Dueling Jobs Forums or Fiascos

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus generated between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs and, as unemployment rose, kept the rate between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points lower than it would have been without the stimulus package. The October unemployment rate posted by the Department of Labor was 10.2% not counting those who have stopped looking or are underemployed – when those are included the number is between 15-17.5%. According to the US Department of Labor unemployment fell to 10% in November atleast in part because more people stopped looking or took a seasonal parttime job.

Thursday Obama sought fresh ideas from the 130 corporate executives, small business owners and labor leaders who attended the jobs forum. The president said the leading question of the day is “how do we get businesses to start hiring again.”

Jobs is clearly the nation’s number one issue and pressure to act is coming from all sides. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), in particular, says Obama has not done enough to address the severe economic problems in the black community. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif, reportedly issued a warning Wednesday that the 43 members of the caucus are planning to vote with the GOP to derail a number of Democratic bills if black unemployment is not addressed.

Unemployment among black is 15.7% with the same add ons for those who are no longer looking or are underemployed. That’s a 42% increase since Obama’s election. Youth unemployment exceeds 40%,  Obama dismissed CBC’s criticism.saying, “I will tell you that I think the most important thing I can do for the African-American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is get the economy going again and get people hiring again,” he told the USA Today. .

Republicans held their own jobs forum across town. “I don’t think there is a moment to lose. I think we have to move aggressively toward policies that actually promote jobs. And so far what’s been tried hasn’t worked very well,” said Lawrence Lindsey, a top economic adviser early in the administration of President George W. Bush. Lindsey was also in attendance at the administration event.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office who had been 2008 Republican nominee Sen. John McCain’s chief economic adviser, said that the single best thing Obama could do to create jobs was “to reverse course on a dangerous agenda of debt-financed spending, crippling regulation, expensive mandates, and intrusive government expansion.”

And Republican leader Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, was hosting his own job forum, called “The Real Jobs Summit,” in Mississippi, just one day after he held one in Ohio. 

Hundreds turned out at a downtown hotel in Cincinnati to hear Gringrich promote cutting taxes and reducing government spending.