Obama: Let’s Invest Now to Create Jobs, Rebuild Economy

by Seth Michaels, Dec 8, 2009

In a speech today at the Brookings Institute, President Barack Obama said restoring job growth and putting people back to work is a top priority of his administration.

Obama noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted this past spring, prevented an even deeper crisis and added jobs at a critical time, but with unemployment at a 26-year high, more needs to be done to replace the millions of jobs lost as a result of the recession and of years of failed economic policy:

Our work is far from done. For even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who have been swept up in the flood. There are more than 7 million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That’s a staggering figure and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy. And it speaks to an urgent need to accelerate job growth in the short term while laying a new foundation for lasting economic growth.

Drawing on top-level discussions with advisors and ideas presented at the White House jobs summit last week, Obama offered a set of broad proposals that will create jobs, aid those hit hardest by the economic crisis and help spur the private sector to start hiring again.

Investing in schools, infrastructure and green technology, Obama says, are key to spurring job growth now and to establishing a more stable economic foundation in the long term.

It’s worth noting that there’s a lot of overlap between the steps Obama says we need and the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan for job creation, which AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka took directly to the White House during last week’s jobs summit. Trumka praised Obama’s speech and promised to work hard to make sure Congress and Obama carry out the most effective strategies for job creation:

President Obama is right: We must take urgent steps to create jobs. And we must fundamentally rebuild our economy so we never again face the unnerving financial meltdown that confronted Pres. Obama and all of America when he took office in January. While Wall Street is busy cashing their bonus checks, now is the time for immediate action to stabilize the economy for struggling working Americans on Main Street.

We will be working hard and nonstop to help President Obama and responsible leaders in Congress succeed in creating jobs now. We must ensure that any plan is big and robust enough to meet the scale of the crisis we face.

I am encouraged that Pres. Obama and his team are proposing many of the same steps that we see as the most promising, efficient routes to job creation.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker attended Obama’s speech and was encouraged by Obama’s proposals:

I was glad to see President Obama focused on the urgent needs of families and communities hit by the jobs crisis. The President showed he understands the dire situation working families are struggling with in this economy, and he’s going to fight hard to put people back to work and give working families and small businesses the help they need.

President Obama is right to say we can’t go back to the old, failed economy. We need to make sure the jobs we create are good jobs—with fair wages and benefits and the opportunity to have a voice at work. We can and we must create good jobs if we’re going to have a strong country for future generations.

Among Obama’s proposals:

• Extending relief to those hit hardest by the economic crisis, including unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits.
• Incentives to homeowners to invest in energy efficiency for their homes.
• Incentives to small businesses to help them hire new workers, as well as using funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Programs (TARP) to increase lending to small businesses.
• Aid to states ands localities to help them provide needed services.
• Boosting funding to infrastructure projects, including rail, water systems, broadband networks, clean energy projects and bridges.

We’ll be watching closely to see how Obama and Congress put these proposals into effect in the coming weeks and months.

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