Labor & Employment Law

Pelosi Says Job Creation Is Economically and Ethically Right

By Mike Hall

Creating jobs and forging an economy that breaks out of the boom-and-bust cycle that always leaves working families busted is both good policy and morally right, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the hundreds of progressive activists at the America’s Future Now conference this morning.

“We have an ethical responsibility to create good jobs and economic necessity to create good jobs.”

She said it is imperative that lawmakers, policymakers and especially voters work to “achieve an economic prosperity that not only puts people back to work,” but opens the doors of economic opportunity that have been shut for the millions of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

We need to create a new prosperity….Let’s build a future?America’s Future now based on job creation?jobs, jobs, jobs.

Pelosi outlined three pillars?all of which lead to job creation?upon which that new prosperity can be built. Those are investments in health care reform, education and establishing a new clean energy/climate change policy.

Not only does the recently passed health care reform law provide coverage to 32 million more Americans and “makes health care a right, no longer a privilege,” but it will also create more than 4 million new jobs, Pelosi said.

In addition, the health care reform law made a $77 billion down payment on education particularly by making college more affordable, by increasing Pell grants and keeping interest rates low on subsidized federal student loans.

Pelosi spoke for nearly 30 minutes, with the loud chanting of disablity rights activists throughout. The activists are seeking passage of the Community Choice Act, which has not been voted on in the House. As the chanting continued unabated, Pelosi remarked:

Listen, I’m used to noise. I talk to the Democratic caucus every day.

On energy, said Pelosi, a new energy policy is a national security issue by reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and an environmental and health issue by reducing dangerous emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.

But it is also “an economic issue to fuel our prosperity by creating jobs in a clean, green way.” Pointing to the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico, where the collapsed BP oil rig continues to spill millions of barrels of oil 50 days after the blast, Pelosi said:

When we seen the environmental, economic, and cultural impact of the tragedy on the Gulf Coast, we know that we need a new energy policy. A new energy policy is a moral issue. If you believe as I do that this planet is God’s creation, we have a moral obligation to care for it and pass it on to our future generations in a responsible way.

And a new energy policy is an opportunity to ensure our new prosperity.

Taking on the latest hysteria over the nation’s budget deficit, Pelosi said the best way to begin reducing the deficit is to create jobs and “get revenue flowing back into the treasury again.” She also reminded the audience that there has been an $11 trillion swing from the budget surplus George W. Bush inherited when he took office to the huge deficit he left behind for President Obama.

The deficit is here because of George W. Bush’s, the Republican’s tax cuts for the wealthy and two unpaid wars…[and] because Bush administration and Republican policies led to recklessness on Wall Street and joblessness on Main Street….We have to sweep it up.

She said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that by September, the economic recovery package will have saved or created 3.7 million jobs. “We are on the right path but have to do more.” Pointing to the November elections, Pelosi said:

Republicans want to take us back to failed policies of the Bush administration. We are not going back….We’ve got to go door to door to door to make sure we have a strong majority to create jobs, invest in education for young people and lower health care costs for all.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 08, 2010 (boomark / email).