

There is more work to do, but President Obama is moving our country forward. He believes that your success should not be determined by your background or your zip code; that everyone should get a fair shot, everyone should do their fair share, and everyone should play by the same set of rules. Republicans in Congress believe that everyone should be left to fend for themselves. The difference between these two positions could not be more clear.

The question we are debating in Washington today is simple: Will we meet our responsibilities to these children? Will we invest in their educations, or ignore their potential? Will we help rebuild their neighborhoods, or turn a blind eye to the difficulties they live with every day? Will we provide them with the tools they need to achieve the American dream, or will they fall further and further behind?

The outcome of the debates between the President and Republicans in Congress matters. The direction we choose will affect the lives of poor children in the Bronx and throughout our country. We owe it to them to be clear about the choices we face.


Valerie Jarrett is Senior Advisor to President Obama, Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls and she oversees the Offices of Intergovernmental Affairs, Public Engagement, and Urban Affairs.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. Long before this article came out I was talking with my husband and asking him where

are the JFK, RFKs, or Martin Luther King who really did go to where the poor lived in the country. You don't see Obama or Romney care about them. They both could go to the inter cities or even out to rural areas in the south or even in the hills of West Virginia. There are plenty of places to go. These elderly and children are falling thru the cracks.

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. You haven't seen President Obama ...

going to impoverished areas?

You must not have been to Lorain or Youngstown, Ohio lately.

[southernyankeebelle]

21. I never been to Ohio. He doesn't have to go far from the area he lives in Wash,Baltimore or VA

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Now, Bob ...

Get on your job and valid the two haves of Valerie's response: that President Obama has not "given up"; but rather, enacted policy initiatives investing in the working classes ... though he cannot act via decree.

And equally important, Bob, is your validation of the second half of her response: that the "giving up" to the design of gop/teaparty/conservative plans of obstruction and continued upward wealth transfer.

[sendero]

4. Nothing like a press secretary type..

... be is Ari Fleischer or Andrew Card or who was that McClennan guy or this person to spin themselves dizzy trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Sure Obama is not a dictator. Nor is he a JFK, a Johnson, or much of anyone who actually accomplished something important in the face of stiff opposition. And he never will be no matter how much flowery prose tries to say otherwise.

[bigtree]

7. press secretary type? How insultingly condescending of you.

Ignore the substance of the efforts the lady outlined and just focus on demeaning her; and the President, as well.

Since you don't look to give a spit about the folks who were helped by the efforts of this administration, let's first deal with the insults that you think are so productive and enlightening.

Valerie Jarrett is not just some 'secretary, she's Senior Advisor to President Obama, Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls and she oversees the Offices of Intergovernmental Affairs, Public Engagement, and Urban Affairs

If you can't respect that this woman deserves more respect than to be called a 'secretary-type,' perhaps you don't deserve to be taken seriously when you profess concern for people; for any reason.

I wonder if you would regard the senior male staff at the White House as 'secretary-types?' I'll bet not. This particular insult of yours works its wonder because women have traditionally been denigrated to avoid recognizing their achievements and accomplishments. You've followed true-to-form with your characterizations of this rare, female senior staffer and our nation's first black President.

No matter for the President, though. He's well-positioned to take the insults and the cynicism as a consequence of his position in government; and he does so with eloquence and grace. I really don't need to defend him against your petty put-downs.

I will say this, however . . .

This President inherited an economy that neither JFK or Johnson had to deal with, so it's a bit disingenuous to make a comparison. if you're talking about their notable efforts in Civil Rights and 'Great Society' programs and assistance, those are always going to be seen as transformational and dynamic, because they were enacted in a complete vacuum of federal government responsibility and action. It's rather easy to pick at the edges of the billions of dollars in aid and assistance that flows without interruption, save for the assaults of republicans and conservatives; save the defenses by Democrats in Congress and our Democratic President.

It's one thing to start from zero, as Johnson and Kennedy did; it's another to seek and obtain resources and money over and above the infrastructure of aid and assistance already in place from the federal and state governments.

That's what you and Herbert are griping over. Not a dearth of assistance; not enough, in your estimation. That's fair.

Claiming he didn't make his accomplishments in the face of 'stiff opposition,' though, is just sophistry of the highest order.

One of the nation's largest packages of aid and assistance to the nation's poor -- over and above the infrastructure of spending already in place -- was achieved in the initiation, passage, signing, and enactment by President Obama of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included broad investments to alleviate the poverty made worse by the economic crisis.

