The Myth of Idle Recovery Dollars

The Myth of Idle Recovery Dollars: "

John Boehner wants a lot of people to lose their jobs.

We were awfully surprised to hear Rep. Boehner come out for killing jobs en masse in his own state and district by stopping the Recovery Act on last Sunday’s news shows.

Though we’re sure he didn’t know it, the Congressman is advocating to kill the expansion of the Butler County Community Health Center and bring some of the twenty-five highway projects across the district to a grinding halt. Across the state of Ohio, he said that approximately 4 million working families should get an unexpected cut in their paycheck as the Making Work Pay tax credit disappears, unemployed workers should go without unemployment benefits, and major Ohio road projects like the US-33 Nelsonville Bypass project and the Cleveland Innerbelt Modernization project should be stalled or stopped. Oh, and some of the more than 100 clean energy Recovery projects employing workers across the state should be shut down.

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Weekly Address: Medicare Officially Safer After Health Reform

Weekly Address: Medicare Officially Safer After Health Reform: "

The President discusses a new Medicare Trustees report showing Medicare to be on much stronger footing as a result of the reforms in the Affordable Care Act. In addition, seniors are also already getting help with prescription drug costs when they fall into the infamous “donut hole.”

Click here to see the video.

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Jeff Cohen: Colbert 1, U.S. State Department 0

Jeff Cohen: Colbert 1, U.S. State Department 0: "

On last night's Colbert Report, an amazing moment occurred when Stephen Colbert raised a major social issue that U.S. mainstream media assiduously ignore: the huge U.S. prison population. The issue quickly disappeared due to the apparent ignorance of Colbert's guest: Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, in charge of 'Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.'

In a sometimes jokey interview with Posner discussing China's various human rights abuses (including prisoners), Colbert tried to steer the conversation to human rights problems in our own country.

COLBERT: We've actually got more people in prison than China does.

POSNER: Well I'm not sure that's true.
Colbert's assertion is indisputably true. Posner's denial is false. Does the State Department's man in charge of human rights not know the facts?
According to statistics gathered by the authoritative International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States has by far the largest prison population in the world: almost 2.3 million people behind bars. China's prison population is second in the world: roughly 1.6 million.

The United States is also number one in the world in its 'prison population rate': 748 inmates per 100,000 citizens. Russia is third. China is tied for 114th.

This is a U.S. human rights problem of enormous proportions. Our bloated prison population has many causes including the 'drug war,' mandatory minimum sentencing, poverty, and racism. And there are corporate profits to be made from 'The Prison-Industrial Complex' -- as independent journalists like Eric Schlosser began documenting a dozen years ago.
Wouldn't it be great to see this issue tackled by some mainstream TV voices . . . other than Stephen Colbert?

Jeff Cohen heads the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Mort Zuckerman Is Not Incompetent

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Mort Zuckerman Is Not Incompetent: "

Mort Zuckerman's recent opinion piece in the Financial Times, 'Obama needs to stop baiting business,' is a tawdry, sorry spectacle. Paul Krugman's already explained how Zuckerman, the publisher of US News & World Report and the New York Daily News, distorted the President's words with a little Andrew Breitbart-style editing. While Zuckerman's proclivity for truth-twisting isn't a complete surprise, here's what is: If he's not lying about how he and his fellow CEOs are managing their businesses, then he and his friends are also incompetent executives.

In fairness to Zuckerman, let me be clear from the outset: I don't think he's an incompetent executive.

That would mean he's not telling the truth when he says that, for 'employers' -- that is, CEOs like Mort Zuckerman -- 'worries over taxes and increased costs of new regulation are holding back investment and growth.' Here's the implication of that statement: Businesses would hire and invest if not for Democratic policies. They have customers who want to buy, but they won't meet the demand because they're afraid of some hypothetical tax increase or new regulation.

The logic is ridiculous. Zuckerman's saying that corporate executives are refusing to make money because the President scares them. Any executive who misses an opportunity to make money should be fired on the spot.

Zuckerman's reportedly a friend and mentor to Daniel M. Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins. Their 'lack of confidence' didn't prevent Snyder from picking up Donovan McNabb, or Trent 'Silverback' Williams, or new coach Mike Shanahan. They're all big-ticket items. The Redskins - who were my hometown team long enough for me to develop a lifelong Dallas Cowboys allergy - are the second-highest grossing team in football, and I'll bet even a close friendship with Mort Zuckerman won't prevent Snyder from hiring all the vendors he needs to feed the fans.

The climate of fear Zuckerman describes is a hoax. To hear to him tell it, the titans of American enterprise are tremulously quivering in their boardrooms, unable to summon the courage to make money today because of what might happen tomorrow. In the real world, if CEOs really believed they were about to be buried under new taxes and regulations, they'd hire and invest like crazy so they can post as much profit as they can before the Bolsheviks seize the means of production.

