{"id":5595,"date":"2011-08-12T00:18:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T07:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5595"},"modified":"2011-08-12T00:18:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T07:18:57","slug":"jeff-merkley-leads-in-the-call-for-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/12\/jeff-merkley-leads-in-the-call-for-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Merkley Leads in the Call for Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans have done a masterful job of limiting the debate in Washington, DC to reducing the deficit, although the issue that matters most to the American People is JOBS.  Republicans do not want to focus on jobs, because their plan is more tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, justified by the same old trickle down fallacy that has cost so many jobs by stripping wealth from the poor and middle classes.  Democrats in both the House and the Senate are taking action.  I\u2019m proud to say that, in the Senate, Oregon\u2019s own Jeff Merkley is taking the lead, something first term Senators virtually never do.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"Merkley\"One day after Republicans in the House and Senate announced their picks for the Joint Select Committee (JSC), Oregon\u2019s Senator Jeff Merkley and 22 of his Democratic colleagues sent a simple message to Republican lawmakers: Put jobs first<\/strong>.  In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the senators argued that spurring job growth in the short term is a vital element of reducing the deficits and should therefore be central to the new committee<\/strong>. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cFor families across the country, the biggest economic problem is high unemployment,\u201d wrote the senators.  \u201cAs you know, the lack of jobs and anemic growth rate of the economy are not only enormous problems in their own right, causing great pain for millions of Americans, they are a major component of our deficit.  Indeed, the loss of revenue resulting from the recession accounts for nearly $4 trillion of the projected deficits over the next 10 years.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is therefore appropriate and important that the JSC explicitly embrace job creation as a part of its mission,\u201d they continued.  \u201cTargeted investments in economic growth and job creation can complement and even enhance long-term deficit reduction efforts and should be a priority that the JSC embraces.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cLet us be very clear: our fiscal challenge is directly linked to the jobs crisis and we cannot solve the former without tackling the latter.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Over the past decade, revenues have declined by 18% while domestic discretionary spending remained static on a per-capita basis<\/font><\/strong>. Much of this revenue was lost due to the financial crisis and the recession and high unemployment that followed…<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Senator Jeff Merkley<\/a>><\/p>\n

Click through for the full text of the letter.<\/font><\/p>\n

Republicans don\u2019t want you to know that per capita discretionary spending, in real terms was higher during the booming economy Clinton left in 2000.  Now there are more people in need, and less money coming in, because Bush and the Republicans trashed the economy.  In short, discretionary spending compared to need is already much lower.  Only more people working and paying taxes can significantly decrease the deficit.<\/font><\/p>\n

On House Side, the Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus are also focusing on jobs. Rachel Maddow reviewed this news with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Obama needs to get behind these jobs initiatives and tell the American people about them.  When Republicans block them, and the will, he needs to tell the American people that too.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans have done a masterful job of limiting the debate in Washington, DC to reducing the deficit, although the issue that matters most to the American People is JOBS.  Republicans do not want to focus on jobs, because their plan is more tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, justified by the same old […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}