Candidates, How Will You Fix The Depression?

Here's one way:

Hillary Clinton announced a groundbreaking
policy initiative that would eliminate tax incentives for companies
that outsource jobs and use the savings to encourage U.S. companies
to create – or “insource” – jobs here in the United States.
Her insourcing agenda provides $7 billion per year in new tax
benefits and investments to help companies create high-paying,
high-quality jobs here in the U.S. and to compete in the global
economy. Hillary made the announcement at an economic summit hosted
by the campaign focused on “Jobs For the 21st Century.” The event
also marked the end of Hillary’s six-day Solutions For The American
Economy Tour.

Her insourcing plan would enact the largest expansion of tax benefits
for research and job growth; create at least 15 new “Innovation and
Research Clusters” across the country, launch a new “Insourcing
Markets Tax Credit” to spur business investment communities facing
global competition, and catalyze the 21st Century manufacturing
sector with several bold new programs, including the “Made Green In
America” Fund, which would provide $500 million annually in
investments to encourage the creation of high-wage jobs in clean
energy manufacturing technologies.

“We reward companies like Exxon-Mobil who park $56 billion in
profits overseas because they don’t have to pay a dime in U.S.
taxes on those profits. And we’re using your tax dollars to reward
companies that ship your jobs overseas,” said Clinton. “My
insourcing agenda is based on a different approach. I believe our
government should get out of the business of rewarding companies for
shipping jobs overseas, and get back into the business of rewarding
companies that create good, high-wage jobs – with good benefits –
right here in America.”

Hey AOL are you going to add my comment or is it an inconvenient time to post a comment. I am tired of spending time typing up a comment only to try to add and you tell me, comment could not be added at this time. AOL you stink. Obama also stinks as a candidate with his WEAK CHARACTER. I COULD GO ON BUT YOU WON'T POST MY COMMENTS. SO I WON'T BOTHER.

We wouldn't be in the housing crisis if there were not people like this. Penny Pritzker, a white woman as the mastermind of Obama's campaign finance.

We know she was on the Board of Superior Bank a Chicago-area thrift that was seized by federal regulators after it ran into problems with sub prime lending.

The sub prime mess is also driving the economic distress in the U.S If you traced today’s sub-prime crisis back to its origins, you would come upon the role of the Pritzkers and Superior Bank of Chicago. This has pushed thousands of homeowners toward foreclosure today.

It would be accurate to say the Pritzkers ran a very large nation-wide predatory lending operation. They targeted the very core of Obama's supporters, blacks. Ms. Pritzker’s role in the bank failure, should undermines this candidate’s criticisms of sub prime lenders who target low-income borrowers.

One reason we don't hear the Clinton campaign raising this as an issue is because Penny's brother has apparently been playing a spokes-person role in Hillary's campaign.

In May of 2007, Jay Robert, (J.B.), threw his support behind Hillary Clinton, representing a coup for her campaign by wresting the billionaire out of Obama’s home town of Chicago, and better still, the brother of Obama’s Campaign Finance Chair.

J.B. Pritzker announced he would head a new grassroots organization called Citizens for Hillary Clinton. Pritzker told reporters at the time, the new organization would go into states “where we haven’t fully organized” and seek out campaign supporters as well as raise funds.

Then there is Obama's Bill to send $845 Billion to the UN, which will be $1.5 Trillion if it has to be borrowed.

Here's another way:

At a town hall in Greensburg, Hillary Clinton outlined her plan to help families have a secure retirement. Her proposals would help families save, strengthen defined benefit pensions, and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for future generations. Through her American Retirement Accounts Plan, Clinton would offer families up to $1,000 in a matching tax cut to save. In addition, Clinton said she would shore up employer-sponsored pensions pledged to protect Social Security from Bush-McCain privatization efforts.

"When I’m President, privatizing Social Security will be completely out of the question. That's a big difference between Senator McCain and me. Senator McCain said something stunning the other day – he pledged to continue President Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security," said Clinton. "He's already promised to continue George Bush's failed Iraq policy and to make permanent his tax breaks for the wealthy few. Now, he's taking up President Bush's assault on Social Security. In a nutshell, that’s John McCain's plan for America: four years more of the same. You don't need to look any further than Bear Stearns and Wall Street lately to know that our workers and seniors simply can’t afford the Bush-McCain privatization gamble."

And still more ways:

Hillary stated that we need both an immediate, short-term plan to jumpstart the economy – and a long-term economic vision with strategies to keep the economy going well into the future.