Zuckerman's talking points echo those of a recent Fareed Zakaria piece (which we discussed here) in which he Zakaria allegedly interviewed a series of CEOs about the business environment. They all spoke with one voice ... a voice curiously like Fareed Zakaria's ...saying that they, like Zuckerman's cohort, had 'lost confidence' in the President.

Which means that at one point they had confidence in the President. But, where Zakaria's alleged informants remain anonymous, Zuckerman drops a few organizational names: The Business Roundtable, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Federation of Independent Business. These are the places where, says Zuckerman, 'disillusion has spread.'

The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber are shills for large corporations - and, in the memorable words of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, 'large corporate America is in very, very, very, very good shape.' It's hard to give much credence to Zuckerman's claims that these groups are 'disillusioned' and have 'lost confidence,' since there's no evidence they had illusions or confidence about Obama in the first place. Zuckerman's allegiance is clearly to these large businesses, too - and to Jamie Dimon, since Zuckerman serves on JP Morgan's National Advisory Board.

By choosing the National Federation of Business (NFIB) to represent smaller employers, Zuckerman decided to select a small business organization that stands to the right of many others. NFIB broke with the Main Street Alliance, a national network of small business groups, over that organization's support for health reform. Polling by groups like Small Business Majority paint a different picture of the business attitude toward Democratic policies. But even NFIB can't maintain the facade Zuckerman would have them maintain. It publishes a monthly 'Optimism Index,' precisely the kind of 'confidence' indicator you would think interests Zuckerman. Despite the NFIB's fierce antigovernment rhetoric, the actual figures in their latest report (July 2010) belies their own argument (and Zuckerman's): Only 12% of respondents based their negative 'expansion outlook' on the political climate, while 43% attributed it to 'economic conditions.'

Ultimately, even the right-wing rhetoricians who summarized the NFIB survey's findings were forced to acknowledge the obvious: 'What businesses need are customers, giving them a reason to hire and make capital expenditures and borrow ...' That's exactly right, the opposite of the conclusion Zuckerman would have us draw about the marketplace. Which raises the question, 'Who put the 'fib' in NFIB?'

What medium and small businesses also need is credit. As the NFIB survey reports, 'regular NFIB borrowers .. (are) at a record low (and) continued to report some difficulties in arranging credit.' That's not surprising, given that bank lending to small business has fallen 9% since TARP began. And Republicans supported by the US Chamber and the Business Roundtable just blocked a $30 billion program to aid lending to small businesses, even though they and not the Zuckerman/Chamber/Roundtable large businesses, are the engines of employment growth.

Zuckerman says some other silly things, too. He says 'America's get-up-and-go entrepreneurial culture outlived the frontier,' even though he represents the kinds of big business/government combines that attacked small businessmen and ranchers on our frontier. If we're all actors in a 21st Century Western, Zuckerman is speaking for the bad guys.

Zuckerman pushes some other old, tired right-wing canards, too. He says it's not fair that people 'lay all the blame for our difficulties on the business community and the financial world. This quite ignores the role of Congress in many areas, most glaringly in forcing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration to make loans to people who could not afford them.' He's saying that the real problem is that liberals forced reluctant financiers to sell mortgages to low-income, unqualified black and brown people. Unfortunately for Zuckerman, the highest rate of mortgage default is for homes worth more than a million dollars. Oops.

There's more silliness, but you get the gist.

Want to know who corporations have really lost confidence in? Banks. The Wall Street Journal reported that 'In the darkest days of late 2008, even large companies faced the threat that they wouldn't be able to do the everyday, short-term borrowing needed to make payrolls and purchase inventory.' One of the reasons companies keep cash on hand is out of fear that could happen again. And it could -- if anti-regulation types like JP Morgan Advisory Board Member Mort Zuckerman get their way.

It's understandable when CEOs like Zuckerman push for the lowest taxes they can get. That's their job. But Zuckerman's s a newspaper and magazine publisher, and he shouldn't be allowed to let journalistic integrity become another one of those 'damaged traditions' he claims to lament. Zuckerman and his fellows mega-corporate leaders seem to have adopted the dishonest, cut-and-paste deception of the extreme Right. They're beginning to sound less like titans of industry and more like Tea Partiers with private jets. Remember, those private jets are purchased with company profits - profits that Zuckerman claims are being left on the table because of a lack of 'confidence,' as in 'I'm scared.' That kind of fear-driven leadership would be nothing more than managerial incompetence.

And I don't think Mort Zuckerman is incompetent.

Richard (RJ) Eskow, a consultant and writer (and former insurance/finance executive), is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future. This post was produced as part of the Curbing Wall Street project. Richard also blogs at A Night Light.

Michael Winship: The Right Manipulates Muslims -- and Boy Scouts

Michael Winship: The Right Manipulates Muslims -- and Boy Scouts: "

I was never a Boy Scout but I was a helluva Cub Scout.

