Progressive Opinion

newdeal20.org — oth Democrats and environmentalists seem to be searching for new sources of support, according to articles from Thomas Edsall and Leslie Kaufman. For Democrats, the problem is the state of mind of the “white working class,” while for environmentalists the problem is to convince the public that something should be done about climate change. In both cases, the dilemma is the same: the solutions offered do not solve the existing problems, and the public knows it. The New Deal offers a political lesson on the importance of an interlinking set of policies that cut across issue areas, a lesson that can help both the Democratic Party and the environmental movement. The point is not to idealize the New Deal or deify FDR. We need to learn the lessons of American history that can be useful for us today.

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otherwords.org — Listening at last to his inner FDR, President Barack Obama is going straight at the Know-Nothing/Do-Nothing Republicans in Congress. At a rally in September on a bridge connecting Rep. John Boehner's state of Ohio to Sen. Mitch McConnell's state of Kentucky, Obama challenged the two GOP leaders to back his plan for repairing and improving our country's deteriorating infrastructure. "Help us rebuild this bridge," he shouted out to Boehner and McConnell. "Help us rebuild America. Help us put this country back to work." Yes, let's do it! However, in addition to the usual recalcitrance of reactionary Republican leaders, another impediment stands in the way of success: many of the infrastructure jobs that would be created could end up in China. Holy Uncle Sam! How is this possible?

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washingtonmonthly.com — Press releases from Capitol Hill are generally easy to dismiss, but one this morning caught my eye. It was sent by House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.), sent on behalf of the caucus, as opposed to just himself, “applauding” the “Occupy Wall Street Movement.” “In New York and across the country, thousands of Americans have taken to the streets, certain of the morality of their message: bringing fairness to Main Street,” Larson said. “The silent masses aren’t so silent anymore. They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through.” These protests aren’t invisible to the establishment anymore, and when the House Democratic Caucus is officially applauding the demonstrations, it’s clearly a positive development for the burgeoning movement.

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newdeal20.org — The U.S. economy is a mess. Over two years since the Great Recession officially ended, the unemployment rate is over nine percent, the foreclosure crisis rages on, and households remain loaded up with debt. The fiscal situation of federal and state governments is dire, in part because free-market ideologues think that low taxes are a God-given right. Much of the mess is the result of an economy in which the forces for extracting value have come to dominate the forces for creating value. In the process, industrial innovation — the generation of higher quality, lower cost products that provide the foundation for economic growth — is suffering from neglect.

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washingtonmonthly.com — Oh, great. Now we have conservative House Republicans arguing publicly that the Democrats' stimulus bill wasn't liberal enough when it came to public investments. The GOP has been attacking the Recovery Act for so long, the party no longer even notices that it's arguing, simultaneously, that it spent too much and spent too little. Of course, the dirty little secret is that Republicans have been engaged in this little shell game for quite a while. Remember the "Highway Hypocrites"? These are the conservative Republican lawmakers -- representing most of the House caucus -- who swore up and down than additional spending, including in areas like infrastructure, would be awful for the economy, right before they begged the Obama administration to spend the money on their constituents, argued it would create jobs, and showed up smiling at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

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The silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why? Republicans don’t want to do anything about jobs and wages. They’re so intent on unseating Obama they’d like the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day. They also see the lousy economy as an opportunity to sell Americans their big lie that government spending is the culprit. Democrats, meanwhile, don’t want to admit the recovery has stalled. They worry such talk will further undermine consumer confidence or spook the bond market. They don’t want to head into the election year sounding downbeat. And they don’t think they have the votes for anything that will have much effect before Election Day anyway. But there’s a third reason for Washington’s inaction. It’s not being talked about — which is itself evidence of the problem. more »

For the second day in a row, there is no power in the building which houses my employer, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (the CBPP website is still up, though). Apparently, a number of buildings in that part of town are out. PEPCO, our local utility, says we'll be back on at noon today, but we'll see. OK, so let's get this straight. We've got major infrastructure deficits in this country, including an electricity grid that's demonstrably unreliable. I get that systems come down, but a city block...for two days! That's a little scary. And my situation is, of course, a microcosm of a larger, known problem. Check out the 2009 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers. more »

nymag.com — President Obama’s big deficit speech yesterday was received with a mixture of euphoria and relief among the left commentariat. The immediate consensus was that the president had given a strong defense of the progressive principles on which he would rely in the coming budget negotiations. Progressives have yearned for him to use the bully pulpit for this purpose from the beginning, and there is a good case to be made that if he had, conservatives would not have been able to convince the American people that the deficit is the cause of the country’s financial woes, rather than the natural consequence of mitigating them. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed and the president is now operating within the opposition's framework rather than his own. Now comes the hard part: matching deeds to words. And on that front, the president still has a lot of work to do.

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washingtonpost.com — President Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation’s budget debate. After months of mixed signals about what he was willing to fight for, Obama finally laid out his purposes and his principles. His approach has difficulties of its own, and much will depend on execution. But the president was unequivocal in arguing that the roots of our fiscal problems lie in the tax cuts of the past decade that we could not afford. And he raised the stakes in our politics to something more fundamental than dry numbers on a page or computer screen. There are at least four things to like about his approach.

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acslaw.org — If you want to experience a real disconnect, find out how highway privation actually works and then read the glowing raves by infrastructure privatization boosters.They claim that privatization transfers risk to the private contractor, while providing high quality infrastructure that a cash-strapped public cannot otherwise afford. They say that the public will have easy drives with new roads and new lanes, all assisted by the installation of the latest tolling and messaging technology. But when you look into the history and details of infrastructure privatization, reality differs.

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