What Does a Focus on Jobs Mean?
Alexander Bolton runs down the desire of center-right Democrats in the House and Senate to defer action on the progressive agenda:
In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections, they don’t want to be forced to vote on climate change, immigration reform and gays in the military, which they say should be set aside so Congress can focus on jobs and the economy.
“It’s hard; the most important issue in front of us is the economy right now, and that’s where most of us really want to stay focused, the economy and jobs, that’s what our constituency is concerned about,” said Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D), who is facing a tough race next year in Arkansas.
I’m more sympathetic to this idea than is Steve Benen. Realistically, the viability of progressive governance is going to be determined by the state of the economy in 2010 and 2012. But where my sympathy vanishes is with the fact that the very same people who are so eager to throw Obama’s agenda overboard in order to focus on jobs and the economy don’t seem to have any actual ideas for boosting the labor market.
Instead you get Bob Etheridge: “Three things ought to be the top priority: jobs, jobs and jobs.”
And Blanche Lincoln:
“That’s an awful lot to bite off and chew for right now,” said Lincoln, who described herself as “not in a hurry” to tackle climate change, an issue she has some jurisdiction over as chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
And Evan Bayh:
Sen. Evan Bayh (D), who is running for reelection in conservative-leaning Indiana, said “jobs should be our top priority and we shouldn’t do anything that detracts from that,” echoing a sentiment of many colleagues in similar positions.
And John Tanner:
“If it was up to me, I would figure out how to handle the war and fix the economy,” said Rep. John Tanner (Tenn.), a senior centrist Democrat who has found himself in the crosshairs of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has recruited a promising GOP challenger.
This is pathetic. Setting aside elements of the progressive wish list in order to focus on improving the labor market is a reasonable idea. But this crowd doesn’t have any actual ideas for doing that. It seems to me that there’s good reason to think that resolving uncertainty about the future direction of American energy policy and immigration policy would, in fact, help spur economic growth. But I’d also be amendable to having congress take up additional stimulus legislation as a way to spur economic growth. Or maybe they could do tax reform. But as best one can tell Tanner & Bayh & Lincoln don’t want to do any of those things or anything else. It’s sad.
24 Responses to “What Does a Focus on Jobs Mean?”
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November 5th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I bet they’d like a big fat tax cut for the upper brackets. And I bet they could persuade themselves that it would be good for the economy and jobs.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:40 am
They’re talking about their jobs (getting bribes from corporations to pay for their campaigns), and a focus on new jobs for their childrens or spouses (like lobbyist for Big Pharma, or perhaps board member).
November 5th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I think #1 is dead on correct, but it does make me think: why don’t they just become Republicans? It seems like it would be so much easier for them. I guess I can think of a few answers:
1. They’ve got the natural human desire not to make big changes.
2. They’ve got the natural human desire not to give up power, i.e., being in the majority.
2. There is a major social cost to switching parties. (This would also explain Joe Lieberman.)
3. They’re fine with Republican policies, but they don’t want to have to suck up to the Republican base, which, let’s face it, would be pretty degrading for anyone who wasn’t a complete true believer.
I guess #2 is most plausible, but I felt the ring of truth as I typed #4.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:45 am
What makes it worse is that the global warming bill on the Hill is quite popular. Yes, the Republican extremists have chosen to make it their whipping boy, but in the real world the legislation receives very strong support in the polls. Yet, these centrist cowards are afraid to address the issue.
What makes matters even worse is that if you’re really concerned about “jobs, jobs, jobs” then you should WANT to address global warming since most people think that taking steps to address it will actually create jobs. There is no excuse for such typical Villager cowardice on either policy or political grounds.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:46 am
It seems to me that there’s good reason to think that resolving uncertainty about the future direction of American energy policy and immigration policy would, in fact, help spur economic growth.
A gigantic tax increase (like Waxman-Markey or the senate cap and trade bills) certainly wouldn’t spur economic growth.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:53 am
This is how nonsensical things have gotten. The primary jobs program that federal government can institute is more stimulus, specifically, to make it smart, infrastructure spending stimulus, which includes the smart energy proposals, which are jobs intensive.
But these so-called Blue Dogs are really just the welfare liberals of old we thought were long gone by now, how are they proposing to get jobs? My bet would be earmarks and other spending initiatives that help their constituents, regardless of whether it’s wise in the larger scheme of things.
