Jobs

With 257,000 jobs added by private businesses, January was the 23rd consecutive month of private sector job growth:

After votes by Congress to block the President’s jobs plan, and on the eve of the Super Committee’s recommendations to enact more job-killing budget cuts, unemployed workers, community organizations, union workers and local residents will declare an “Economic Emergency for the 99%” on this afternoon with Occupy St. Louis and Occupy Kansas City.  

Participants in both protests and marches will call on Congress to create jobs, stop cuts, and make Wall Street banks pay.

Follow the action on Twitter at #N17 and #N17STL. 

The demonstrations are part of a national day of protests at decaying bridges on November 17 against policies that have enriched the 1% and impoverished the 99%. People nationwide will gather at bridges and other sites in need of infrastructure investments like repairs to demand that America be put back to work now.  Protestors will call on Congress to invest in our communities to create jobs as well as stop the cuts to critical social service programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Republicans have been pushing back all day long with cookie-cutter press releases regarding the 15 "jobs" bills they say have been languishing in the House and haven't been taken up in the Senate.

Let's take a closer look at the "Faux 15" as they've been termed.  Are they really jobs bills?  No.  They're wolves in sheep's clothing.  Take a look:

GOP’s Budget to End Medicare (GOP Budget for Fiscal Year 2012, H.Con.Res. 34) – Instead of creating jobs, this House GOP budget is estimated to destroy 1.7 million jobs by 2014, according to economist Mark Zandi; ends Medicare, increasing seniors’ health costs by more than $6,000 and throwing them on the mercy of the insurance companies; and protects tax breaks for Big Oil, millionaires and billionaires, and companies that ship jobs overseas.

Earlier this afternoon, a number of concerned citizens, labor leaders, business and academic experts came together in St. Louis to discuss the growing jobs crisis in our country as well as how we as a nation can put Missourians back on the job.

At the heart of the roundtable discussion was call for our elected officials to pass the American Jobs Act.  Including a number of initiatives that have broad bipartisan support, the American Jobs Act has provisions that will assist Missourians in finding work, paying the bills and stimulating the economy.

Gary Elliott of the Eastern Missouri Laborers' District Council had a crystal clear message for Missouri's congressional leaders:

[T]he American Jobs Act should be passed as well as the Highway Bill. We need both. The first responders and teachers included in the jobs bill are just what this country needs. We have to invest in our community or improvements are never going to come to fruition and the jobs crisis will continue.

Repeatedly, speakers reinforced that investing in infrastructure - such as repairing our crumbling bridges and roads, putting first responders such as police and firefighters back to work, and ensuring teachers are in the classroom with the resources they need - would allow for our economy to recover by putting money in the wallets of workers who will in turn put money back in their communities.

Unfortunately, even while Missourians were sending a message loud and clear to legislative leaders, Senator Roy Blunt yet again voted against infrastructure investment and jobs by voting no on the Rebuild America Jobs Act.  By a vote of 51 to 49 with all republicans voting no, Blunt again showed he is willing to vote to protect tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires while leaving Missouri's workers out in the cold. 

Stop the presses! Congress has apparently solved the jobs crisis, reduced unemployment to 0%, ended global warming, brought all of our troops home and achieved world peace!  Beacuse of the overnight success of solving all the world's problems, they have spare time to do things like pass resolutions regarding our national motto.

Wait.  You're telling me unemployment is still above 9%?  And we have troops around the world?  Are you sure global warming is still real?  No world peace?  I'm crushed.  I'm not sure I can go on with this entry.  I'll let Congressman Cleaver take it from here:

Friends, obviously we are a Nation Under God. It has been our national motto since 1956, and as a minister, I needed no reminding. It is my personal motto as well. My vote on H.Con.Res. 13, a non-binding resolution that carries no force of law, was a stand on principle. This resolution was brought to the Floor at a time when our nation’s economy is in deep peril and our constituents are depending on us to create jobs – not to reaffirm mottos. We need to be working for the people in our districts, in our states and in our country on real legislation that can help put them back to work right now, help keep them in their homes right now, and help them feed their children right now. And yes – In God We Trust – and In God I Trust.

Can I get an Amen?

If the article in today's Columbia Daily Tribune regarding Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R- St. Elizabeth) seeking to fast track the investor visa program for Mamtek is any indication, we should assume there will be hell to pay within the Missouri GOP's Twitter feed very soon. 

