Neros and More Neros

NOTE TO READERS: THIS POST HAS BEEN SLIGHTLY REVISED BY ME FOR BETTER CLARIFICATION

A bit more pausing (although interestingly enough, gender issues have arisen over on P&H—check it out!).

Republicans dug in their heels dogmatically against—completely rejecting--Obama’s jobs bill. Obama fired back, saying the Republicans took away jobs from firefighters, police, and teachers.

Both sides could hardly be more misleading—or with assumptions more off base.

The basics:

$50B for transportation infrastructure—highway, rail, transit, and aviation.
$54B for unemployment benefits and job training/retraining.
$35B for local governments to either hire, but mostly retain, police, firefighters, and teachers who would otherwise be let go or never hired.
$30B for school construction.
$2-10B misc, including for an investment bank to attract investment in infrastructure
Total: Approx $175-183B

Fairly modest as far as government expenditures go, especially compared to the Wall Street bailouts.

But there’s also tax cuts as part of this package:

Extend and expand the percentage of lowering payroll taxes, for both individuals and the businesses that pay the match, meaning a break for both of over 3% off. Businesses that hire more people or grant raises get a further break.
Tax breaks (credits) for hiring unemployed and veterans.
Tax breaks for writing off equipment faster.
Total estimated cost in lost revenue: $272B

And a tax increase on 392,000 households (approximately the top .1% of Americans) of 5.6% on (wage AND investment) income over $1M a year, beginning in 2013 (how convenient, AFTER an election). The first $1M earned in a year would not be subject to this surcharge.
Total estimated additional revenue over 10 years: $453B
(In Obama’s defense, this revenue enhancing originally consisted of ending government subsidies for the oil and gas companies, and limiting tax deductions for people making over $250K/yr, but the Senate changed it for their own reasons, many of them selfish of course)

The plan’s flawed. How flawed? Well, some fairly deeply, some only a little, some not much at all. And some is actually (or could be) good.

But that’s without stepping back, and we need to step back. The big picture is there is not enough of that—the big picture. These are temporary measures that don’t build much health for the long run. The infrastructure stuff, while good, is mostly about attempting to partially redress marked deficiencies in the repair of our infrastructure, but without taking a 4.0 look at what infrastructure we really need and what we need to steer toward. Again, status quo preservation.

Job retraining is a half-tired saw. Many retrained on the last stimulus bill, and the (largely) abandonment of the American worker by Corporate America/World meant there was still often no jobs—including in the very things the companies said they were looking for.

Getting fired up about the emotional police, firefighters, and teachers is us not looking at reality: if you don’t fix the longer range funding problem, what the hell is one year going to do except kick the can down the road until after the election? So of course, this one looks like a political ploy by Obama.

School construction could be a good thing, but facilities rarely make or break real education. Undoubtedly most are “needed,” especially given the chronic underfunding at the state and local levels (similar to the police, firefighters, and teachers above) but this emotional issue seems designed for political purpose by Obama and Dems.

Payroll tax relief for individuals and businesses: mostly cosmetic. It’s not that there isn’t significant money released back in the aggregate, but for most people it won’t be enough to turn the tide in individual budgets, although it might induce a little frivolous spending boost for a while before the election. For businesses, big ones especially, it might be a nice boost to the bottom line. For overall positive economic effect, this tax cut is mostly a gimmick—and a costly one. I will agree that the sad state of affairs this economy and individuals find themselves in leave few appealing options--especially if the purpose is to stimulate demand, stimulate consumption. But that lost revenue is needed by an already loomingly faltering program, let alone its effect on general revenue. Any accumulation of such moneys usually does more when collected together than when frittered out in individual small driblets—despite shrill Rightist nonsense about it “ALWAYS being better for the individual to have every cent of his or her money rather than the government.”

Tax breaks are poor prompters of good long-term or enduring decisions, and they cost the loss of much needed revenue. Both Obama/Dems AND the Repubs are secretly in love with these though (even though the breaks are usually a poor choice for the economy and the country as a whole). Even the noble goal of hiring the unemployed and veterans does not override this poor tool. These credits are another example of the kind of foolish and wasteful (and enduring!) government heavy-handed meddling.

What you don’t see in this is long-term investment in REAL measures to spur a better future: wean us off fossil-fuel (especially foreign) dependence, or to make real infrastructure investments, or, especially, to incent and even compel corporations to bring back jobs to America.

So the bill’s at best mediocre, and at worst a political dog shaded for short-term political benefit (and largely to benefit Obama/Dems a great deal more than Republicans). Its timing and urgency NOW is also suspect.

But Republicans didn’t oppose it for sensible or logical reasons. They didn’t point out its flaws and suggest better alternatives like what I discuss above. No, they opposed it for ideological reasons (opposing ANY tax increases or alterations of existing tax breaks), for spite, for selfishness, for political maneuvers to make Obama fail (regardless if the country goes further down in the process). Instead of calling out Obama—or more accurately, the Democrats in general, because it got altered by Senate Democrats—they offered nothing. Nothing but obstruction: adamant voting against in the Senate; refusal to even consider the measure or craft an alternative in the House.

More service to their uber-rich masters, more tax breaks for the already thoroughly filthy rich. And then have the gall to say that they did it to spare “the job creators.”

Both parties fiddle in visionless petty selfishness while the country continues its suicidal slide from great power status.