What other recourse are they suggesting? How the hell are the Democrats supposed to create jobs? By supply-side economics and shifting wealth even further to the rich? If that’s where these Blue Dogs are heading, it’s better to either persuade them to the obvious conclusion of their posturing, and to the necessary change, or just exile them once and for all, politically speaking, just the presence of these folks gives Big Media all the ammunition they need to serve their corporate masters, and rot the progressive movement from within.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
What are these Democrats thinking? That the economy will heal, as it usually does, without additional fiscal stimulus. That raising the cost of economic activity–which is, essentially, the progressive agenda–won’t help in that process. That delaying the adoption of that agenda until a time when its costs are more easily borne and less readily apparent is an advantage to them and to progressivism.
Matt seems completely unaware of the fact that waiting and refusing to interfere as the Fed leads the economy to recovery is not a refusal to act. It’s a conscious choice consistent with all of, say, Christina Romer’s research (prior to joining the Obama administration, that is). Don’t just stand there, do something, is good advice if and only if there’s reason to believe that doing something would be a good thing to do. And Matt doesn’t have any reason to believe that.
I’m also very curious why Matt thinks that resolving uncertainty about “immigration policy” would spur growth. I have no clue what he’s thinking here. It’s a bizarre non-sequitur.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
The simplest and most guaranteed effective way to create jobs would be to literally create them, with a latter-day equivalent of the WPA or CCC. There’s lots of infrastructure that needs work, for example. Many public buildings from the original New Deal are still around; what could we build today that our children could still be using in 2080?
Next to that, the most proven way to stimulate job creation by the private sector (when interest rates are already very low) is stimulus, hence the name. Economic conditions were worse than previously believed and the first stimulus was smaller than experts advocated even based on the previous numbers, so there’s a lot of output gap remaining to be made up.
Even just handing out cash would have some beneficial effect: lots of people would want to spend it, which might lead some suppliers to raise prices, but others would decide to raise volume instead to gain a competitive advantage. Unused productive capacity is practically the definition of recession, so they won’t have trouble producing more goods at the same unit cost. What they will need to do is hire more workers, which is job creation. And the whole trend propagates backwards through the supply chain unless it hits an industry that *is* operating at 100% capacity.
Finally, one other way to increase job creation is to decrease average weekly hours per worker. Raising the pay differential for overtime hours, lowering the number of hours that count as non-overtime, or making fewer jobs exempt from overtime rules would lead employers to divide the same amount of work among more workers, which is good for the currently unemployed. This method has the disadvantage of not directly increasing total output, so some of the other methods should be tried too, but if you’re concerned with the human suffering of the unemployed and their families, it would help on that front.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Well these guys want to slow play the liberal agenda because they figure they can only get away with so many liberal bills passed (and that they vote for) before they run into reelection issues. That’s fine. That’s one set of interests to take into account. But they are a minority of the party and the country and we shouldn’t completely compromise our agenda for their sake.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
What’s the fucking point of the Blue Dogs?
Setting aside elements of the progressive wish list in order to focus on improving the labor market is a reasonable idea. But this crowd doesn’t have any actual ideas for doing that.
Oh, I get it. They want to be seen kicking hippies on climate change or healthcare reform by saying “we need to focus on jobs”, and they also want to be seen saying the usual fiscal scold bullshit.
Useless Blanche also wants to concentrate on serving her constituents in Arkansas, namely the Walton family and Tyson Meatgrinders.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Also, Matt, you’re leaving out healthcare reform.
Congress is busy trying to overhaul a good 10% of the economy (or at least busy figuring out how to get bribed properly for doing so). This, plus the timidity that all incumbents acquire in bad economic times, is keeping them from moving very fast on any other issues.
Arguably, it is keeping them from moving very fast on healthcare too.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Unlike Matt, they can see what Democrats didn’t see in 1993, and Republicans didn’t see in 2005 – an angry electorate that believes Washington is focused on trivia while unemployment rises.