Former GOP Congressman and current Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is increasingly frustrated with his party's refusal to address the jobs crisis facing the country.  In a broad interview with The Daily Beast, Secretary LaHood takes republicans to task on a number of issues and their refusal to focus on the economy and jobs and instead work to do everything in their power to defeat President Obama.

“Republicans made a decision right after the election—don’t  give Obama any victories. The heck with putting people to work, because we can score points.”

With hundreds, if not thousands, of bridges across the United States being labeled structurally deficient, LaHood doesn't understand why republicans continue to block much needed infrastructure spending.

Republicans are expected to maintain their wall of opposition to a new round of stimulus spending on infrastructure. The infrastructure bill would put thousands of people to work, says LaHood, “but because of their own personal political feelings against the president, they don’t want to hand him a victory.”

Securing our bridges.  Putting thousdands of Missourians and Americans back to work.  Stimulating the economy.  These are all things republicans continually refuse to do, all in the name of defeating President Obama.  The GOP should be ashamed of themselves.

Roy Blunt thinks the number one priority should be creating jobs.

If that's the case, I have a question: why does he keep voting against job creation?  He's had multiple opportunities to vote to put Missourians back to work over the last few weeks and each time he's decided to toe the party line and vote no.

• The American Jobs Act which would have created nearly 20,000 Missouri jobs? NO.
• The Teachers, First Responders Back to Work Act which would have ensured that teachers, police and firefighters have essential funding? NO.

Senator Blunt, if you refuse to vote for the jobs bills that continue to come to the floor of the Senate, what's your plan?  Trade Agreements that encourage companies to send jobs overseas?  Tax breaks for greedy CEOs and corporations that only serve to make the rich richer?  Elimination of regulations that serve to keep everyday Americans safe and sound?  As of now, republicans in congress have introduced ZERO actual jobs bills. 

Until Blunt and his republican colleagues get serious about putting Americans back to work and voting for the jobs bills in congress, I guess Senator Blunt is right: "Not much" will happen in the senate on job creation.

Last night, the United States Senate held a vote on the Teachers, First Responders Back to Work Act which had a number of provisisions that would assist a large number of Missourians in getting back to work as well as allowed for large scale investments in critical public services that every American and Missourian relies upon.

Unfortunately, Sen. Blunt voted no.  Here's some of what Blunt voted against:

• $30 Billion To Create or Protect Nearly 400,000 Education Jobs. Nearly 300,000 education jobs have been lost since 2008, and state and local budget crisis will put as many as 280,000 teacher jobs at risk next year.
• $5 Billion to Keep Thousands of Police and Firefighters on the Job. State and local budget cuts have forced thousands of cops and firefighters off the beat.
• Asking Millionaires to Pay Their Fair Share Without Adding a Dime to the Deficit. In order to create or save hundreds of thousands of teacher and first responder jobs, the Senate bill imposes a 0.5% surtax on modified adjusted gross income in excess of $1 million for both single filers and married couples filing jointly.  The surtax is effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2012.

Not only did Sen. Blunt vote against teachers and education, firefighters and police, and working families, he did a 180 and went completely back on his word.  In May, after hearing of critical cuts facing the Kansas City Fire Department for prepardness training, Sen. Blunt was quoted as saying, "We will continue working to call attention to this [funding] problem in order to ensure Kansas City receives the funding it needs." [Kansas City Star, 5/21/11]

If Sen. Blunt truly wanted to ensure that firefighters and other first responders in Missouri and around the country were receiving the funding they needed, he would have voted yes.  Unfortunately, Blunt's republican colleagues in the Senate have said their "single most important goal" is to defeat President Obama.  Apparently, Blunt is willing to go along as they try to carry out their goal, even at a devastating cost to our communities in terms of decreased funding for firefighters, police officers, first responders, teachers and other public servants.  Missouri deserves better.

Roy Blunt has pretty much accepted that nothing will be done in the United States Senate to create Jobs in Missouri in the near future. Hopefully, many of the over 260,000 Missourians who are unemployed will let Senator Blunt know their thoughts about his position. 

Yesterday, Senator Roy Blunt voted against the American Jobs Act. Watch video of his comments on MSNBC here:

An editorial from the St. Louis Post Dispatch calls the work a between government, workers and companies to create more jobs with Ford and GM a bright spot in the effort to get people back to work. 

