President Obama’s jobs plan is not all that progressives wanted but it is certainly more than conservatives expected. Republican leaders nevertheless were somewhat moderate in their response--not nearly as hostile as they were to other Obama initiatives. They obviously know the public is angered at the constant Washington legislative dance of stalemate.
The tone of moderation, however, lasted only until through the weekend when the President announced how he intended to pay for the $447 billion American Jobs Act. President Obama wants to put new limits on itemized deductions for families earning more than $250,000 per year, change the depreciation rules for corporate airplanes, and end subsidies for coal and gas companies.
Republican leaders immediately objected, arguing the President was adopting an all-or-nothing approach. In light of GOP actions since Obama took office, we at CACG view this objection as the height of hypocrisy. President Obama is doing what a president should do--presenting a plan to deal with an important American problem and a way to pay for it.
There have been several other important news stories in the last few days. The federal government announced yesterday that over 15 percent of Americans are now living in poverty--some 46 Million of our fellow citizens. One fifth of these are children under the age of 18. More than half of all in poverty are employed but simply do not make enough to escape poverty.
Another pressing issue was highlight in a Washington Post story Sunday headlined, “Tax Policy Feeds Gap Between Rich, Poor.” The specific tax policy is the rate on capital gains, profits from the sale of stocks, bonds, and real estate. The article is part of a Post series on breakaway wealth in America. The Post noted that the Republican Party, with much help from some Democrats, had been pushing lower capital gains rates for decades which is part of the reason why America is one of the most economically unequal of all industrial nations.
Let's cite a few statistics.
Tax returns show that the richest 400 American Families have more assets than the bottom 150 million Americans.
In the years from 2005 to 2009, middle class white Americans lost 16 percent of their assets, black families lost 53 percent and Hispanics lost 66 percent.
Meanwhile, the richest Americans dramatically increased their wealth--with the richest 1 percent receiving 36 percent of all income in 2009.
Because of capital gains and other loopholes, Americans making between $1 and $1.5 million on average now have an effective tax rate of 24 percent. Those making over $10 million a year have an effective tax rate of 19.4 percent.
How do you stack up against these figures? How does America stack up against these figures?
In light of the above, we find the President’s approach to paying for the American Jobs Plan to be very logical and appropriate and, most importantly, it is fair. The richest Americans are now richer than any other Americans in history. They pay a lower tax rate than they have in decades.
Conservatives claim this tax rate benefits other Americans because the money trickles down. This is economic nonsense. President Bush had three major tax cuts and had the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.
We applaud President Obama for his jobs plan and his approach to paying for it. And we look forward to more of the President’s ideas on the issues confronting America as well, obviously, the ideas of the Republican Party, its leaders in Congress and the men and woman who wish to be the GOP nominee for President. We will examine all of these ideas here at CACG.
We will be using this CACG Forum to present articles not only on job creation but on the American economy both in the short and long term. There are many reasons for our employment problem and we will explore these. One such reason certainly is the American educational system. We Americans claim - and are likely correct - that our higher education is the best in the world. However, our high school graduates lag far behind the graduates of other nations, particularly in areas such as science and mathematics. The Common Good demands an economy that benefits not only those with the talent to succeed at Harvard, but those who sweep the floors and cook the meals at Harvard.
Naturally, we will examine issues pertaining to our health care system. We Americans face the contradiction that our country spends almost twice as much on health care as any other industrialized nation, yet we are in the mid-level of areas such as mortality, diabetes, and closer to the bottom of the ranks of industrial nations in preventable deaths and infant mortality. We view this as a moral disgrace, and a disgrace that the Affordable Care Act is largely designed to assuage. Those who denounce “Obamacare” must come forward with their plans to address this moral disgrace.
We are dismayed by those GOP candidates who are attacking the viability of the American Social Security system which has does so much to take older Americans out of poverty. Social Security is not a “ponzi scheme.” It is the most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world.
At CACG, we will be reaching out to our broad network of associates to help us approach the above noted issues, and other public policy issues, in the truest tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, always focusing on that tradition’s central concern for justice and the promotion of the Common Good.
We welcome your comments and suggestions, either here at the CACG Forum or on our Facebook page. Our voice is being heard, both in the halls of power here in Washington and in the union halls and church halls outside the Beltway. We have, in President Obama, a President committed to the kind of pragmatic solutions to our nation’s social and economic ills that have long characterized presidential leadership by presidents of both parties. We should bring him – and anyone else who stands for social justice – our ideas to address poverty, promote the Common Good, and build the policy foundation for a more just America.
The 2012 election is fourteen months away, and America can’t wait. We need effective, pragmatic solutions now. We at CACG will not fail in our effort, indeed our mission, to look at the issues facing America through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching and to advocate for policies that are true to the principles of justice that tradition contains. Join us. Tell your friends to join us. We know for certain that conservatives, many of whom claim the mantle of religion for their ideas, will be raising their voices in opposition to anything that promotes social justice. Join us at CACG in raising your voice, uniting it with the voices of progressive Catholics nationwide, to promote the more humane vision that is the very heart of the Gospel.