You may think the climate bill matters, but the electorate disagrees. That’s why you’re seeing this. Even Reid has figured this out; Pelosi, living in a district that’s perfectly safe for her, hasn’t.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
The only thing that matters, policy-wise, is bringing down the unemployment rate. To Clinton’s credit, he understood this. Bayh an Lincoln get that as well, but as seen in their efforts to sabotage the stimulus package, they are not going to do anything about it.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Robertson, to an extent you’re right, but the answer isn’t the Blue Dogs trying to emulate Reagan, it’s actual stimulus to fix our devastated infrastructure, and part and parcel with that is one of the most jobs-intensive programs the government could ever undergo, overhauling the energy infrastructure of this country and becoming smarter, more efficient, and ending the dominance of the oil industry and special interests, which is focused on their own minority aggrandizement right now, but job killing for the rest of us to hang on to that dying dinosaur.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Chris:
You’re quite right. Moreover, done right, a jobs program could even be deficit neutral.
I would also remind people that it was precisely the so-called moderate Dems who insisted on having lots of tax cuts in the stimulus, and who trimmed down the assistance to states, especially Pelosi’s $50 billion for teacher retention.
So while they talk about jobs, they’ve actually opposed those elements of the stimulus that were the most job-intensive, while emphasizing those that are the least job-intensive.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Many things that don’t make sense when considered as good-faith arguments make perfect sense when considered as bad-faith argument. Word to the wise.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Why do they think they deserve a paycheck? Isn’t doing “stuff’ part of their jobs?
November 5th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
an angry electorate that believes Washington is focused on trivia while unemployment rises.
Shorter J-Rob: everyone is a selfish bastard like me.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Stop calling it “stimulus.” Besides the fact that it’s a nebulous wonky word (so typical of hapless Democrats), to the extent it has any meaning it sounds like a temporary “goosing” of the economy with little long-term benefit. Just enough to carry us through a tiny bit better until “the economy” magically heals itself. Problem is, everyone left and center, and probably right, too, understands full well that manufacturing has been virtually destroyed, there is no longer any need for construction workers in an overbuilt private real estate market, and the finance sector was bloated to our detriment. How, they all ask, is this mostly Republican-created mess going to heal itself?
Something a lot more fundamental than a “stimulus” is going to be necessary if confidence in the future of America’s is to restored.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Matt seems completely unaware of the fact that waiting and refusing to interfere as the Fed leads the economy to recovery is not a refusal to act. It’s a conscious choice consistent with all of, say, Christina Romer’s research (prior to joining the Obama administration, that is).
Ah, I get it now – the centrist Democrats want to keep all progressive legislation off the calendar so there’s more time to “refuse to interfere.” Makes perfect sense.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Regarding comment 19 by Urban Legend
Sadly i have to agree.I think that too many people in politics and the media act like we can go back to the “good old days” of a few years ago.They either don’t realise that houses really weren’t worth what they were selling for.And that our economy wasn’t doing as good as the media said it was[ Detroit has been losing jobs for over 30 years] .Or they think that the public is too stupid to realise the truth.This is defintly more than a short term problem.Even after the stock market starts climbing up again, and the media declares the rescession over, there will still be a lot of unemloyment
I wish that all of our politicians [D or R] would engage in more long term planning as far as job creation is concerned.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
As for why Blanche remains a Democrat, the short answer is “she can”. Here in Arkansas there is still some stigma attached to voting for a Republican (John McCain not withstanding), and the state Democratic party is more than happy to accomodate her.
She (and the state party) get to have their cake and eat it, too: vote like a Republican while still enjoying the (illusory, these days) populist glow of the Democratic Party.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
The fastest way to create jobs and stimulate the economy would be to implement universal health care, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and fully fund education.
That would relieve businesses of the burden of health care costs and create massive numbers of new construction and teaching jobs.
Given the poor economy and that monetary stimulus is no longer possible, fiscal stimulus through deficit spending is reasonable in the short-term. In the medium-term, following up with bills to eliminate the tax cuts for the wealthy, close tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, and reduce military spending could make it deficit neutral.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:55 am
1. Energy policy
2. Immigration policy
3. Additional stimulus (with some caveat)
4. Tax reform.
Matt has got his priorities right here.
So called ‘Center Right’ folks in Congress are unlikely to figure out the details here. Last time when we left them to do that job (America Recovery Act); it has not turned out that well.
I think time has come for Progressives like Matt to start offering good ideas rather than waiting for these Congressional folks, many of them would eventually land up in fighting corruption charges. (cough Bayh cough)