On Sunday chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee appeared on ABC’s “This Week” defending the administration’s record on helping to produce jobs. “It’s not a jobless recovery” he said. Later in the program, economist Paul Krugman said: “The fact is, for about 18 months, we’ve had an economy that’s recovering in a technical sense, but it’s not generating jobs faster than population growth.”
On Monday morning, the Institute for Public Accuracy issued a news release titled “Colbert or Goolsbee: Who’s the Clown?” which quoted Goolsbee telling Stephen Colbert two years ago: “A year from now we’re going to be in a very happy place.” Late on Monday, the White House announced Goolsbee would be resigning.
Tuesday marks the ten-year anniversary of the Bush tax cuts, which were renewed late last year.
TIMOTHY CANOVA, canova at chapman.edu
Canova is a professor of international economic law at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters forewarning of financial crisis and examining government intervention in the economy, including “The Federal Reserve We Need” and “Legacy of the Clinton Bubble.”
Today Canova said: “Austan Goolsbee’s departure as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers presents an opportunity for President Obama to break decisively with the economics of the past and to return to his campaign promises of 2008. He can start by replacing Goolsbee with an economist committed to economic recovery, as well as replacing Timothy Geithner, his Treasury secretary who has consistently served as waterboy for Wall Street’s agenda. Recent public opinion polls show that 60 percent of Americans are unhappy with the president’s handling of the economy. President Obama must reverse priorities from Wall Street to Main Street by pushing now for an end to the Bush tax cuts, renegotiating trade agreements to require minimum labor standards, reforming the Wall Street credit ratings agencies that have pushed deficit hysteria and fiscal austerity, and by creating public works and federal jobs programs to put Americans back to work. Finally, President Obama must find ways to help the economy without the support of House Republicans, such as by using funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to directly purchase and modify mortgages, and to finance state and local government capital investments and public works projects. TARP was used to prop up Wall Street banks; it must now be used to support today’s most troubled assets: the country’s dormant manufacturing base and struggling workers and middle class.”
SCOTT KLINGER and LEW PRINCE, via Bob Keener, bobkeener at businessforsharedprosperity.org
Klinger is the Tax Policy Director for Business for Shared Prosperity. He said yesterday: “President Bush had the worst track record for job creation since 1939. Huge tax cuts for the best-off Americans have not trickled down in small business investment, broad-based consumer purchasing power or job creation. More budget-busting tax cuts for the top won’t help Main Street, won’t hire, house or educate more people, won’t rebuild our failing infrastructure. They will widen income inequality, which is already the highest on record, undermine our economy and make us less competitive globally.”
Prince is a managing partner of Vintage Vinyl, an independent music store in St. Louis, and an advocate for tax reform. “As a small business owner for more than 30 years, I have to be reality based,” he said yesterday. “My company wouldn’t last a week if we kept repeating mistakes. The Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans were a big mistake. Contrary to myth, my tax rate doesn’t affect hiring. If I think I can do more business, I hire more workers. The costs of finding, hiring and paying new employees are business expenses. They’re deducted up front from our taxable income. If we give more tax cuts to the wealthy, we’ll see many more cutbacks in the public services and infrastructure that really strengthen our economy. We’re still using roads, schools, parks and hospitals built as jobs projects during the Great Depression. Wouldn’t it be great if our grandchildren were using broadband, renewable energy and 21st Century infrastructure built during the Great Recession – which in the real world is far from over?”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