To fight hunger, the Act includes a $20 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, as well as funding for food banks and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC);

The Act also provides for $2 billion in (continuing) new Neighborhood Stabilization Funds to help maintain ailing neighborhoods and $1.5 billion in Homelessness Prevention Funds to keep people in their homes or rapidly rehouse them;

The Act increases funding for the Community Services Block Grant by $1 billion;

The Act increases the Weatherization Assistance Program by $5 billion to help low income families save on their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient;

The Act increases job training funds for those who need them most, with $3.95 billion in additional funding for the Workforce Investment system, which will support green job training, summer jobs for young people, and other opportunities;

The Act provides increased income support, including an increase of $25 per week for Unemployment Insurance recipients and incentives for states to expand unemployment insurance eligibility, as well as an extra $250 payment to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries and new resources for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program; and,

The Act provides tax breaks to working families through the Make Work Pay and Child Tax Credits. These changes reduce the marriage penalty and provide a larger credit for families with three or more children . . .


more:

Obama Anti-Poverty Programs Begin to Take Shape
The president's neighborhood-based anti-poverty initiatives will soon move into a second stage. But in an era of budget-cutting, Promise Neighborhoods and Choice Neighborhoods face a steep political challenge.

In his budget battles with Congress, President Obama has defended two new antipoverty programs, Choice Neighborhoods and Promise Neighborhoods, that both use an array of programs to fight poverty in small geographic areas.
Amid the partisan battles that erupted over this year's $3.4 trillion-dollar federal budget, few observers noticed the skirmish involving President Obama's anti-poverty programs. In their budget plan, House Republicans zeroed out all three parts of the president's Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative: the school-centered Promise Neighborhoods, the housing-focused Choice Neighborhoods and the law enforcement-oriented Byrne Criminal Justice Initiative.

While Byrne ended up unfunded, Promise and Choice survived with $30 million and $65 million apiece—far less than Obama requested but more than might have been expected in a political environment where concern for the poor is absent.

Obama began to chart his antipoverty approach in a 2007 campaign speech in which he praised the work of Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone, an effort launched in 1994 to provide comprehensive services to all residents of a low-income, 97-block area of central Harlem. About a decade into that effort, the HCZ launched the first of two charter schools that have become the hub of the entire Harlem project. Promise Neighborhoods is an effort to take that idea of school-generated neighborhood change and replicate it in other communities.

On the poverty front, that means that while the Department of Education has a lead role on Promise Neighborhoods, and HUD on Choice Neighborhoods, both programs might end up tapping into very broad—and very similar—sets of federal programs. Both Promise and Choice also put a premium on leveraging private investment to augment public dollars.

Last September, the DOE named 21 winners of Promise Neighborhoods planning grants (out of 339 applicants) of up to $500,000 each. Winners included a Boston Promise Neighborhood based around the 23,000-resident Dudley Street neighborhood, and a St. Paul, Minn., effort that will reach 250 blocks

Choice Neighborhoods is also at a nascent stage. Because some communities had, through HOPE VI and other mechanisms, already developed a local planning process to develop local initiatives, HUD offered two streams of Choice funding this year—planning grants, which 119 communities applied for and 17 won, and implementation grants, which 42 communities applied for, with six being asked to submit more detailed plans for a final round of consideration.

Obama has requested $150 million for Promise and $250 million for Choice in the fiscal 2012 budget. To date, Congress has given him nowhere near what he sought for either program; this year's Choice money is actually being carved out of a different budget line. What's more, Obama's proposed 2012 budget halves funding for the Community Services Block Grant, which funds vital anti-poverty projects at a scale Choice and Promise don't approach. More cuts will come if people averse to both deficits and tax hikes tighten their grip on Congress. As Lester points out, "The outcome of the next election will very significantly affect where this goes."<

[sendero]

9. More..

.. of the nibbling at the margins bullshit that impresses so many of you. As if the longer the bullshit post, the more you have proven your point.

The language this oh so repsectable woman uses, and that you have quoted, are quite flowery and could be easily written about Bush (and was) and would be as totally pointless in that instance also.

The problems this country is facing won't be fixed by these little tweaks, bold action will eventually have to be taken. No amount or rhetoric can turn anything this president has done into "bold".

[bigtree]

11. easy for you to say

complete bullshit though.

Pulling the nation out of the second worst economic disaster in history is more than a 'tweak.' I'm not surprised that you can't see beyond your own petty, esoteric insults. Engaging in anything more substantive than that would have you actually acknowledging the facts behind Ms. Jarrett's quite correct summation.

[dionysus]

10. .

[joeybee12]

5. Valerie was wrong about the Olympics being a slam dunk for Chicago...

And she's wrong about this...so one could say she's batting .1000

[Bluenorthwest]

6. After her whole sneer at the LGBT 'lifestyle' I have a hard time buying that she's

a person worthy of any attention. I will not read what she wrote now or ever.

[bigtree]

8. I guess that's understandable

It's doesn't dispute the points she made, at all, though. I'm at a loss to understand the value in just plugging your ears to what she's saying about the president's economic efforts. I wouldn't encourage that.

[gratuitous]

12. Well Senior Advisor Jarrett, if Bob Herbert is wrong

Prove it with some actions. I've heard a LOT of words out of this administration that haven't translated into diddly/squat.

[bigtree]

13. the measures she outlined DID have a positive economic effect for millions of Americans

In fact, if the President's proposals were adopted and advanced as he presented them to Congress, we'd have the progressive accomplishments critics are looking for.