Pack 30, First Congregational Church. I rose through the ranks: Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, Lion. I accumulated Gold and Silver Arrow Points, the Cubs' junior varsity version of merit badges. My mom was a Cub Scout den mother and spent a lot of time teaching fake Indian campfire songs and decorating various arts and crafts with poster paint.But when the time came to transfer to the big guys, the Boy Scouts, I saw years of knot tying and helping little old ladies across the street ahead of me and opted not to re-up. Nonetheless, I feel my time served qualifies me to have an opinion about President Obama not appearing in person at this week's National Scout Jamboree in Caroline County, Virginia.

The Jamboree is a gathering of the clans that takes place every five years or so and this year's is especially significant as 2010 marks the centennial of the scouting movement in the United States. Congratulations. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is a wonderful organization.Truly.But the right wing of this country, with the aid of Fox News and other media outlets, has opted to ignore many of the qualities one usually associates with a good scout -- trustworthiness, honesty and especially cleanliness -- to sling mud at the president for not making a personal appearance at the Jamboree. Instead, he videotaped a message for the lads.

Not exactly a sin on the order of massive oil spills or ethnic purification. But to hear conservative commentators you'd think he had at the very least used the flag to buff Air Force One. All of this complicated by the fact that the president came to New York instead for some fundraisers and an appearance on The View.

'It's unfortunate that President Obama didn't take the time to promote the Boy Scouts this week, but they should be able to thrive, as they have for the past 100 years, without him.' So sniffed Eagle Scout Nik Nelson, writing in The Weekly Standard, where he's an intern.

What these folks fail to mention is that President Obama met with a group of scouts and their leaders just a little more than two eeks ago. In the Oval Office. In fact, the president does so every year, but this year, special attention was given to the centennial.

As Scouting Magazine's official blog reported, 'During the White House meeting, the president and the BSA delegation shared their mutual goals for addressing key concerns for our nation's youth: healthy living, service to the community, and environmental stewardship.'

Admitting this, of course, would mess with the conservative narrative. Nor, it turns out, is this the first time that elements of the right have shamelessly tried to use the Boy Scouts, of all organizations, to impugn the Obama White House. A whispering campaign via e-mail (in cyberspace, no one can hear you scream) alleged that unlike his predecessors the president has refused to sign Eagle Scout certificates. As it turns out, there was a gap between the Bush and Obama presidencies when blank certificates were sent out.

But, as the debunking website www.snopes.com reports, 'Production of new Eagle Scout certificates bearing President Obama's signature... got underway in late 2009 for distribution to Scouts who obtained Eagle rank in Spring 2010. President Obama has also mailed over 13,000 personal letters of congratulation to individual Eagle Scouts, including a September 2009 case in which every single one of the five most senior members of Troop 182 in Palatine, Illinois, earned eagle rank.'

Now all of this would be simply silly if not for the fact that this is the pattern: find a bright, shining lie, an often trivial issue, reshape it to your agenda of attack and fear, distort and dissemble, bang it like a drum to rouse the media circus and distract the public - and its public servants -- from the critical work necessary to survive as a republic.

The Shirley Sherrod debacle at the Department of Agriculture last week is just one example. The current fight over building an Islamic 'mosque' near (not 'at') Ground Zero here in Manhattan is another and perhaps the loudest.

Once again, downtown New Yorkers are faced with outsiders telling us our business. Newt Gingrich: 'There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.' Sarah Palin: 'Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground. This is nothing close to 'religious intolerance.' It's just common decency.'
But as developer Sharif El-Gamal told Jordana Horn of The Jerusalem Post, 'Those aren't my neighbors, my friends or my New Yorkers. A vocal minority have come out to amplify their own agendas of hate and bigotry that have nothing to do with my project.' He notes, too, as have many others, that calling it a mosque is an exaggeration. 'There will be a mosque component, which will be a separate not-for-profit component of the project,' Gamal said. 'It's going to be a small component in a community center, just like the 92nd Street Y has a synagogue.'
This is not to deny the emotions that always will be stirred by 9/11, especially by the friends and families of those who died there, but as Padraic O'Hare, director of the Merrimack College's Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College, wrote in The Washington Post, 'Build a house which nurtures and cultivates less wounded, less ego-driven and more just and peaceful Muslims, people of real and healthy prayerfulness? Hand me the shovel.'
Meanwhile, as the citizenry has its attention diverted by xenophobic anti-Muslim harangues, on Thursday night, Republicans in Congress killed the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to help emergency workers and others near Ground Zero. As the New York Daily News reported, the bill 'would spend $3.2 billion on health care over the next 10 years for people sickened from their exposure to the toxic smoke and debris of the shattered World Trade Center. It would spend another $4.2 billion to compensate victims over that span, and make another $4.2 billion in compensation available for the next 11 years.'

GOP members called it a 'slush fund.' Is there a merit badge for classy?

Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.