Today, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said “The unemployment rate is still terribly high and it’s going to stay unacceptably high for a long period of time.”
As my colleague Richard Eskow remarked last fall when White House economic adviser Larry Summers said something similar, if it’s unacceptable, then don’t accept it! Do something about it!
No one (sane) is arguing that the White House and Congress haven’t done anything on jobs since President Obama’s inauguration. The Recovery Act created up to 2 million jobs last year, and is still pumping this year. The recently passed jobs tax credit may help create another 250,000 this year.
But no one is arguing that these efforts have been enough to fully recover from a recession that vaporized 8.4 million jobs. We need to create 11 million jobs to match our pre-recession employment levels, factoring in population growth, by 2013 — a pace of 400,000 jobs a month.
Which is why the White House is correct to say the current level of unemployment is unacceptable, and I’ve seen no one in Washington challenge that statement.
So … what is Washington going to do about it?
Congressional Democrats are “pleading” with the President to talk more about jobs this year. But he can’t talk more about jobs unless Congress, as well as the President, act more on jobs.
Robert Borosage earlier this week laid out what an acceleration of the jobs agenda would look like:
* Passage by Congress of Rep. George Miller’s Local Jobs Act sending $100B to state and local governments mostly for direct hiring, creating or saving an estimated one million jobs.
* Branding China a currency manipulator by Treasury, spurring follow-up action by Congress. We’ve lost 2.4 million jobs because of the Chinese government artificially making its goods cheaper and ours pricier. (Click here to send a message to Treasury and White House.)
* A “Rebuild America” tour to mobilize support for infrastructure investment, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s National Infrastructure Development Bank Act to maximize public investment and private capital into revitalizing America’s foundation. Every $1 billion in infrastructure investment sustains nearly 50,000 jobs.
Those are all the kinds of big things you would do when faced with a stubbornly unacceptable situation.
Perhaps folks in the White House or Congress don’t want to do these things. Maybe they have different ideas. Fine, as long as they are of the size to change a status quo they all agree is “unacceptable.”
But maybe some in Washington think the current budget deficit is what’s unacceptable, and they can actually accept this level of unemployment. If that’s the case, they should say so.
But don’t go around saying the status quo is unacceptable, while accepting it with your inaction.
