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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 2011)
opinion Retooling Obama’s Jobs Bill “challenging People to Shape a Better future now” B ernie f oSTer Founder/Publisher B oBBie D ore f oSTer executive editor T eD B AnkS advertising Manager J erry f oSTer account executive l iSA l oving news editor H elen S ilviS Multimedia editor D AviD k iDD graphic Designer M onicA J. f oSTer Seattle office Coordinator J ulie k eefe S uSAn f rieD Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 the Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub - lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of the Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2011 the Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. knowing What’s important can change your life! Subscribe to The Skanner – don’t miss an issue! Please sign me up for: q 1 year $74 q 2 year $140 q New Subscription q Renewal ________________________ name _________________ Address _________________ city _________________ State ______ ZiP ________ Phone Mail with check or money order to: The Skanner P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Page 4 The Portland Skanner E arlier this month, the President’s jobs bill failed in the Senate. Now the White House intends to break up the bill and gin up sufficient Republican support to pass key pieces. “We will now work with Senator Reid to make sure that the individual proposals in this jobs bill get a vote as soon as possible,” said President Obama in a statement released shortly after the Senate vote. This piecemeal approach might be politically expedient, but the provisions the White House is pushing are still a whiff policy- wise. They’re just too superficial. Extending unemployment benefits and cutting the payroll tax aren’t going to fuel the sustained, robust job growth Americans are so des- perate for. What the President can and should do is immediately rework his bill to pursue a structural realignment of the tax and regula- tory burden facing American busi- ness. Mr. Obama should focus his attention on reducing the tax bur- den faced by consumers and busi- nesses. The proposed legislation takes some steps in this direction. It cuts the payroll tax in half to 3.1 percent in 2012 and institutes a temporary tax credit for business- es that hire new workers or buy new equipment. But these cuts have already been tried and they don’t go far enough. Temporary cuts are no substitute for comprehensive tax reform, and they mean even less without com- mensurate spending reductions. Washington should be taking steps to simplify the tax code, broaden the base, and lower rates on corpo- rations and individuals. A MericA ' S f uTure Kmele Foster It’s time to stop tinkering around the edges of our Byzantine tax sys- tem and fundamentally reform it — it’s no longer controversial to admit that America’s tax code is impeding our ability to compete in the philosophy of previously failed efforts to stimulate the econ- omy. At best, short-term spending by government will produce short- term employment opportunities. And these temporary jobs often come at the expense of sustainable new employment in other parts of the economy. Rather than focusing on short- term solutions, the administration Extending unemployment benefits and cutting the payroll tax aren’t going to fuel the sustained, robust job growth Americans are so desperate for the global economy and create jobs. The half trillion-dollar jobs bill also contains billions in new spending. The president’s bill calls for public investments direct- should be empowering executives and entrepreneurs to create viable patterns of employment. If more government spending could turn around our desperate economic situation, then surely the first $1.5 At best, short-term spending by government will produce short-term employment opportunities ed at sectors that are politically popular among Democrats. For example, it earmarks $25 billion for investment in school infra- structure and $35 billion to state and city governments to prevent public teacher layoffs. But these “investments” reflect trillion stimulus would have solved the problem already. Finally, a recalibrated jobs bill must eliminate regulatory impedi- ments to industries that are proven job generators. One sector that could generate hundreds of thousands of new, high-paying jobs is domestic ener- gy production. Research suggests that opening up known offshore resources would generate 144,700 new positions and expanding access to federal lands for energy exploration would create 500,000 more. The President could immediate- ly encourage investment and job creation in the energy industry by simplifying permitting and reduc- ing the number of new regulations. Private companies should be allowed to explore and develop domestic energy resources without undo interference or assistance. The Solyndra scandal and the lackluster jobs numbers posted by other federally backed “green jobs” initiatives illustrate the gov- ernments inability to engineer a solution to the country’s employ- ment crisis. Opening new domes- tic frontiers for traditional energy production would generate the jobs that other politically popular programs have manifestly failed to produce. Obama’s jobs strategy is more of the same. Even if this new piece- meal strategy works, the results will be just as underwhelming as the White House’s previous efforts to stoke employment. A truly effective jobs initiative would per- manently cut, taxes, and reduce spending, while curtailing unnec- essary regulations, and empower industries that are proven to create jobs. Kmele Foster is the co-founder and vice president of telcoiQ, a telecommunications consultancy. he is also the chairman of america’s Future Foundation. Electrified Fences and Herman Cain I don’t know about you but I have about had it with Herman Cain. I never agreed with his politics but the more that I see him perform in front of white audi- ences the more it feels like a polit- ical minstrel show. His sense of so-called humor, including his bizarre ad that ends with cigarette smoke being blown into the cam- era, has reached the level of insult- ing. The particular “joke” that sticks in my craw, however, is his com- ment concerning the putting up of an electrified fence across our southern border in order to stop immigrants from crossing illegally into the USA. When pushed about this comment—that not a few peo- ple took quite seriously—he claimed that it was a joke. A joke? It starts to remind me of action on the streets where someone talks about someone else’s mother but keeps a smile on their face. A joke, Mr. Cain? What is so funny about people attempting to escape desperate and oppressive situations? Nearly a century ago, many of the ancestors of today’s African American popu- lation took dramatic and danger- ous steps to escape the vicious oppression and lawlessness we faced in the Jim Crow South. Hundreds of thousands T rAnS A fricA Bill Fletcher Jr. began the trek north, facing death and torture along the way. The rul- in the North desperately needed labor, much the way that various industries in today’s USA have looked for cheap labor. They encouraged African Americans to migrate to fill these roles in cities like East St. Louis, Illinois; Chicago; Detroit; Youngstown; and Pittsburgh. As these masses of migrants moved into these cities they were met with the most intense push back coming from white workers who saw the What is so funny about people attempting to escape desperate and oppressive situations? ing elite in the South wanted African Americans to remain in the South serving a subordinate African American migrants as people who had arrived to steal Sometimes, as my father would say, it is better to remain silent and to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it role. As World War I hit, industry their jobs and undermine their liv- ing standards. Rather than focus- ing on the way that big business was playing off white workers against blacks, these whites did everything they could to chase our ancestors out. The bloody Red Summer of 1919 with the race riots that mirrored a mini-civil war was one example. I keep wondering whether Mr. Cain thinks that, perhaps, an elec- trified fence should have been put around the South to keep migrants penned in like animals? I keep wondering whether Mr. Cain is ignorant enough to not understand that the migration from Latin America and the Caribbean is directly related to the domineering policies of the USA towards these countries and the resulting under- development? A joke, Mr. Cain? Perhaps he would do better reading a little his- tory. Sometimes, as my father would say, it is better to remain silent and to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior Scholar with the institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of transafrica Forum. he is the co-author of Solidarity Divided and can be reached at papaq54@hotmail. com.
