OBAMA'S SEC. of (illegal) LABOR IS LA RAZA SUPREMACIST HILDA SOLIS
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs
taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of
the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the
American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help
citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than
fail to enforce immigration laws.”
*
Bailed-out
banks spent big on financial lobbying
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY
The Associated Press
NEW YORK รข€” The 10 banks that received
the most bailout aid during the financial crisis spent over $16 million on
lobbying efforts in the first half of 2010, as the debate over the
financial-regulatory overhaul reached its height.
Bank of America and Wells Fargo both
also spent more than $2 million in the first half of the year. Spending far
less were PNC Bank, US Bancorp, Capital One Financial and Regions Financial.
The American Bankers Association, the main trade group for the industry, also
lobbied heavily, spending $4.2 million in the first half of 2010.
*
WSWS.org
As
US “recovery” collapses, White House rules out social relief
1
September 2010
Recent weeks have
seen a collapse in US home sales, a weakening of manufacturing activity, an
upward trend in jobless benefit claims and, on Friday, a downward revision of
second-quarter gross domestic product growth from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent.
The latter figure is
far below the rate of economic expansion needed to bring down unemployment, now
at its highest levels since the Great Depression. On the contrary, the sharp
slowdown in economic growth heralds a further rise in the jobless rate.
Month after month of mass unemployment,
compounded by sweeping cuts in social services at the state and local level and
wage cutting in both the private and public sectors, have already produced a
social disaster for tens of millions of Americans. One million families are
losing their homes to foreclosure every year. Hunger and homelessness are on
the rise.
USA Today reported Monday that the recession has
resulted in one in six Americans relying on government assistance to survive.
Over 50 million people are on Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance
program for the poor and disabled. That is an increase of at least 17 percent
since the recession began in December 2007.
Over 40 million are
receiving food stamps, an increase of nearly 50 percent since the slump began.
Close to 10 million are getting unemployment benefits, nearly four times the
number in 2007. More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18 percent jump
since the recession began.
While the vast
majority of workers are struggling to make ends meet or are sinking into
poverty, the rich are doing better than ever. Corporate profits are up sharply,
driven by downsizing and cost cutting. The stock market has recovered from its
lows in the spring of 2009, and executives are continuing to award themselves
seven- and eight-digit compensation packages.
Two years after the eruption
of the financial crisis, precipitated by the recklessness and criminality of
Wall Street, the chasm separating the financial elite and everyone else has
grown wider than ever. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the
rebound on Wall Street has led to a further polarization between rich and poor
in New York City. While the median pay of managerial workers was up 11 percent
from three years ago, the median weekly pay of non-managers had fallen 10.4
percent, to $472.
The latter figure is
barely above the official poverty line for a family of four of $22,000 a year,
an absurdly low plateau that, in New York, means something close to
destitution.
The response of the Obama
administration and the entire political establishment to the collapse of the so-called
“recovery” is to reject out of hand any significant spending to generate jobs.
Speaking from the
White House Rose Garden on Monday, Obama sought to lay the blame on the
Republicans for holding up his $30 billion small business bill—a token measure consisting
mainly of tax cuts and other incentives for small and large businesses and
so-called “community” banks. Beyond that, he spoke vaguely about more tax cuts
for business and incentives for renewable energy projects, adding that there is
no “silver bullet” to revive the economy.
White House spokesman
Robert Gibbs acknowledged there would be no major initiatives, saying, “There’s
only so much that can be done.” He went on to reassure big business that there
would be no use of public funds to hire unemployed workers, saying the
administration’s “targeted initiatives” would aim to “create an environment
where the private sector is not simply investing but also hiring.”
In an op-ed piece on
Sunday, the New York Times wrote: “[I]n the political realm a rare
consensus has emerged: The future is now so colored in red ink that running up
the debt seems politically risky in the months before the congressional
elections, even in the name of creating jobs and generating economic growth.
The result is that Democrats and Republicans have foresworn virtually any
course that involves spending serious money.”
Just one year ago,
Obama was emphatic in declaring that he would do “whatever it takes” to bail
out the banks. He did precisely that, allocating trillions in taxpayer dollars
to cover Wall Street’s gambling debts. At the same time, he opposed any
measures to restrict CEO pay or hold the corporate criminals responsible for
the catastrophe they had created.
He then intervened to
force General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and impose a 50 percent pay
cut on newly hired workers. That was the signal for a wave of corporate and
government wage cutting that is intensifying.
Now there is
supposedly “no money” for jobs—or schools, or housing, or relief for the
unemployed. This at a time when US banks and corporations are sitting on a cash
hoard of more than $1 trillion.
The media universally
asserts that the administration and congressional Democrats are constrained
from pursuing any serious stimulus measures by public demands for austerity in
advance of the November elections. This is a fraud.
Far from there being
a popular groundswell for austerity, the opposite is the case, as indicated by
a Gallop poll taken in June which found that 60 percent favored more government
stimulus to create jobs, and a poll this month showing that 85 percent opposed
to cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit.
There is no
contradiction between Obama’s $862 billion stimulus package of 2009 and his
administration’s overt shift to austerity today. Both represent the
implementation of the ruthless class policy of the American financial-corporate
elite.
Last February’s
stimulus bill—consisting largely of tax cuts and other incentives for
business—was a carefully calibrated measure designed to prevent a collapse in
consumer spending, avert a social explosion by creating the impression that the
government was doing something for “Main Street,” buy time to carry through the
bank bailout and create conditions for a revival of corporate profits and the
stock market.
These goals having
been largely achieved, at least for the present, the ruling class is intent on
keeping unemployment high and using mass joblessness to permanently drive down
the wages and conditions of the American working class to those that existed in
the 1930s, and to narrow the labor cost differential between American workers
and super-exploited workers in China and other “emerging economies.”
That, in a nutshell,
is the policy of the Obama administration and, whatever their tactical
differences, both big business parties. They have relied on the trade unions to
suppress the mounting anger and opposition in the working class and block any
mass resistance. The unions completely support the class-war policy of the
ruling class, as demonstrated in the announcement by the AFL-CIO and Service
Employees International Union last week that they were teaming up to raise $80
million for the Democrats in the midterm elections.
The unions will not
be able to prevent the eruption of mass social struggles. Already the first
signs of coming upheavals are emerging, showing that workers will move into
action in opposition to the corporatist union apparatuses. That is the
significance of last month’s rejection by auto workers at General Motors’ Indianapolis
stamping plant of the United Auto Workers’ attempt to impose a 50 percent wage
cut.
The Socialist
Equality Party calls on workers to break with the unions and establish
democratic rank-and-file action committees to organize factory occupations and strikes
against layoffs and plant closures and mobilize the support of the entire
working class. This industrial action must be combined with a political
struggle against Obama and both parties of big business, based on a socialist
program to break the stranglehold of the financial aristocracy.
We call for an
emergency public works program to provide every unemployed worker with a
decent-paying job. Millions should be hired to build schools, affordable
housing and hospitals and rebuild the public infrastructure. The resources for
such a program can and should be obtained by confiscating the wealth of the
capitalist class—beginning with the bankers, hedge fund owners and corporate
CEOs—and reorganizing economic life to serve the needs of the people, not private
profit.
Barry Grey
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