So let's start with the short-term. If I were President right now, I would work with the Congress to jumpstart the economy by immediately addressing the housing crisis, creating new jobs, and getting money back into the pockets of the American people.

We know that the loss of a home is devastating and so many families across our country are facing that. But it’s not only those who are actually losing their homes I worry about. Because of this mortgage crisis, every home owner is losing value in our homes. The American people have lost more than $1.3 trillion worth of value in our homes in the last year – that’s nearly half the size of the entire United States government budget. And African American families are especially hard hit – subprime loans are five times more common in predominantly African American neighborhoods than predominantly white ones.

And nearly a year ago, I called for immediate action to address this mounting mortgage crisis. Less than two weeks after that, the Bush administration told Congress that what I was calling for wasn't necessary-that the problem was contained. Several months later, the President assured us that there would be a soft landing for the housing market. But now we know better. So all of last year, I proposed policies to help families keep their homes. I wrote to the regulators urging them to take their heads out of the sand and do something for the millions of families at risk of foreclosure. I introduced legislation to crack down on abusive lending practices and give states the resources to help at-risk families avoid losing their homes.

The result? A plan from President Bush that lets banks off the hook and leaves homeowners to fend for themselves. In the words of one expert, the President’s plan was "the bank lobby's dream." This Administration has delivered a foreclosure notice on the American Dream.

The President's plans to fix our economy would do next to nothing about the foreclosure crisis. And they said that my insistence on stopping foreclosures just doesn’t make sense. Well I’m sorry to disagree. The housing crisis is contributing to rising unemployment. Construction jobs are disappearing— and I see a few hard-hats here in the audience. South Carolina alone lost 2,800 construction jobs in 2007. It’s erasing families’ wealth, jeopardizing consumer spending, which constitutes two-thirds of our economy. It’s caused $100 billion in losses to banks, making them less likely to offer credit to businesses and families that need it.

That's why my plan to fix the economy starts by doing everything possible to ensure that we don't lose any more homes and that we stabilize the economy when it comes to the mortgage crisis.

I want to start with a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. If the bank is about to foreclose on your home, you should have some breathing room to restructure your mortgage. I'm calling for freezing the monthly rate on adjustable rate mortgages for at least five years or until the mortgages have been converted into loans that families can afford. If you have an adjustable mortgage that’s about to skyrocket, you'll have the chance to pay it off with affordable payments.

People say well isn't this rewarding people who maybe got in over their heads? Well to some extent it is trying to stop what is happening that will affect all of us. If we don’t help these families work out their mortgages now we will have more empty homes because the housing market is so low right now, nobody is buying. Then we'll have deteriorating neighborhoods, then we'll have decreasing tax revenues for cities and towns- it becomes a vicious cycle.

That's why I also would also create a $30 billion fund to help hard-hit communities and distressed homeowners weather the foreclosure crisis. We need to be sure to shore up our communities so that they don't begin to also deteriorate in the face of a loss in the home market. I also would include direct tax rebates to working and middle class families. We need to target it to those who are most in need.

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate along with the White House appear to be nearing a deal and I am heartened to hear that they are planning to extend assistance to the tens of millions of working Americans who need it the most. That's what I have been calling for and that’s what I think we have to do. But I also want to target the needs of working families that are really facing tough choices. We need relief from skyrocketing energy bills. We need expanded unemployment insurance for those who are struggling to find a job.

But I want to think about the future, that’s why I would take immediate steps to spur "green collar" job growth: High-wage, renewable energy jobs that are good for our environment and cannot be outsourced.

I would do this immediately through a crash weatherization program that would put people to work, helping to insulate homes, and give green collar job training initiatives to help prepare people.

I would also implement my Green Building Fund to rebuild and renovate schools and other public buildings to help make them more energy efficient. We can create millions of new jobs in America through clean, renewable energy. I know we can do it because I’ve seen what other countries have done.

Germany decided a few years ago to make a big bet on solar power. They creating tax incentives, they created training programs to take construction workers and others to know how to install solar panels. They have created several hundred thousand new jobs in three short years. They have a smaller economy than ours. If we got serious about this, I know we could do the same. I really hope that as part of this recovery package, we start getting serious about the future. We have to stop the crisis but then we have to plan for an economy that will keep generating good new jobs, and clean energy is our best bet.

