American Recovery Act

2021 Stimulus  America Recovery and Re-investment  Act - context

 

$1.9 Trillion.

 

Cost of 2017 Corporate Tax cut.

 

 $ 1.9  Trillion over 10 years.

            ( addition to national debt 2.2 Trillion)

 

Cost of development of F 35 fighter jet

 

 $ 1.7 Trillion,  

Lets be Clear; Bipartisanship Does not Exist

  

 

After Stimulus Victory in Senate, Reality Sinks in: Bipartisanship Is Dead

With Republicans poised to block Democrats’ top priorities, the party-line vote on the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package showed the gulf between the parties was too wide to be bridged.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/us/stimulus-senate-bipartisanship-biden.html?

 

Union Teachers Are Donating Their Stimulus Checks to the Undocumented

Undocumented workers are excluded from unemployment protections and stimulus checks, but not from union solidarity.

BY BROOKE ANDERSON

OAKLAND, Calif.—Olivia Udovic and her husband, Edgar Sánchez—both teachers in Oakland—are among millions of Americans receiving federal stimulus checks. The money didn’t stay in their bank account for long, however; the pair is part of a nationwide movement of teachers paying their checks forward to undocumented families in their schools. 

Udovic teaches kindergarten at Manzanita SEED Elementary, a dual-language school serving many immigrant households. Sixty-five percent of students there receive free or reduced-cost lunch. When schools closed March 27 in response to Covid-19, Udovic and her coworkers called parents for wellness check-ins. “Families were losing jobs, couldn’t pay rent and were left without food—especially undocumented folks who couldn’t access unemployment benefits,” Udovic says. 

The $2.2 trillion federal Covid-19 stimulus package provides $1,200 to taxpayers bringing home less than $75,000 a year (plus $500 per child) and expands unemployment benefits. But undocumented workers are excluded from both provisions, despite collectively paying billions in taxes. California created its own $125 million coronavirus disaster relief fund to provide $500 in cash to some 250,000 undocumented immigrants in the state—a little less than 15% of the undocumented workforce. For many, that won’t fill the gap.

So Udovic and other members of her union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), organized teachers to pledge their stimulus checks to Centro Legal de la Raza’s Oakland Undocumented Relief (OUR) Fund. The fund provides $500 checks or pre-paid debit cards to each family—an important consideration for many undocumented people who do not have bank accounts. According to Udovic, as of April 20, 33 teachers have pledged more than $16,000. 

Stiglitz: more stimulus needed

Optimists argue that the short-run macroeconomic
impact of the deal to raise America's debt ceiling and
prevent sovereign default will be limited-roughly $25
billion in expenditure cuts in the coming year. But the
payroll-tax cut (which put more than $100 billion into
the pockets of ordinary Americans) was not renewed, and
surely business, anticipating the contractionary
effects down the line, will be even more reluctant to
lend.

'The end of the stimulus itself is contractionary. And
with housing prices continuing to fall, GDP growth
faltering, and unemployment remaining stubbornly high
(one of six Americans who would like a full-time job
still cannot get one), more stimulus, not austerity, is
needed-for the sake of balancing the budget as well.
The single most important driver of deficit growth is
weak tax revenues, owing to poor economic performance;
the single best remedy would be to put America back to
work. The recent debt deal is a move in the wrong
direction.'

Economist Joseph Stiglitz
Sydney Morning Herald
August 9, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/3jgxg4r

Failure to pass a stimulus cost Democrats the election

Failure to Enact Bigger Stimulus Was Fatal Mistake

Mark Weisbrot McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, November 4, 2010 As expected, the Democrats took big losses in the midterm Congressional elections on Tuesday, holding on to the Senate but losing the House. It is typical for the party of the President to lose some seats in midterm elections, and it is doubtful that this election result represents the beginning of another conservative era. But the Democrats’ losses were big by any measure. The overwhelming reason for the Democrats’ losses was their failure to take the necessary measures to ensure a robust recovery from the recession. This is a case where it clearly would have been better to fight for something that you want, and lose, than fight for what you don’t want, and win. Had the Democrats fought for a stimulus large enough to move unemployment to more normal levels over two years – and lost the battle in Congress – they would at least have a case that they tried and were stymied by the Republicans. Of course, the Republican mantra that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 act didn’t do anything but pile up debt is sheer nonsense. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that between 1.4 and 3.3 million more people were employed by mid-2010, because of the stimulus. But it was not enough. As my colleague Dean Baker has pointed out, the federal stimulus – after subtracting the state and local government budget tightening – amounted to about one-eighth of the private demand that our economy lost from the bursting of the real estate bubble.

