Jobs and Economic Justice Tour Launched

cross-posted from OurFuture.org

by Isaiah J. Poole, 3/10/11

"...The Progressive Caucus is launching a "jobs and economic justice" tour around the country, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., announced at the Summit on Jobs and America's Future.

The tour is designed to promote an alternative to the "so be it" agenda of congressional conservatives and their corporate backers that Ellison says is attacking the fundamental underpinnings of the middle class — and ultimately the principles of American democracy.

Ellison was at a session of the jobs summit that included Rep. George Miller, who with Ellison last year campaigned for a $100 billion public jobs bill that if enacted would have created an additional 1 million jobs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is launching his "America Fast Forward" initiative to promote new transportation investment.

Ellison said that the jobs and economic tour will promote a three-part agenda that he said was designed to be inspiring and a political winner:

• "Let's rebuild our country," creating infrastructure jobs that can't be exported, using steel and other raw materials from America.
• A "trade agenda that is about fair trade, not just about moving jobs out of the country."

• "An affirmation of public jobs and public employees."

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Conyers Calls On President Obama to Enact A Bold And Effective Emergency Job Creation Plan

(Washington, DC - 1/25/10) - Today, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) called on President Obama to boldly and decisively address national job creation and further economic recovery initiatives in this evening’s State of the Union Address.

]“President Obama must now provide bold and decisive leadership and move this nation forward with an effective and targeted national job creation program that will put millions of unemployed Americans in my district in the rest of the country back to work,” Conyers said. “I encourage him to lead the country in investing in more initiatives that spur and invest in creation, innovation, and infrastructure. We cannot allow politics to brush these major issues under the rug any longer. We must face them and fix them.”

Congressman Conyers urges President Obama to consider the following action items:

• Create a national job creation program that will put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. For example, I propose we enact the Humphrey Hawkins Bill which was first created in 1978 and established a federal government-run jobs program.
• Organize a series of national town hall meetings across the nation to assess the unemployment crisis in America and hear from the American people about what they think the federal government should do to create millions of jobs.
• Call for a series of national, regional, state, & local job creation conferences in order to seek input from business leaders, local & state elected officials, economists, faith leaders, and ordinary citizens about their ideas on how to put people back to work.
• Re-examine the impact of NAFTA and other trade agreements, and consider renegotiating trade agreements that are more favorable to the U.S. We need to see exactly where we lost our manufacturing jobs, and see if we can replace these manufacturing jobs with new green manufacturing or infrastructure development jobs.
• Push for the development of light rail and monorails in cities where there are severe traffic and pollution problems, and where citizens are unable to get to and from work, from airport terminals, or utilize public transportation because it does not exist in their cities or towns but is desperately needed.
• Help secure an extension in unemployment insurance benefits for the 99er’s, updating our country’s unemployment insurance program.
• Support “Right to Rent” housing legislation to help American families especially in Hardest-Hit areas to remain in their homes.
• Consider a one-year mortgage foreclosure moratorium until there is a more effective solution to housing crisis that will affect 2-3 million home owners next year.
• Consider creating a HUD funded program where transitional apartments are built by nonprofit housing developers, public housing, and for-profit housing developers to house the new unemployed.