Labor & Employment Law

Straight Facts About U.S. Economy Show Clear Choice on Nov. 2

By James Parks

It’s a fact. More private-sector jobs have been created in the last year alone than in the previous eight years.

The economy and jobs are the top issues in the Nov. 2 elections. But with all the rhetoric and hot air filling the airways, it?s hard to get the straight facts.

U.S. unemployment is high. But at the same time, more private-sector jobs have been created this year alone than in all eight years of the Bush administration.

And over the past four years, Republicans have voted 11 times to preserve loopholes that encourage American companies to ship jobs overseas.

These facts bear out what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the Global Progressive Forum earlier this week:

We in the United States now face an election where we must choose between the humane, progressive, unifying vision of our President, Barack Obama, and the policies that caused this economic crisis, cloaked in the rhetoric of hatred and division.   

Here?s another fact. Obama’s economic policies have been a big help for women. A new  report, released yesterday by the White House?s National Economic Council, described scores of policies that have promoted women?s economic security, including:

• The earned-income tax credit, which significantly benefits working mothers.
• Work-study money for community college students, 56 percent of whom are female.
• State aid supporting the jobs of teachers and nurses, who are mostly women.
• Democratic opposition to privatizing Social Security, of which women make up 57 percent of beneficiaries.

Here are some other key facts to take with you to the voting booth. Citing nonpartisan research and press reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi busts several conservative myths in this campaign:

• Myth: Spending?s out of control and the deficit?s exploding.
• Fact: President Bush nearly doubled the national debt and repealed the pay-as-you-go deficit control plan that produced balanced budgets in the 1990s.  Independent economists credit the Democrats? response to the Bush recession for preventing the loss of 8 million more jobs and stopping unemployment from exceeding 16 percent.  They also concluded that without these actions, the U.S. budget deficit would actually be $3 trillion worse over the next three years.
• Myth: Taxes have gone up.
• Fact: Americans are paying the lowest taxes in 60 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
• Myth: Government took over health care.
• Fact: The Affordable Care Act actually builds on our private insurance system.  The number of Americans with private health coverage will increase under health reform.
• Myth: Government is interfering with private markets and industry.
• Fact: Wall Street reform essentially returned our financial sector to commonsense rules, like the ones put in place after the stock market crash of 1929. The auto bailout worked, too. For the first time in five years, all of the Big Three are operating at a profit and are working to repay the government.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 22, 2010 (boomark / email).