Area schools await U.S. Aid. Outrage or incompetence?

The morning Bee has a frustrating report by Diane Lambert on B1 which says that  some area school districts are considering using their portion of the schools stimulus funds next year ( not this one) for a variety of  dubious purposes.  This manipulation reduces teachers in the classrooms.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/ca/edjobsfund.asp

Lets review.  What got this law passed?   The economic collapse on Wall Street had decimated our schools. We activists convinced Congress that we need teachers in the classrooms.  And, putting teachers back to work would stimulate (grow) the economic recovery.

Now, according to this article several local districts, including Natomas Unified, don’t know how they will spend the money, when they will spend it,  and for what.  This manipulation and profit taking reduces teachers in the classroom –remember we needed them, and  removes the stimulus effect of the appropriation.

I am appalled at the bone headedness of these officials. One result will be there will be no future appropriations for this purpose- that is the local officials are creating a fraud on Congress.  The stimulus package was not a birthday gift to be spent however they chose.   It is not a deposit in their piggy bank. It was an investment with particular goals – more teachers and public stimulus.

Any school board member who votes for these diversions should be voted out of office.   As the President said in his news conference, “this country is really hurting and we don’t have time anymore to play games.” Here are the present allocations;

Boxer v. Fiorina- what is at stake?

Boxer v. Fiorina
In considering this important election, we should clearly look at the recent voting record. 

Given the economic crisis caused by finance capital, the stimulus was too small, and had too many tax cuts in it.  It was small because  Republicans blocked a larger stimulus from  getting through the Senate.   But, Boxer and the Senate passed  the biggest jobs bill in U.S. history, and the biggest investment in public goods (schools, teachers, roads, bridges, clean energy, firefighters, cops, broadband, etc.). The health care bill had big flaws, including the lack of a public option. We should have gone for Single Payer to save money and to improve the system.  But, Single Payer could not get through the Senate- Republicans would not even allow it to come up for a vote.  Obama  and the Democrats  including Barbara Boxer succeeded at extending health  coverage to virtually everyone and reining in major insurance abuses (on pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps, etc.).  Every  prior Democratic President for almost 60 years had tried and failed.

The financial reform bill is a good start. There were very significant victories in reining in the financial sector, and the Administration went the right direction on financial regulation .  ( See my essay “The best way to rob a bank is to own one.” )  Boxer and the Democrats passed the bill. The financial reform bill should have been stronger, re-implementing Glass-Steagall type protection, but the Republican Senators would not permit it, and they would not permit a vote on it.

Democrats and progressives  won a major victory on, and expansion of, the student loan program for college students.  The  Lilly Leadbetter equal pay law got passed, S-CHIP got expanded, the hate crimes bill got signed.    At the same time, major legislation has been stopped- climate change, immigration, and more jobs by Republicans.  And, U.S. combat forces are leaving Iraq.

Last week the Senate and the House passed, and President Obama signed an additional stimulus of 26 billion dollars to fund teachers, Medicaid, and public service jobs.  (see posts below) None of this would have happened if Carly Fiorina was the second senator from California.

 We are now entering another slow down of the economy.  This slow down was caused by the Republicans refusal to pass additional stimulus money for jobs, health care, and public works.

Myths of Austerity: Krugman

By PAUL KRUGMAN

When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s column. For the last few months, I and others have watched, with amazement and horror, the emergence of a consensus in policy circles in favor of immediate fiscal austerity. That is, somehow it has become conventional wisdom that now is the time to slash spending, despite the fact that the world’s major economies remain deeply depressed.

This conventional wisdom isn’t based on either evidence or careful analysis. Instead, it rests on what we might charitably call sheer speculation, and less charitably call figments of the policy elite’s imagination — specifically, on belief in what I’ve come to think of as the invisible bond vigilante and the confidence fairy.

Bond vigilantes are investors who pull the plug on governments they perceive as unable or unwilling to pay their debts. Now there’s no question that countries can suffer crises of confidence (see Greece, debt of). But what the advocates of austerity claim is that (a) the bond vigilantes are about to attack America, and (b) spending anything more on stimulus will set them off.