[girl gone mad]

14. Paulson was willing to force mortgage writedowns as a condition of TARP..

according to Barney Frank. This is something offered up to Obama on a silver platter by Paulson (and Bush!), but he declined. He can't blame it on Congressional inaction or ornery Republicans.

I think Herbert is right. When the choice is between appeasing financial oligarchs or helping average folk, Obama always sides with the elites.

[bigtree]

15. so this was during the transition between Bush and Obama; Bush still in office

Frank is pointing out that England has no such transition period and that our newly elected presidents are caught in between the aspirations of an exiting president still in technical authority and our elected one. That's hardly a place where we can claim that Mr. Obama had the ability to have his way with Bush's economic team still in place and operating under TARP. President Obama can certainly blame whatever occurred in that interim on the exiting administration; despite Mr. Frank's would-have-could-have second-guessing.

[girl gone mad]

16. Bush had agreed to a writedown provision.

Paulson was also willing. The Obama administration refused to work with Paulson. Read Frank's statement again.

The mortgage crisis was worsened this past time because critical decisions were made during the transition between Bush and Obama. We voted the TARP out. The TARP was basically being administered by Hank Paulson as the last man home in a lame duck, and I was disappointed. I tried to get them to use the TARP to put some leverage on the banks to do more about mortgages, and Paulson at first resisted that, he just wanted to get the money out. And after he got the first chunk of money out, he would have had to ask for a second chunk, he said, all right, I’ll tell you what, I’ll ask for that second chunk and I’ll use some of that as leverage on mortgages, but I’m not going to do that unless Obama asks for it. This is now December, so we tried to get the Obama people to ask him and they wouldn’t do it.

This can't be blamed on Bush.

[bigtree]

17. so we're to take Bush and Paulson's word on this that they had a straight-up deal

Bush and Paulson . . . sure. Glad Mr. Frank trusted them. I'd be willing to bet that there was more to it than this, but, you know, we're only looking at one side here. Frank says Bush and his honcho were sincere. What does the President say about this? I'm sure you don't know, and I'm just shocked that someone here would put so much stock in what Bush and Paulson supposedly offered and are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were sincere and there weren't any strings to the offer.

More shocked that the President doesn't get any of that benefit of doubt from folks here. SHOCKED, I tell ya!

Interesting to see bush has defenders here who are willing to take his word (second-hand, at that) over our Democratic president. Bush can't be blamed, huh? Far out.

[girl gone mad]

18. I'm taking Barney Frank's word for it.

This report comes straight from him. He's a Democrat, btw.

[bigtree]

19. that's just nonsense. You and Mr. Frank are taking Bush's word that he was sincere

Hook, line, and sinker.

[girl gone mad]

20. Take Bush out of the equation.

by December, he was a lame duck and had nothing to do with it any longer. It was between Paulson and the incoming administration. As Frank says, all the Obama administration had to do was pick up the phone and call Paulson. The White House refused to do so.

This is right in line with other things they were doing at the time which were so frustrating to those of use trying to get real, smart action on the economic front. It wasn't the first or the last time the WH refused to pursue cramdowns, for example. Also, don't forget that they had promised during the campaign that they would demand more from the banks before doling out TARP II funds, but those promises never amounted to anything. Obama had so much leverage and never used it. As a result, we let the banks loot the national treasure while they were held completely unaccountable and the American people were hung out to dry.

[bigtree]

23. political gossip

practically fantasy.

Again, you aren't even considering the President's version of events; whatever it is. You're taking what Bush's Treasury sec. said at face value of your second-hand account and presenting it as if it were gospel. You have to make a severely negative judgment of President Obama to support your assertion that such an offer even existed and was sincere and without strings, such as accepting other concessions in return. You want me to accept the word of the Bush administration. Take Bush out of the equation? How? It's his administration and Obama was not in authority at all at the time. It's gossip, and unbelievable, at that, given the source of the supposed deal offered.

[girl gone mad]

24. You are basically calling Barney Frank a liar here.

I think Rep. Frank knows what he's talking about. He was deeply involved at the time.

I know from my own involvement back then that the administration shunned the advice of liberals, which was to force the banks to do cramdowns. The WH was told that HAMP would fail miserably, and it did. They were told they needed use their leverage with TARP, TALF, PPIP, etc. to rein in the banks, but they refused. They were told TBTF would lead to another crisis, they said Dodd-Frank was good enough. They were told they needed to focus on jobs and ignore the deficit, they did the opposite. They were told we could fall back into recession before the election if they didn't take the appropriate actions, guess what? Liberals were right again, neoliberals are still wrong.

There is a long history. Look back through the economy forum, go all the way back to 2008 on DU2. It's all there. We told you so.

[Major Hogwash]

22. Valerie Jarrett is great! She is one of the best surrogates I've ever seen in any White House admin.

She's worth her weight in gold.

[Number23]

25. K&R