President of AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, Urges Spending Up to $3 Trillion to Spur Jobs

[Better Believe It]

AFL-CIO’s Trumka Urges Spending Up to $3 Trillion to Spur Jobs
By Holly Rosenkrantz

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka proposed that the government spend as much as $3 trillion on schools and highway repairs to help create jobs, and said the U.S. should start a Troubled Asset Relief Program for small and medium-sized businesses.

Trumka, who heads the nation’s largest union organization, laid out a “five-point plan” he said would create or save at least 2 million jobs during the next year.

“We need jobs now,” Trumka said in the prepared text of speech to be given today on a plan the AFL-CIO will bring to a White House jobs conference summit next month. “Where there’s obstruction, we’ll expose it and push through it.”

Trumka’s plan calls for moving forward with what he described as a backlog of government transportation, school- repair and other infrastructure projects that could cost $3 trillion. He said $10 billion in funding for overdue repairs to schools was cut from this year’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

“Every dollar spent on infrastructure employs workers all down the supply chain in construction, manufacturing design and engineering,” he said.

Trumka and labor leaders have pressed Obama to pass a second stimulus beyond the package signed in February.

That won’t be the topic of Obama’s jobs forum next month, his advisers have said. With the fiscal 2009 deficit hitting a record $1.4 trillion and next year’s deficit forecast to be almost the same, administration officials and Democratic leaders in Congress have expressed reluctance about pushing for a second stimulus.

Read the complete article at:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a3BOw9i1PoEA

[endless october]

1. tariff outsourcers and reward insourcers with tax credits.

increase the tax credits for union shops.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. This is exactly what should have been done in the first place.

At the risk of repeating myself, it's time to be FDR, not Clinton.

[AzDar]

3. + 1

[Oregone]

4. Too much group-think for rational minds to get a point in

[ProSense]

9. They couldn't get $1 trillion passed. How were they going to pass $3 trillion?

People keep ignoring the reality that two Republicans had to vote for the stimulus just to get it passed.

[struggle4progress]

5. knr

[Mudoria]

6. Where is the three trillion going to come from?

[Ikonoklast]

7. China, or whoever else buys our debt instruments.

We can spiffy up the place before giving over to the new owners.

[Better Believe It]

8. The same place the Department of War gets money to finance military occupations.

China! And tax the rich. And stop spending trillions for war and handouts to Wall Street. Use that money to create jobs and end the Great Recession.

We spent tens of trillions of dollars (in current US dollars) to go on a WW II economic mobilization. We certainly can finance a smaller economic mobilization to put America back to work to build the nations infrastructure, a federal passenger railroad system and other major projects.

The alternative is further economic decay, massive reduction in living standards, health care only for the rich, poverty on a massive scale not scene since the Great Depression and permanent joblessness for tens of millions.

[Better Believe It]

10. Bloomberg News spread "misinformation" regarding Trumka's job proposal according to Truthout writer.

Wednesday 18 November 2009
by: Art Levine, t r u t h o u t | Report


"To save or create two million jobs in a year, the pricetag for new direct spending on jobs creation could be in the $150 billion to $200 billion range over one year, one liberal economics expert privately told me. Trumka hasn't yet spelled out the cost details in arguing for urgent action, but already conservative-leaning media is spreading misinformation about his plan. Bloomberg News reported that Trumka was asking to spend up to $3 trillion immediately, while he was actually just citing research data that the nation's infrastructure needs $2 to $3 trillion in upgrading and repairs. Anyone reading the Bloomberg News piece would likely conclude that Trumka was asking for $3 trillion right away to create 2 million jobs in a year. That's an absurdity, but fiscal reality also seems to have eluded the hard-core leftists at the Democratic Underground blog, who eagerly welcomed the extravagant, if fabricated, proposed yearly spending."

http://www.truthout.org/topstories/111809ms01

-The writer didn't indicate in the article if he believes the trillion+ spent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the trillions given to Wall Street are "extravagant". The writer probably thinks so, however, it would have been nice if the writer would have pointed that out to answer objections from the right-wing that "we can't afford another stimulus". Without those wasteful expenditures, we would have more than enough funds available for a "robust" jobs program that could quickly put several million people to work on useful public works projects. For example, adopting and implementing the 200 billion dollar detailed U.S. Conference of Mayor's job creation plan. But, some will claim we have to be "realistic" and just can't afford that!-