What reason do we have to believe that any of this is true? Yes, America has long-run budget problems, but what we do on stimulus over the next couple of years has almost no bearing on our ability to deal with these long-run problems. As Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently put it, “There is no intrinsic contradiction between providing additional fiscal stimulus today, while the unemployment rate is high and many factories and offices are underused, and imposing fiscal restraint several years from now, when output and employment will probably be close to their potential.”

Stimulus (ARRA) saved 329,000 jobs

Report Calculates Stimulus Saved 329,000 School Jobs Last Fall

Calif., Fla., N.Y. Account for One-Third of the Positions Spared

In the last three months of 2009, the education portion of the federal economic-stimulus program paid for 329,551 school-related jobs, such as teachers, librarians, and counselors, according to the latest reports that states and school districts filed with the U.S. Department of Education.

So far, about $69 billion of the nearly $100 billion in education aid contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been awarded by the department to states. The primary goal of the stimulus package, particularly the $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, was to prevent layoffs, create jobs, and otherwise spur the languishing economy.

Not surprisingly, the most education jobs were created or saved in the most-populous states: California, Florida, and New York, which accounted for one-third of the total number of jobs.

The latest reports, covering October through December, mirrored the first stimulus reports that came out earlier last year, when 325,000 education-related jobs were reported to have been saved or created.

It's difficult to compare the two jobs numbers, however, because federal officials changed how states and local grant recipients calculate the number of jobs saved and created.

The initial reporting requirement involved a complicated formula that required recipients to distinguish between a job saved and one created, and not necessarily to count jobs paid for by stimulus money that would have existed even without the new aid. The new formula asks recipients simply to calculate the number of jobs, based on hours worked, that were paid for with stimulus money.

As an additional note. I did some research  (recovery.gov). Texas, which claims not to have a budget crisis, was the second largest recipient of ARRA money.  But, they did not use it for teachers. 

Listening and Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan was on CSPAN yesterday explaining his view of budget and the possibilities of school reform.
He said little about NCLB. In the discussion of the stimulus bill, it was clear that California will receive a great deal of money for education. The proposals are approved. Most of the money will go to hire teachers who have been scheduled to be laid off.


Education Secretary Duncan is touring the US to listen and learn about NCLB. Invite him to your school and share how NCLB affects you. Email him at Arne.Duncan@ed.gov

Read more about the “Listening and Learning” tour at:
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/05/05052009.html

This Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will begin the "Listening and Learning: A Conversation About Education Reform" tour with three events in West Virginia. In the coming months, Duncan will travel to 15 or more states to solicit feedback from a broad group of stakeholders around federal education policy in anticipation of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The tour will gather input on the Obama administration's education agenda, including early childhood, higher standards, teacher quality, workforce development and higher education. On Tuesday's trip, Duncan will travel with West Virginia State Superintendent Steven Paine, First Lady and State School Board Member Gayle Manchin, and Berkeley School District Superintendent Manny Arvon.
"The primary purpose of the Listening and Learning tour is to have a national dialogue about how to best deliver a complete and competitive education to all children—from cradle through career," Duncan said. "We want to hear directly from people in the classroom about how the federal government can support educators, school districts and states to drive education reform. Before crafting education law in Washington, we want to hear from people across America—parents, teachers and administrators—about the everyday issues and challenges in our schools that need our national attention and support."
Other states targeted for potential events include Michigan; Vermont; California; Montana; Wyoming; New Jersey; Tennessee; North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; Ohio; Indiana; Florida; Utah; and Alaska. Additional states and events may be added during the course of the tour.
Duncan wants to ensure that he visits a mix of rural, urban, suburban and ethnically diverse districts, and hears from a broad range of stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, administrators and community and business leaders. Specific events will vary from small group private meetings to large public forums.
The meetings and events will be taped, and reports and video summaries will be published on the Department's Website, www.ed.gov. Duncan said the tour will "help launch an open, honest conversation about education reform, because this issue touches everybody in America.
"Education is not just an economic issue," he said, it's a moral issue. It's the civil rights issue of our generation. We have an obligation to give every child in America an education that helps them succeed in their career and fulfill their role as active and involved citizens."

Stimulus funds sent to schools

March 9, 2009
U.S. to Nation’s Schools: Spend Fast, Keep Receipts

By SAM DILLON
Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, sent a message to the nation’s school officials last week: Heads up! We’ll be sending you billions of dollars by month’s end. Spend the money quickly but wisely. And keep receipts; we’ll be asking.