But jumpstarting the economy in the short-term is just the beginning. We need a long-term vision to build a strong, prosperous economy for the next generation. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that, the difference between a politician and a statesman is that the politician thinks about the next election, while the statesman thinks about the next generation. We've got to start thinking about the next generation. We can't do this piecemeal; we've got to start helping people more.

Maybe you want to start saving for retirement, but you can't do it because your taxes are too high and your wages aren't high enough. Maybe you want to go back to school, but your health care premiums are too high so you can't afford tuition.

We live in a complex, interconnected, global economy. All of our challenges are all together now. We can't just put band-aids on one and expect to solve our problems. What we have to do is have a plan to create good jobs and restore fairness to the economy. We need to renew the promise of America that if you work hard, you can get ahead. We need to return to fiscal responsibility, so that Washington once again lives within a budget, just like you and your family has to do.

I believe solving the jobs crisis over the long run starts with solving the energy crisis. That's why I will create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to jumpstart investments in clean energy technologies. We will create a green revolution with investments in biofuels, wind, solar, geothermal, all of the clean energy and energy efficiency changes we need to make. And as we create these new job possibilities for the next generation we will pay for it by eliminating the tax subsidies for the big oil companies and require them to pay into the Strategic Energy Fund, or invest in alternative energy themselves. They have made record profits in recent years. Now it’s time they did their fair share.

I also know that we won’t get any of this done until the two oil men leave the White House but as soon as they do, we will start to work on this long-term vision.

We also help create jobs by modernizing and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. The tragic bridge collapse in Minnesota this past summer, a recent levee break in Nevada, and what happened with the levees in New Orleans are painful reminders that our infrastructure is in dangerous disrepair.

Every billion dollars that we spend fixing crumbling infrastructure creates 48,000 new jobs. I have a Rebuild America Plan to invest $10 billion over ten years in an "Emergency Repair Fund." We need to modernize our ports, our rail systems, our airports, our public transit systems, our bridges, our tunnels, our roads. We need to expand access to broadband across America, particularly to rural areas.

We need to end this Administration’s war on science and restore America to its rightful place. As the innovation nation, I will increase investments in basic and applied research at the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and our other government agencies and universities. We became so successful after World War II because business and science worked hand in hand with government. Our great universities like Furman were on the cutting edge of discoveries that we translated into better outcomes for people.

But creating jobs is just the beginning. We need to empower our workers and ensure that our tax system is fair. That's the second piece of a long-term plan.

For the past seven years, the oil companies, the predatory student loan companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies have had a president who stands up for them. I intend to be a president who stands up for you every single day about how we make America work better for you.

During the 1950s and 60s which many of us look back at with great appreciation because the economy worked so well, for so long, for so many, we had a much higher percentage of our workforce unionized. Now it is much lower. We need to make sure people can organize and bargain for good wages and safe working conditions.

We need to be sure that we restore fairness to the economy by restoring fairness to the tax code. Right now, some of the people I represent in New York City, Wall Street investment managers, making $50 million a year pay just 15% on their earnings – while a teacher making $50,000 pays 25%. I don't think that's right and I’ve been calling to raise the taxes on those people at the top.

.....and we could go on!

Well....you did ask!

I don't understand how these banks could lend money to people with insufficient income to lending ratio and these banks also allowed these people to buy a house with very little money down. Well, if Alan Greenspan and the Fed'l Reserve had done their HW years ago they could have foreseen the housing bubble and collapsing banks, etc. This has all happened before, but people ignored it. They also forget history repeats itself. These people who bought houses with no money down deserve to lose their houses. When I bought a house 20 years ago, I had to put down a 20% down payment. I also got a fixed rate 30 yr. mortgage at 10% interest rate, I then refinanced years later at 7% and then sold the house in 2000 for a profit (when the prices were cycling back up after the housing bubble of 1990 that burst). Bought another house got a loan at 7% interest. Then refinanced at 5% when interest rates dropped got a 15 yr. mtge. fixed rate @ 5%. I also put down 2/3 on the house. So now people like me who did it the right way aren't the ones who are getting foreclosed on. The prices will go up again in about 5 to 7 years, they always go back up again at some point as history has shown. Look it up. We also should not be bailing these banks who made these bad loans, there should have been some oversight on what they were doing for the last 8 years from the FED or another entity. We knew there was a Housing Bubble 5 years ago, all the signs where there. People chose to be blind and ignored the obvious signs. They were greedy & couldn't wait to take out equity lines of credit, further compromising themselves. When I grew up in the 1970's average people were driving around in average cars (people were not leasing $40,000 to $80,000 vehicles). They also lived within their means, there was no Cable TV, Cell Phones, Computers, Foreign luxury cars were rare, Central A/C in a house was rare, people were not running to the mall to constantly spend money on things they had no need for.