(Automotive expansions) surely would not have happened had Missouri Republicans succeeded in their effort earlier this year to pass right-to-work legislation that would have diminished worker protections. They most certainly wouldn't have happened had the federal government not intervened to save the automotive industry from collapse.

The Ford and GM announcements show how bringing jobs back to the United States from overseas and investing in American workers are a bright spot that should give bickering politicians in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., a clear path forward. A little cooperation between government, workers and corporations can create economic growth.

Together — not apart — we can all be job creators.

Early this week a warm and sympathetic Herman Cain had some words of motivation for the unemployed and impoverished people in our country: 

Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! [...] It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.

Uplifting stuff to be sure. It reminded me of State Senator Jim Lembke urging unemployed Missourians to lift themselves up by their boot straps so to speak.  

"People need to get off their backsides and get a job," Lembke is quoted as saying this week in the Kansas City Star. "Maybe they'll have to get two jobs or three jobs to make ends meet, but they need to quit stealing from their neighbors."

For these two staunch conservatives the only group they may dislike more than government workers are the citizens they claim to represent. 

Yesterday, 30 Sierra Club members toured the ABB factory in Jefferson City, MO, where the company makes transformers that are used in wind generators and solar collectors.

The goal of the tour was to see firsthand how renewable energy creates good, family-wage jobs locally and around Missouri.  ABB employs about 650 workers at its facilities in Jefferson City, MO.

The Sierra Club organized the tour in response to Missouri General Assembly actions to curtail development of renewable energy in the state.  This spring, the General Assembly overturned a Public Service Commission rule that would have required utilities like Ameren to meet its 15 percent renewable energy standard (mandated under Proposition C, passed in November 2008) by counting electricity that was either generated or consumed here in Missouri.  By nullifying this rule, the General Assembly is allowing utilities to buy renewable energy credits from anywhere in the world in order to meet its renewable energy targets.  When the wind generators are located in China instead of here, Missourians do not enjoy the benefits of clean energy – including both local jobs as well as cleaner air.

This ABB plant manufactured the transformers that were installed in the Lost Creek Wind Farm, located near King City, Missouri.  Lost Creek is the largest wind farm in Missouri, and utilizes one hundred transformers that were made by ABB.

A chart breaking down the analysis of President Obama's jobs plan by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.  

h/t MoveOn.org

From the Associated Press:

"Payroll tax cuts are very powerful," said Allen Sinai, chief economist of Decision Economics. "They provide a boost to direct income and, in turn, spending, which is important to growth."

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the president's plan would boost economic growth by 2 percentage points, add 2 million jobs and reduce unemployment by a full percentage point next year compared with existing law...

Susan Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, figures that the Social Security tax cuts alone would add 1 percentage point to economic growth and create 1 million jobs next year...

Branch manager of construction company Emery Sapp and Sons to KY3: "In terms of jobs and job creation, it [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] did exactly what it was intended to do." 

From the Associated Press: "A new report says Missouri's unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest point in about two years. The state Department of Economic Development says April's jobless rate was 8.9 percent, down two-tenths of a point from March. That's the state's lowest unemployment rate since March 2009..."

Missourinet has audio of an interview with Eco Devo spokesman John Fougere on the new numbers. 

Earlier this week, the Missouri Catholic Conference, Campaign Life Missouri and other anti-choice lobbyists circulated a letter to members of the General Assembly separating themselves from Missouri Right to Life's position on proposed MOSIRA legislation.

In March, Sen. Ron Richard ripped MRL for their blind opposition to MOSIRA, despite support from pro-choice and anti-choice members of both parties because of the job creation opportunities it presents. 

This letter (embedded below the jump) is just the latest indication of how isolated MRL has become in the Capitol.  It's so sad, really. 

Good news:

PAYROLLS INCREASE IN 38 U.S. STATES, LED BY TEXAS, MISSOURI

Payrolls rose in 38 U.S. states in March, indicating improvement in the labor market is broadening.

Texas, with a 37,200 increase, and Missouri, at 24,300, showed the biggest gains in employment from February, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The jobless rate fell in 34 states, with the largest decline in New Mexico, where it fell by 0.6 percentage point to 8.1 percent...