The message, which went out Friday in documents e-mailed to governors, state education commissioners and thousands of school superintendents, provided the first broad guidelines for how the Education Department intends to channel $100 billion to the nation’s 14,000 school districts over the next few months. The expenditure is part of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package.

Some $44 billion will be made available to states before the end of this month, Mr. Duncan said, in the hope that layoffs can be averted. Hundreds of thousands of job losses in schools had been projected for the fall because of growing state budget deficits caused by a steep drop in tax revenues.

More school stimulus money will be distributed in the spring through the fall, the documents said, after states apply for the financing and provide Congressionally mandated “assurances” to Mr. Duncan that they are complying with federal education laws.

“Spend funds quickly to save and create jobs,” a five-page guidance document sent to the education officials said. It also urged educators to use the money in the stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in ways that “improve school achievement through school improvement and reform.” It also warned them to keep records of expenditures.

The guidance admonished educators to spend the stimulus money, which is temporary, in ways that would minimize the dislocation that could follow when it ran out in two years. Some department officials are describing the exhaustion of the stimulus money in two years as a “cliff” over which school districts could plunge if they do not spend the money wisely.

The money to be made available to states this month includes $5 billion in Title I financing, for disadvantaged students; about $6 billion for disabled students; and about $33 billion in fiscal stabilization money, which governors are to use to replenish education programs slashed in recent years and to prevent cuts to state education budgets for the coming school year.

House Republicans scramble for the money

House Republicans, as a group, may take great pride in the goose egg they offered President Obama's stimulus package. But now the unanimous opposition is struggling to bring that money home.

Republicans will be working hard to make sure the money they opposed ends up benefiting their home districts, highlighting the political tightrope they walk in this economic crisis. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is watching House Republicans -- and reading local media -- closely and is only too happy to highlight any happy talk about a stimulus Republicans voted against.

Back in his home district, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) found some nice things to say about the plan.

"Within the stimulus package there is some Pell Grant money, which is a good thing. It helps students be able to pay for their education and that's kind of a long term stimulus effect there. I mean obviously that's not gonna provide a job in the next 120, 180 days, but the ability of someone to get an education is an economic development tool," Luetkemeyer said at a local college. He was there, in another inside-outside Washington twist, to celebrate an earmark for a college building.

He lamented that there would be far fewer such earmarks in the future. "If they go back to the rules, it will make it very difficult to get earmarks through the next two years because number one we don't have any more money, we just blew it all on this stimulus package. Although, we're gonna have to print some more in order to be able to bail out the financial institutes and the automobile manufacturers," said Luetkemeyer.

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that the quotes aren't hypocritical, but rather demonstrate that Republicans did support a stimulus in general, just not the one Democrats presented to them.

"We would like to thank the DCCC for circulating these comments. They are proof-positive that Republicans stood willing and ready to support commonsense measures in the stimulus package until Nancy Pelosi unfortunately chose to undercut President Obama's message of bipartisanship by including absurd pork-barrel spending projects such as millions to protect a mouse in the San Francisco Bay, golf carts for government bureaucrats, and STD prevention funds. Republicans said 'yes' to a true stimulus package, but unanimously said 'no' to putting the politics of pork before the needs of the middle class," said Spain.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) put out a press release saying that he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."

In California's Inland Empire, battered by the economic downturn, the mostly Republican delegation is happy the stimulus passed, too, according to local news reports.

"Even the Republican lawmakers who oppose the bill say such projects are needed in the region," the local paper reports.

"All along he has believed infrastructure spending, in particular, should provide a boost to the Inland Empire's economy," a spokesman to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) said.

"While we philosophically have different opinions, we're obligated to make sure this money is spent properly," said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA). "All of us in the Inland Empire will do what we can to direct as much money as we can."
From: The Huffington Post.

Stimulus contains billions for schools

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303346.html?hpid=topnews
Stimulus Includes $5 Billion Flexible Fund for Education Innovation

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 14, 2009; Page A10
Education Secretary Arne Duncan would have $5 billion under the stimulus bill to back new approaches to improve schools, a fund that could prod states to raise standards and reward top teachers as the Obama administration presides over a massive infusion of federal education aid.
The Race to the Top Fund, as Duncan calls it, is part of about $100 billion the bill would channel to public schools, universities and early childhood education programs nationwide, helping stave off teacher layoffs, keep class sizes in check and jump-start efforts to revamp aging schools.
But the windfall also could mark the beginning of a deeper transformation of schools seven years after the No Child Left Behind law mandated an expansion of testing and new systems for school accountability.

