cawacko
Well-known member
I'm no economist but it seems a lot of the original stimulus was spent on saving public sector jobs and here's another proposal to do the same so how is this suppose to grow the economy in the long run?
I get the argument of deficit spending to boost the economy when it is down but how is saving public sector jobs going to create new growth and new jobs? Does one need to believe that the government creates the jobs to follow this?
$100 billion proposal to save city worker jobs
With unemployment still stubbornly high despite last year's $800 billion fiscal stimulus, a top House Democrat and Bay Area lawmaker on Wednesday proposed sending cities $100 billion over the next two years to forestall predicted layoffs of hundreds of thousands of city workers, teachers and other local public employees.
The bill by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, is part of a welter of legislation, including a major extension of unemployment benefits in a jobs bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday, that Democrats are trying to enact to boost employment. About 8 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, and while the economy has been growing smartly and job losses have slowed sharply, job growth has not yet rebounded.
About 17,000 of 26,000 San Francisco city workers received pink slips on Friday, but Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to hire most of them back with a shortened workweek that would amount to a 6.25 percent pay cut. Spokesman Tony Winnicker said the move will avoid the kind of mass layoffs taking place in cities across the country, such as Los Angeles, which has announced that it will terminate 4,000 city employees with more likely to follow.
Miller predicted his bill would immediately create 1 million jobs, counting spillover effects on private businesses that sell goods and services to public sector employees. He did not propose offsetting spending cuts or tax increases despite Democrats' vow to institute pay-as-you-go budget rules, arguing that deficit spending is necessary to boost job growth.
"I think it should be considered part of the Recovery Act, funded out of the deficit," Miller said. "You cannot cure the deficit when you're running with 15 million unemployed, and you can't cure it at the local level by laying people off and raising taxes."
Senate action
Miller said the stimulus has done "a pretty fair job" but "clearly is not going to be sufficient" to reduce the current 9.7 percent national unemployment rate.
The Senate's $138 billion legislation would extend stimulus-funded unemployment insurance, tax cuts and health care for unemployed workers through the end of 2010, and provide $25 billion more in aid to states. It would borrow $97 billion, with the rest offset by giving the Internal Revenue Service new tools to go after tax shelters.
The Senate bill also included $150 million in disaster relief for California produce farmers hit by water cutbacks. California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, inserted the aid into a broader $1.5 billion farm disaster relief provision that was added to the Senate jobs bill by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat whose seat is considered one of the most endangered in the Senate. Feinstein said three years of drought in California has led to $600 million in crop losses last year.
Another $18 billion Senate plan would give companies a tax break for hiring people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. The House is also working on another bill to give small businesses $13 billion in tax breaks, including lifting capital gains taxes on certain small business stock.
Input from mayors
Miller's "Local Jobs for America Act" was written with input from mayors across the country who said they are confronting a meltdown in property tax revenue from the real estate crash and cutbacks in aid from similarly strapped state governments. Miller said local budgets have been cut to the bone, receding to their level of 1980, and that many cities are facing layoffs of firefighters, police and teachers.
He said the money would go directly to city hall officials, who would best know what their local needs are and be able to hire people immediately.
The effort won rave reviews from liberal interest groups, including the labor-friendly Employment Policy Institute, which called it "exactly the kind of bold response we need," but there are no Republican co-sponsors. Miller and other Democrats acknowledged an uphill battle and said it would be up to the House leadership to decide how and when to take up the bill. They said they hoped a big push by mayors visiting Washington next week would build momentum.
San Francisco deficit
San Francisco faces a $522 million budget deficit. "Many of the cuts we're facing as a city are result of trying to grapple with state cuts," said Newsom spokesman Winnicker. He said last year's federal stimulus "helped us enormously."
Newsom has been pushing hard for an extension of the "Jobs Now" program that was part of the stimulus and created 2,100 jobs in San Francisco, two-thirds of those in the private sector, according to the mayor's office.
The program provides hiring subsidies directly to private businesses, nonprofits and government agencies through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It was killed by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., on a procedural vote but Newsom is pushing to add it to the Miller bill and more upcoming Senate jobs legislation.
