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Trumka Tells Deficit Commission Job Growth Best Answer to Debt
Social Security is not the cause of the nation’s budget deficit, and stronger economic and job growth spurred by stimulus spending now is the best path to reducing and stabilizing the national debt, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the federal budget deficit commission today.
We must have a job-centered approach to stabilizing the national debt, which would bring us closer to our goal of sustainable, broadly shared prosperity.
To a great extent, the size of the deficit depends on employment and growth. When employment and growth are weak, tax revenues are low and social assistance expenditures are high. When employment and growth are strong, the reverse is true.
He also warned the panel that ending stimulus spending that creates jobs and growth—as many Republican lawmakers are promoting—could send the U.S. and global economy into a double-dip recession, or worse. The Economic Recovery Act, said Trumka:
did exactly what it was supposed to do. It increased the number of people employed by up to 2.8 million, increased the number of full-time jobs by up to 4.1 million and increased real GDP by up to 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010. But it wasn’t big enough.
Without a significant reduction in the trade deficit, only economic stimulus in the form of deficit spending can make up for the remaining shortfall of aggregate demand until private sector demand regains its footing.
Trumka said, “We believe it is only fitting”:
To ask Wall Street to pay to rebuild the economy it helped destroy. For example with a financial speculation tax that would raise $100 [billion] to $300 billion per year and help curb harmful speculation. Wall Street should pay to build a 21st century infrastructure that will lead to long-term economic growth….Failure to invest in rebuilding our infrastructure for the 21st century will result in lower rates of economic growth—and therefore lower tax revenues.
He also said the commission should look to history for answers to reviving the economy.
The example of the postwar boom—when an economic strategy of broadly shared prosperity with strong unions and shrinking inequality paid off enormous dividends—shows us the way forward.
Click here to read Trumka’s entire testimony.
Many observers believe the Republican members and those with close corporate ties on the bipartisan commission created by President Obama in February are using the panel as smoke screen to cut Social Security or even privatize it.
Just this week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called for raising the retirement age to 70 and cutting benefits. Shortly before appearing before the deficit panel, Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said:
Raising the retirement age to 70 would be devastating to American workers, particularly those who work in physically demanding construction and service sector jobs. Americans in their late 50s and 60s are bearing the brunt of layoffs and benefit cuts from the recession. John Boehner wants to inflict further hardship among those who are already struggling to keep or find jobs.
Coyle told the commission, “Retirees are deeply disturbed by talk coming out of this Commission about cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.”
The Alliance for Retired Americans strongly rejects the gloom-and-doom, sky-is-falling predictions that Social Security is going bankrupt. Not only is this factually untrue, but it is a malicious scare tactic to divert attention away from the root causes of our deficit—unwise tax and spending decisions by Washington over the past decade.
He also pointed out that the government does not fund Social Security and the program currently has a $2.6 trillion surplus:
Social Security is one of America’s greatest success stories. It has kept generations of seniors out of poverty. It did not, I repeat, did not cause these deficits.
The 18-member commission will meet throughout the year and then present its recommendations to Obama after the fall elections.
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Rep. Mike Honda: If Conservatives Are Serious About Fiscal Responsibility, They’ll Oppose Afghan Funds…
It is disingenuous to state this is an “emergency” supplemental. The only “emergency” is this: In funding the longest war in history, we are putting America further into debt with China, expanding the deficit, increasing wasteful government spendin…
War over Social Security? I choose Social Security.
And the real reason we remain in the recession, or should I say depression, is this Free Market Insanity, we the people are not working, as a result we pay less, or no taxes, and we don’t buy anything we have to, the downward spiral continues. We need our jobs back, and that means reinstating tariffs, dumping NAFTA and CAFTA, and getting out of the WTO! Lets take care of things at home here in the USA! This is the topic of my latest left of center political cartoon series, I call “We Want Our Jobs Back”! It’s up on my website now, http://www.whatnowtoons.com
Gee. There’s nothing I like more than hearing yet another Republican who’s got his—Rep. Boehner—telling me I should wait a little longer to get what I’ve earned. I’ve been in the workforce now for almost 40 years as a taxpayer, and there’s a good chance that I won’t make it to my current Social Security date of retirement —which, thanks to the Reagan Administration, is 66.5 years of age for my early retirement. That’s right. My full Social Security benefits already won’t kick in until I’m 70.5. Does Rep. Boehner not know this? Or is he just hoping more of us kick the bucket before we have a chance to collect what we have earned?
Even though I’ve earned an increasingly rare defined benefit pension from 30+ years of employment with my employer, I can’t afford to retire without the combination of the two earned benefits. And my current job, like many others that come and go, is probably on its way out as we speak—meaning, that even if I could retire comfortably and out of poverty, there probably won’t be a job for someone else to step into to start their own career.
The operative word is—earned. My retirement benefits are not a gift, to be given like a gold watch after years of service. I gave up time with my family—holidays, weekends, nights—I sacrificed my body and sometimes my soul to earn a living as a single parent for a company that would gladly replace me with a machine in a heartbeat. All the while I kept my eye on the prize; on that pie in the sky, on that someday, on that promise—that I had earned a retirement and would someday enjoy it. Rep. Boehner and his ilk need to lay off workers and their families, and what little they have been able to earn in this economy.
Government spending is not working . We have had three of them. I got better solution. Cut taxes for everybody. Free market does better then government spending.
The highest unemployment since the Great Depression. Every Central Labor Council Hall should be an organizing center for the unemployed. Labor should be providing a focus point to “educate, agitate and organize” the unemployed (many out of work union members). Instead we get yada yada yada from the Beltway. In every crisis there is an opportunity ….the AFL-CIO and organized labor across the country is failing to seize the opportunity. When I went to work for my union in 1973 26% of the private workforce was union – when I retired it was 7%…that is failure…and our failure to organize the unemployed workforce is to continue our failed journey to no where….how long is labor going to wait for the Democrats to do it for them….ain’t gonna happen!
Let’s see… normal male mortality is about seventy three years of age. How many men have you personally known that have died much sooner? How generous and kind of the Republicans to suggest paying Social Security for three years to us. Its right up there with lowering the minimum wage for the suffering poor.
Why don’t the millionaires on Capitol Hill refuse to collect their Social Security to benefit the country? Or better yet, take a fat PAY CUT like the rest of America. Maybe we could LAY OFF a few senators for awhile, just till things improve a bit. Hefty co-pays on their Rolls Royce 100% PAID health care plans would be a great idea! Let’s make them hourly workers and then cut them to part time.
See how easy this is! We’ll just follow Republicans in industry for our ” fresh new ideas!” Maybe we could reduce congress to an automated phone center in India. After all, what’s good for the Goose…