"This is what I see as just an absolute historic opportunity," Duncan told reporters yesterday. He said the stimulus bill would help the Obama administration hammer three themes: "First and foremost, protecting children. Secondly, saving and creating jobs. And third, pushing a significant reform agenda."

President Obama in recent days has repeatedly stressed a bold approach to improve public education. In a surprise foray out of the White House last week to read to schoolchildren, he chose a D.C. public charter school as a backdrop.

"What I've asked Arne Duncan to do is to make sure that he works as hard as he can over the next several years to make sure that we're reforming our schools, that we're rewarding innovation the way that it's taking place here," Obama said at Capital City Public Charter School.

Obama campaigned on promises to increase federal funding for schools, responding to complaints from teachers unions and many educators who have long argued that Washington has made demands on schools without paying its fair share. But he also said he would shake up the status quo, drawing on a host of methods, including performance-pay plans with teachers' blessing, alternative teacher training programs and charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run.

The stimulus presents an unheard-of opportunity to push both agendas -- at least in the short term.

"You're not creating winners or losers," said Brown University education professor Martin West. "It's a lot easier to innovate when you can do it with new money."

Even as school leaders line up projects to overhaul old schools and seek ways to soften budget cuts, they also are on the lookout for innovative programs worthy of federal dollars and the national spotlight.

Arlington County Superintendent Robert G. Smith said he might seek a grant from Duncan to expand a program that provides extra support for Latino and African American students in Advanced Placement classes.

Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said federal backing for innovation is "a smart move" because some of the best school reform strategies percolate from the ground up. "The reason why Montgomery County does so well . . . is innovative teaching and learning, so there's no doubt our people have great ideas."
Over two years, the stimulus bill would funnel $53.6 billion to states to prevent layoffs and create jobs, and the bulk of that would go to schools and universities, including funds to modernize aging buildings. Another $25 billion would help students who are disabled or in poverty, groups the federal government has long pitched in to educate.
The package includes $17 billion to increase the maximum Pell Grant for needy college students by $500, to $5,350, and about $4 billion to expand federal preschool classes and child-care programs.

Duncan's $5 billion fund would be a pot of discretionary money much larger than any of his predecessors had, former education secretary Margaret Spellings said. It would allow Duncan to award grants to states that show progress in boosting student achievement, and he said it would support efforts to create better tests and shore up data systems to track student achievement.
He said he also would seek to use the fund "to really challenge states and partner with them to dramatically raise standards . . . and think very differently about how we recruit great teachers, reward them, recognize and incent them."

The fund would include $650 million to support partnerships between schools, or schools and nonprofit groups, to "scale up what works," Duncan said. Separately, the stimulus bill would include $200 million for teacher performance-pay programs.

Alexa Marrero, spokeswoman for Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, said there is broad support for many of the initiatives Duncan is likely to push. But she said education policy should be crafted through debate over reauthorization of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, not as part of the stimulus package.

"Congress has really worked hard to set out a path for reforming No Child Left Behind and for education reform more broadly," Marrero said. "The fact that legislation that is supposed to be about economic stimulus is being used to enact substantive education reform without the benefit of open debate and the inclusion of the American people, that's where the concern lies."

Education committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) said the fund will be critical to improving professional development for teachers and creating career incentives for those who take on additional responsibilities.

"This is a very serious amount of money in its total amount for education," Miller said. "Both the president and the secretary do not want to lose a year or two in the efforts to achieve reform that are necessary to create a modern, effective school system throughout this country."

Economic Stimulus and the schools

January 28, 2009
Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education

By SAM DILLON The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget.

The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II.

Critics and supporters alike said that by its sheer scope, the measure could profoundly change the federal government’s role in education, which has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local government.

Responding in part to a plea from Democratic governors earlier this month, Congress allocated $79 billion to help states facing large fiscal shortfalls maintain government services, and especially to avoid cuts to education programs, from pre-kindergarten through higher education.

Obama administration officials, teachers unions and associations representing school boards, colleges and other institutions in American education said the aid would bring crucial financial relief to the nation’s 15,000 school districts and to thousands of campuses otherwise threatened with severe cutbacks.