"Everybody is talking another jobs bill for sure," Winnicker said. "None of this is done yet by any stretch from what we're hearing."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/10/MNM21CDP5U.DTL
I get the argument of deficit spending to boost the economy when it is down but how is saving public sector jobs going to create new growth and new jobs? Does one need to believe that the government creates the jobs to follow this?
$100 billion proposal to save city worker jobs
With unemployment still stubbornly high despite last year's $800 billion fiscal stimulus, a top House Democrat and Bay Area lawmaker on Wednesday proposed sending cities $100 billion over the next two years to forestall predicted layoffs of hundreds of thousands of city workers, teachers and other local public employees.
The bill by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, is part of a welter of legislation, including a major extension of unemployment benefits in a jobs bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday, that Democrats are trying to enact to boost employment. About 8 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, and while the economy has been growing smartly and job losses have slowed sharply, job growth has not yet rebounded.
About 17,000 of 26,000 San Francisco city workers received pink slips on Friday, but Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to hire most of them back with a shortened workweek that would amount to a 6.25 percent pay cut. Spokesman Tony Winnicker said the move will avoid the kind of mass layoffs taking place in cities across the country, such as Los Angeles, which has announced that it will terminate 4,000 city employees with more likely to follow.
Miller predicted his bill would immediately create 1 million jobs, counting spillover effects on private businesses that sell goods and services to public sector employees. He did not propose offsetting spending cuts or tax increases despite Democrats' vow to institute pay-as-you-go budget rules, arguing that deficit spending is necessary to boost job growth.
"I think it should be considered part of the Recovery Act, funded out of the deficit," Miller said. "You cannot cure the deficit when you're running with 15 million unemployed, and you can't cure it at the local level by laying people off and raising taxes."
Senate action
Miller said the stimulus has done "a pretty fair job" but "clearly is not going to be sufficient" to reduce the current 9.7 percent national unemployment rate.
The Senate's $138 billion legislation would extend stimulus-funded unemployment insurance, tax cuts and health care for unemployed workers through the end of 2010, and provide $25 billion more in aid to states. It would borrow $97 billion, with the rest offset by giving the Internal Revenue Service new tools to go after tax shelters.
The Senate bill also included $150 million in disaster relief for California produce farmers hit by water cutbacks. California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, inserted the aid into a broader $1.5 billion farm disaster relief provision that was added to the Senate jobs bill by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat whose seat is considered one of the most endangered in the Senate. Feinstein said three years of drought in California has led to $600 million in crop losses last year.
Another $18 billion Senate plan would give companies a tax break for hiring people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. The House is also working on another bill to give small businesses $13 billion in tax breaks, including lifting capital gains taxes on certain small business stock.
Input from mayors
Miller's "Local Jobs for America Act" was written with input from mayors across the country who said they are confronting a meltdown in property tax revenue from the real estate crash and cutbacks in aid from similarly strapped state governments. Miller said local budgets have been cut to the bone, receding to their level of 1980, and that many cities are facing layoffs of firefighters, police and teachers.
He said the money would go directly to city hall officials, who would best know what their local needs are and be able to hire people immediately.
The effort won rave reviews from liberal interest groups, including the labor-friendly Employment Policy Institute, which called it "exactly the kind of bold response we need," but there are no Republican co-sponsors. Miller and other Democrats acknowledged an uphill battle and said it would be up to the House leadership to decide how and when to take up the bill. They said they hoped a big push by mayors visiting Washington next week would build momentum.
San Francisco deficit
San Francisco faces a $522 million budget deficit. "Many of the cuts we're facing as a city are result of trying to grapple with state cuts," said Newsom spokesman Winnicker. He said last year's federal stimulus "helped us enormously."
Newsom has been pushing hard for an extension of the "Jobs Now" program that was part of the stimulus and created 2,100 jobs in San Francisco, two-thirds of those in the private sector, according to the mayor's office.
The program provides hiring subsidies directly to private businesses, nonprofits and government agencies through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It was killed by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., on a procedural vote but Newsom is pushing to add it to the Miller bill and more upcoming Senate jobs legislation.
"Everybody is talking another jobs bill for sure," Winnicker said. "None of this is done yet by any stretch from what we're hearing."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/10/MNM21CDP5U.DTL
