WTF Has Obama Done? - Issue No. 013 - Employment: Jobs

I hope everyone had a good weekend, minus the unfortunate news about Whitney Houston.  May God bless her and her family during this time of grief.  Just another quick reminder of how important it is to tell the people in your life how much you love them.   Start today, because death knows neither time or day, we can be gone in a matter of minutes, hours or days.

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As promised, Issue No. 13 will be about Jobs, because according to Fox News and a particular party President Obama hasn't done a damn thing, which is simply not the case.  As a matter of fact, job losses exploded under former President George W. Bush, and has been recovering ever since. [Reference]

President Barack Obama has not only  managed to achieve 3 broad policies, 6 sources of funding and 6 targeted areas when it comes to job creation, he's also managed to produce 9 results.  Today I will cover 1 from each area.

WTF-36

Jobs for Main Street Act (2010).

In a close vote of 217-212, the House passed a $154 billion jobs bill (HR 2847) on December 16, 2009.  The “Jobs for Main Street Act of 2010” includes $36.7 billion for highways and transit, and extends several other programs aimed at creating jobs and helping those hit hardest by the recession.  The Senate is not expected to consider the bill this year, and may craft its own version after reconvening in 2010.  H.R. 2847 also incorporates the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2009, which extends the core highway, highway safety, and transit programs through September 30, 2010, at $53.3 billion, the level assumed in the FY 2010 budget resolution.  In addition, the bill repeals the provision that prohibits Highway Trust Fund balances from earning interest and restores $20 billion to the Highway Trust Fund.

Highways:                   $27.5 billion
Transit:                       $8.4 billion
Amtrak:                       $800 million
[Reference-1, Reference-2]

WTF-37

$33 billion-dollar jobs package (March 2010).

US President Barack Obama unveiled a 33-billion-dollar package of tax cuts Friday to encourage small businesses to hire new workers, as he takes aim at 10 percent unemployment.

Obama, who has made job creation the top priority of his administration, spoke as the White House got a rare economic boost when GDP data showed growth for the fourth quarter at a higher than expected 5.7 percent.

"It is time to put America back to work. We have had two very tough years," Obama said, as he toured a small factory in Baltimore, Maryland.
 
The proposal, which must be passed by Congress, would allow small businesses to claim a 5,000-dollar tax credit for every new employee they hire and to be reimbursed for Social Security retirement taxes on increased payrolls. [Reference-1, Reference-2, Reference-3]

WTF-38

Job training programs in clean technologies for displaced workers.

Obama comes through on both parts of this promise.

Creating jobs that are also good for the environment was a big part of Barack Obama's campaign platform.

It was also a big part of the stimulus package he signed in early 2009. All told, the bill included $500 million to support job creation in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sector. The administration has been busy doling out this grant money to train displaced workers in the areas of home weatherization, hybrid and electric car maintenance and solar panel installation.

On Jan. 6, 2010, for instance, the Labor Department announced that $100 million will go to 25 projects around the country.

When Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in April 2009, he also created the Clean Energy Service Corps. The program will train young people to install solar panels, weatherize homes and conduct energy audits, among other things. [Reference-1]

WTF-39

CBO found 3.7 Million jobs created by stimulus (May 2010).

A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows the Recovery Act has increased the number of workers by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million. The CBO also projects that 3.7 million jobs could be attributed to the stimulus by the end of September, 2010.

The $787 billion measure included several tax cuts, including one for $400 ($800 per working couple) that showed up in workers' paychecks. It also created Build America Bonds, expanded unemployment insurance and funded several domestic spending programs.

Several of these provisions are now being expanded in legislation extending expiring measures that the House could vote on later Wednesday.[Reference-1, Reference-2]

As promised, I will come back to this topic in another issue.  Please make sure to read the next issue, Issue No. 014 - Military and National Security as I continue with
WTF-40
Posted daily or weekly on BLADE 7184 until Election Day!

WTF Has Obama Done? - Issue No. 006 - Economy

I almost have one week down.  Only 39 more weeks to go, LOL.  I may have to cut these to five a week, they're so time consuming.

On today's issue I will focus on the number one issue facing our country - the Economy.  

If you've been watching the news like I have all day; You would have noticed that another week of private sector jobs were added to the 22 straight weeks of employment growth.  While Republicans continue to berate the President and deny seeing any type of improvement, the economy is slowly improving.  Unemployment is now at 8.3% which was the case in February 2009, a month after the president took office.

But how was this possible?  Well, we can thank a President who's been resilient, despite no help from Republicans in Congress.  Today we'll look at one broad policy and two targeted actions (WTF-15, WTF-16) in regard to the Economy.

WTF-14

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA): a $789 billion economic stimulus plan.

(1) To preserve and create jobs and promote economic
recovery.
(2) To assist those most impacted by the recession.
(3) To provide investments needed to increase economic
efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and
health.
(4) To invest in transportation, environmental protection,
and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic
benefits.
(5) To stabilize State and local government budgets, in
order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services
and counterproductive state and local tax increases. [Reference]

WTF-15

Raised the small business investment limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009.

Stimulus raised the expensing limit - During the campaign, Barack Obama promised to extend a tax break for small businesses to give them a boost during the recession. The tax change raised the expensing limit — the amount that small companies can claim as their business expenses for investments.

A sharp-eyed reader brought to our attention a tiny provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus package, that did exactly that. Section 1202 of the stimulus legislation raised the limit to $250,000. A May 2009 memo from the Internal Revenue Service confirms the change.[Reference]
 

WTF-16

U.S. Economy: Manufacturing grew by most since 2004.

In early 2011, The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index rose to 60.8, exceeding the most optimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists and the highest level since May 2004, figures from the Tempe, Arizona-based group showed today. Readings greater than 50 signal growth. 

Stocks rose, extending a global rally, as factory reports from China to Europe bolstered the outlook for American companies like Caterpillar Inc. The ISM’s employment gauge climbed to the highest level since 1973, indicating manufacturers may be more willing to hire as sales pick up. 

“Businesses have figured out the economic recovery has legs so they’re growing more confident about expanding production and new orders and increasing hiring,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Manufacturing is making a very decent contribution to growth.”[Reference]

As promised, I will come back to the Economy in another issue.  Please make sure to read Issue No. 007 tomorrow as I continue with WTF-17
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Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Family Member

What a great thing to show all your right-wing nuts in your family.  Yes, everyone has them.  They rely on Fox news to give them all the information, and in turn fall for the lies and deception those idiots report.

Dave Johnson of Campaign for America's Future, wrote the following Op-Ed piece, and I couldn't have stated it any better myself. The facts are here folks... what more do you want?

Problem: Your right-wing family member is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about "Obama spending" and "Obama deficits" and how the "Stimulus" just made things worse.

Solution: Here are three "reality-based" charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.

Spending

Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.

Deficits

Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year for comparison.

The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. Peoplewho claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead.

The Stimulus and Jobs

In this chart, the RED lines on the left side -- the ones that keep doing DOWN -- show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines -- the ones that just go UP -- show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.

It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.

Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!

More False Things

These are just three of the false things that everyone "knows." Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is "going broke", government spending "takes money out of the economy."

Why This Matters

These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama -- tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want -- when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.