“This is going to avert literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday.

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee, said, “We cannot let education collapse; we have to provide this level of support to schools.”

But Republicans strongly criticized some of the proposals as wasteful spending and an ill-considered expansion of the federal government’s role, traditionally centered on aid to needy students, into new realms like local school construction.

Stimulus plan is too limited : Greider

Obama's Economic Plan Is Not Going to Save Us
By William Greider, The Nation
Posted on January 22, 2009, Printed on January 22, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121027/

The nation's fast-darkening circumstances define the essential dilemma of Barack Obama's presidency. His instinct is to govern by consensus, in the moderate middle ground of politics. Yet dire events are pushing the new president toward solutions more fundamental than those he had intended. The longer he resists taking more forceful action, the more likely it is that he will be overwhelmed by the gathering adversities.

Three large obstacles are blocking Obama's path. The first is one of scale: his nearly $800 billion recovery package sounds huge, but it is perhaps two or three times too small to produce a turnaround. The second is that the financial system--still dysfunctional despite the bailouts--requires much more than fiscal stimulus and bailout: the government must nationalize and supervise the banks to ensure that they carry out the lending and investing needed for recovery. This means liquidating some famous nameplates--led by Citigroup--that are spiraling toward insolvency. The third is that the crisis is global: the US economy cannot return to normal unless the unbalanced world trading system is simultaneously reformed. Globalization has vastly undermined US productive strength, as trade deficits have led the nation into deepening debtor dependence.
Read the entire post at the site: http://www.alternet.org/story/121027/

Schools and the Stimulus Plan

Published Online: January 16, 2009
Complete Coverage
Schools Would Get Big Boost in Stimulus Plan
By Alyson Klein


Cash-strapped school districts could see an unprecedented $100 billion infusion of federal aid under a massive economic-stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats this week.
The overall measure, put forth Jan. 15 by the House Appropriations Committee, is aimed at providing a $825 billion jolt to the stumbling U.S. economy, and to help avert what could be draconian cuts in state and local programs, including education.
The more than $100 billion in federal spending for education in the stimulus bill would be nearly double the entire $59.2 billion discretionary budget for the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal 2008.
The K-12 education funding would come from various components of the stimulus package. The legislation includes a $79 billion fund to help states to prevent cuts in services, the bulk of which is slated for education. On top of that, the measure outlines specific aid for school construction, support for early-childhood education, and substantial spending boosts for major Education Department programs, including Title I grants for educating disadvantaged students and aid for special education.
“We really have turned a corner here. This is a new era for education funding,” assuming the plan is enacted, said Edward R. Kealy, the executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, an advocacy coalition in Washington.
Mr. Kealy, who has been lobbying for increased federal education spending for more than two decades, said he had never seen dollar amounts for schools like those in the proposed House stimulus plan.
“This makes a very strong statement that providing adequate funding for education and modernizing schools is a key part of the solution to this economic crisis,” he said. “We hope this means that we can sustain that in future years. I know that’s going to be a challenge.”
Before taking office, members of President-elect Barack Obama's staff were on Capitol Hill this month, working with lawmakers to craft the measure. The House appropriations panel is slated to consider the bill Jan. 21, and the Senate was expected to release a similar plan.
Read the entire piece at EDWEEK.

Obama stimulus and Republican Earmarks

The Obama Stimulus
We first need to recognize that this is a Bush/Republican recession. And, it is the worst recession since 1945 when everything slowed down at the end of W.W.II. That’s quite a record.
In response, the Obama administration proposes a massive stimulus. This is the correct remedy. It is basic Keynesianism.
Now the Republican Senators ( who significantly caused this mess along with Larry Summers and others), want more money spent on tax breaks for the wealthy. Does that sound familiar?
After preaching about No ear marks, they are demanding the biggest ear mark of all; a major tax break for big business. There is every reason to be skeptical. Recall that we gave the finance industry 350 Billion to unfreeze the credit market and instead they spent it on themselves.
The perils of using tax breaks as a stimulus, or as a major part of the stimulus, are explained well by Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center here:
http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/blog/_archives/2009/1/5/4047116.html

See this by Paul Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th


So, the Republicans, after creating this mess, see tax cuts for the rich as the way out of this mess. Time for some street politics. See the articles below.