by Jesse Jackson

President Obama calls on Congress to pass a jobs program immediately, estimating its cost at $100 billion. This nestles the president's program nicely between the program passed by the House in December, totaling about $150 billion, and that being discussed by the Senate, now said to be $80 billion and getting smaller by the day.

Obama's plan -- in a clear concession to Republicans -- focuses on tax cuts and loans for small business. He endorses the "jobs tax credit," that would give small businesses a tax credit for new hires. He calls for eliminating capital gains taxes for some small businesses, and putting a little money into infrastructure and new energy.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell scorns the president's program. He rails about the deficits, but he doesn't object to adding to them. He wants to extend tax cuts for the wealthy (those making over $250,000 per year), opposes taxing the banks to repay the TARP funds and wants the president to focus solely on other tax cuts. (And, of course, he wants to abandon health care reform, which is paid for and would reduce the deficit over time by slowing the rise of health care costs). "Our problems," he says, "are not a result of taxing too little, but of spending too much."

But in the major cities of America, unemployment isn't at 10 percent; it is at 20 percent and higher. Across the country, one in five men of working age is now unemployed or forced to take part time work. But in our cities, that number surges to one in three. Among the young, it is closer to one in two.

McConnell's tax breaks for the wealthy won't help them -- and won't help lift the economy either. They will help fill the coffers of the Republican Party for the election this fall -- but they have nothing to do with a real recovery.

The president's tax breaks for small business are more sensibly targeted, but are likely to be equally ineffective. The credit for new hires will go overwhelmingly to reward businesses for hiring that they would do anyway. Perhaps they will spend the money in other ways, but handing out cash to small business owners is an odd tax cut, generally going to folks who are less likely to spend it than those who work for them.

There really is no question about what is needed. We need direct public service jobs that will reach out to the most impacted areas, put people to work, provide them with training and insure that they do not sink into misery and despair. We need far larger infrastructure spending to rebuild our crumbling sewers, roads and bridges, and put construction workers back to work. We need aid to states and localities so that crippling cuts aren't made to teachers, police, universities and construction projects. And then we need to sustain assistance to those displaced through no fault of their own -- in unemployment insurance, COBRA health care payments, expanded food and nutrition assistance. We also need a real program of mortgage write-downs so that people can stay in their homes. And the scale has to be three or four times the size of the president's plan.

We need to borrow the money to do this now. Without this, we will witness the decimation of the emerging African-American and Latino middle class -- as well as the continued decline of America's workers. Homes will be lost, families broken, young people forced to drop out of college. Homeless children will struggle to find family on the streets. The crisis is real, stark, and brutal.

Can we afford this? Yes, even now we are borrowing money at remarkably low interest rates. And we can't afford not to do it -- for the costs of failing a generation will be far greater than the cost of investing now.

And in the long term, the reality that cannot be admitted in Washington is that Mitch McConnell is profoundly and cynically simply wrong. We've had three decades of conservative domination of our politics -- cutting top end taxes and starving both basic investments, with special venom for programs that would provide opportunity for the poor.

The problem is not economics but politics. Americans are worried about deficits. Conservatives and Republicans-- the very folks who drove us off this cliff -- are stoking fears, obstructing any reforms and benefiting from the resulting disgust with Washington. So, Obama is trimming his sails and Democrats are fleeing for the hills.

In this historic testing, the poorest neighborhoods and the most devastated regions will be left in a downward spiral that isn't likely to turn up soon. Justice and jobs are left out of today's Washington debates.

You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson care of this newspaper or by e-mail at jjackson@rainbowpush.org.

 

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