Stimulus Money Creates Jobs, Rebuilds Rail Cars
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In Delaware, 50 union workers, including 20 Electrical Workers (IBEW) members, are at work and paying their bills and mortgages, thanks to economic recovery money that is also saving Amtrak millions of dollars in new equipment.
Those jobs are part of as many as 3.3 million jobs that President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved or created since it was signed into law in February 2009. In the three months prior to passage of the legislation, the nation had lost 2.2 million jobs—more than 8 million jobs disappeared during the Bush administration.
The Delaware workers are converting old and abandoned dining cars into money making Amtrak passenger cars. IBEW member Tom Rapposelli, standing in one of the cars being refurbished, says in this IBEW video:
This car would have probably been totaled and left outside to rot. And with that stimulus money we were able to put it back together with new people being hired.
New Report: Recovery Act Created Up to 3.3 Million Jobs
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While the nation’s job crisis continues, it would be far worse if Republican congressional leaders had been successful in blocking the economic recovery act.
A new report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act put 1.4 million to 3.3 million people to work in the second quarter of this year and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percent.
Read the full CBO report here.
Vice President Joe Biden says the CBO report:
is further confirmation of what we’ve been hearing from leading economists, the nation’s governors and families across the country: The Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before.
Tax Bite Not as Sharp This Year with Recovery Act’s Tax Cuts
Julius Cesar got his on the Ides of March and many Americans think they get stuck every April 15. But this tax day is actually leaving most working family taxpayers with more money in their refunds and pockets because of the tax cuts in the economic stimulus bill passed last year.
One-third of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was made up of tax cuts, and taxpayers are seeing those cuts reflected in their returns this year. The average tax refund is up by nearly 10 percent this year, largely due to the stimulus bill, according to figures from the IRS and the White House.
New High-Speed Rail Projects Put People to Work
Today in Tampa, Fla., President Obama is announcing $8 billion in high-speed rail grants that will save or create tens of thousands of jobs in areas like track-laying, manufacturing, planning and engineering.
Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), says the commitment to develop high-speed rail “couldn’t come at a better time.”
Investing in America’s passenger transportation systems and infrastructure not only builds a lasting contribution to future generations of travelers, it puts people to work at a time when so many Americans are jobless.
Big Bankers Howl—and Other Tidbits
Finally, some good news on the jobs front. The Council of Economic Advisers announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has now created or saved between 1.5 million and 2 million jobs. The economic recovery package also added several percentage points to the growth of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Other tidbits:
• President Obama yesterday announced his intention to propose a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee that would require the largest and most highly levered Wall Street firms to pay back taxpayers for the extraordinary assistance provided so that the TARP program does not add to the deficit. Even before the announcement, Big Bankers were squealing like stuck pigs. From Think Progress:
Edward Yingling, president and chief executive, American Bankers Association: “To impose yet another burden on the industry would obviously decrease their ability to lend.”
Obama: We Need Strong Unions for a Strong Economy
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| President Obama greets convention delegates, including Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara Easterling. | |
President Barack Obama had a strong, inspiring message for delegates to the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention: We’re going to make this country work again.
In a speech punctuated by chants and standing ovations, Obama said he’s committed to the same goals as the union movement: restoring the economy, getting health care for everyone and passing the Employee Free Choice Act:
“These are the reforms I’m proposing. These are the reforms labor has been championing. These are the reforms the American people need. And these are the reforms I intend to sign into law.
“Quality, affordable health insurance. A world-class education. Good jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. A strong labor movement. That’s how we’ll lift up hardworking families. That’s how we’ll grow our middle class. That’s how we’ll put opportunity within reach in the United States of America.”
Throughout, the enthusiastic crowd gave him multiple standing ovations—when one woman shouted “I love you,” he responded: “I love you, too, sister.” In turn, Obama showed he understands the needs of working people and the unions that represent them:
“When labor succeeds—that’s when our middle class succeeds. And when our middle class succeeds—that’s when the United States of America succeeds.”
Setting Standards for Green and Good Jobs
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If the nation’s economy is to truly recover, the funds from President Obama’s economic recovery package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—must be spent in ways that keep working families’ needs in mind and create a foundation for their future.
To ensure the jobs created under the bill are family-supporting jobs, the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute (WAI) and its brand-new Center for Green Jobs have created standards to help community-level unionists assess the quality of jobs created under the recovery act. They also are urging the forming of new partnerships among employers, government, labor, community groups, environmentalists and other stakeholders to make sure the standards are carried out.
Green Jobs Center Director Jeff Rickert says standards are important because
we have to make sure that the idea of the green job is that it is a good job. The blue-collar job was the cornerstone of the golden era. We want to make sure the green collar job is the cornerstone of a platinum one.
133,000 Ohioans Get Jobs, Despite Boehner Tantrum Over Recovery Bill
The economic recovery bill signed by President Obama this afternoon in Denver is the same bill that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) literally trashed by throwing it on the floor of the U.S. House on Friday during a debate tantrum against the bill.
His anger was directed at a bill that will create or save 133,000 jobs in Boehner’s Buckeye State, provide tax cuts for 4.5 million Ohioans and boost unemployment benefits for 666,000 jobless workers in the state. The bill has similar impacts on all states and nationally creates or saves 3.5 million jobs.
But Boehner, along with every House Republican and all but three Senate Republicans, loudly and vehemently heaped scorn on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. They obviously don’t give a whit about the tens of millions of Americans who are jobless, facing foreclosure or loss of their health care. Apparently, bipartisanship is defined as “my way or no way” in the lexicon of Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