Some of the folks commenting on here make interesting points. But, yeah, the main point is - Rome burns while these candidates fiddle. Obama and Hillary are too busy trashing each other to deal with much else, McCain is quickly showing himself to be George Bush, the third term. McCain is touring somewhere in the South, where he is re-hashing Bush's failed economic agenda.
Is this all supposed to make us feel confident?

to tzada

would that be the same Subprime lending Industry that donated one million dollars to Obama's presidential campaign fund

Even snarky blogger get older Ken...you might want to be careful making fun of age. In fact, the old guy looks in better shape than you, lol.

Ken Layne,

On the ball as usual. It took forever for anyone to call a recession a recession. I realize that economists like to look backwards after a bit to officially call a spade a spade. But, the average person on the street has seen this coming for a long time. Aside from the obvious, the grocery store is a big key to when we are screwed.

An artificially propped-up stock market is going to correct itself sooner or later and we will all be at the movies. A depression does seem immanent. I guess Bush's deal is to try and stall it until he gets out of office...to preserve his laughable legacy. Man, history will never be able to forget this guy.

If it goes on for a long time (the next Great Depression), you will be able to tell with me...I'll be forced to watch Tom Cruise's movies. Trust me, that will be a sad day for all.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Mr. Clark

I agree completely.

This is what really matters. This is what people should be discussing, not the HS level gossip of who is hangin with so and so and, "Did you just hear what he/she said?"

Maybe the election process is one looooong cheap movie we can all watch to escape the reality of life.

geez can you believe it, Hillary actually has answers, real solutions, writen down, and worked out

who would have thought

Me, and all her loyal supportors.

TIME WE STARTED REALIZING HILLARY HAS THE BETTER IDEAS, AND SMARTER SOLUTIONS THAT WILL BE EFFECTIVE AND BENEFIT ALL THE PEOPLE OF THIS GREAT NATION

not a lot of empty promises. or copycat ideas that come from Obama

CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama received key endorsements Friday from a top former Clinton administration official and two former Democratic senators.


Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary under President Clinton, endorsed Sen. Obama Friday.

Robert Reich, a former Clinton cabinet member and longtime friend of the former president, formally endorsed Obama's White House bid, saying that "my conscience won't let me be silent any longer."

"Although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama's strike me as even more so," Reich wrote on his blog.

He served as the Secretary of Labor from 1993-1997 and is currently a professor at Brandeis University.

I'd like to think that mentioning the strong points of Obama will be enough. I didn't count on the Hillary fanatics that would rather bash Obama than praise Hillary. PA wake up!

To: bonbon7:03PMApr 20th 2008

It does appear that you have diarrhea of the mouth.

To: vlg5:45PMApr 20th 2008

How can you be so stupid to not see that Hillary is the problem, not the solution.

As president Obama will fix a lot of things that Bill Clinton and George Bush destroyed.

Since Hillary said "Screw Them" to southern white voters I'm sure she won't be expecting my vote. North Carolina voters watch out, she's being condescending to you, too!

1) ABC's debate was in a class of its own, with more scandal and non-policy questions than any other. ABC asked the most scandal questions, and both ABC and NBC devoted only half of their questions to policy issues. The CNN debates were dramatically more policy-focused. Here's a breakdown:

Policy Non-Policy Scandal
CNN (1/31) 31 3 1
CNN (2/21) 23 5 2
NBC 24 17 5
ABC 32 14 13


2) Barack Obama has received the overwhelming majority of scandal questions over the course of the four debates, by a margin of 17 to 4. Obama has fielded questions about his "bitter" remarks, his connections to 60s-era radical William Ayers, two questions about flag lapels, two questions about his alleged plagiarism of speeches, three questions on Louis Farrakhan, and eight about Jeremiah Wright.

Clinton has received only four such questions -- two about her Bosnia trip, one about a photo of Obama in African garb that was linked to her campaign without evidence by the Drudge Report, and one over-the-top inquiry about Bill Clinton ("If your campaign can't control the former president now, what will it be like when you're in the White House?").