Campaign for America's Future Urges the President to Call for Action on Jobs

Washington, DC -- Robert Borosage of Campaign for America’s Future is urging the President to get out in front on a job creation agenda. He argues that it is time for lawmakers – including the President -- to stop talking about austerity and start making the hard decisions to but jobs first. While no solutions are easy, and while Congress has just tied its own hands with an ill-advised agreement, there are important steps that the government can and should take now to create jobs and to create a better economy in the long run. Borosage argues that lawmakers should be fighting for a jobs plan, and that the public should demand that lawmakers turn from a “premature focus on deficit reduction to making the hard decisions on actions to get Americans back to work.”

Borosage said, “The federal government must act now to put Americans back to work, and that will require reversing the premature focus on deficit reduction. We need a bold agenda to put people back to work, while building a new foundation for long term growth including:

• A major effort to rebuild America. With our decrepit infrastructure an increasing threat to our economy and to human lives, interest rates at record lows and the construction industry flat on its back, there will never be a better time to build the infrastructure for the 21st century. National and regional infrastructure banks can mobilize the capital and insure that the projects are chosen on merit.
• Make it in America. The unsustainable trade deficits cannot continue. We should instill buy America provision in all government procurement, while challenging the mercantilist trade policies of China and other nations.
• Put young people to work. Expand Americorps, create an Urban Corps to retrofit buildings, a Green Corps to repair parks and plant trees, a Service Corps to create jobs in non-profit organizations. We cannot allow a generation to come out of high school or back from Afghanistan and Iraq and fall into despair.
• Save vital public services. It is folly to lay off teachers, police and other vital services in this downturn. Direct support for vital services will save jobs – and keep our communities strong.
• Generate green energy jobs. We should be investing now in wind, solar, geo-thermal, seeding research, retrofitting public and private buildings. This will put people to work now, while making America once more an industrial leader.

Borosage said that while Congress has just tied its own hands with a bad agreement, it is vital that the people continue to demand jobs and that lawmakers continue to fight for a jobs agenda. Advocating for a jobs agenda will be among the topics discussed at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, DC October 3 to 5. www.ourfuture.org/takeback

In an article this morning, Robert Borosage urges the President to use the bully pulpit as Franklin Roosevelt did in 1938: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011083209/great-teacher