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ABOUT THE QUICK TAKE Every Friday, the Quick Take columnists will offer their views on an issue of significance to American University. Notable members of the campus community will also be invited to contribute to this new feature. Suggestions for topics and other ideas from readers are welcome and encouraged, so please submit comments to edpage@theeagleonline.com. |
Joe Wisniewski:
Obama presses on to solve America's problems
Rachel Lomot:
The Jobs Act's impact on education
Professor Robert I. Lerman:
How to improve on a problematic jobs plan
Joe Gruenbaum:
A needed boost for reelection prospects?
Obama presses on to solve America's problems
By Joe Wisniewski
With unemployment at staggering levels, political gridlock paralyzing our government and extremist rhetoric running rampant on both sides of the spectrum, the truth has become a rare commodity. When you look beyond all the rhetoric, one truth becomes evident: the best strategy for social welfare is to get people jobs. For college students, the jobs are scarce, as unemployment for our age group is twice the nationwide average. When President Obama came before a joint session of Congress last week, he proposed a $450 billion jobs plan to help jumpstart the economy. At first glance, the plan’s benefits seem as if they would have no impact on our generation.
However, this perception is deceiving. The plan opens up Self-Employment Assistance programs for young entrepreneurs, who could never turn their dream into reality under today’s economic pressure. Think of it as $2,000 of monthly seed money for new small businesses. This amount of money may seem low, but keep in mind that it’s been done before. The original owners of Whole Food Market lived in their first store to save money. The first Starbucks opened because three school teachers put everything on the line to make the business work. Apple started in a garage.
It is that level of persistence and determination that will one day save us from this recession, not the extremist politicians, pundits who take advantage of dire times, or the pessimists who have already declared America a dying superpower. Last week, we saw the President stand above the political turmoil, pressing on to solve America’s problems. This is the spirit we saw in in the 2008 campaign. This spirit has led him to take the middle of the aisle, leading not by politics or charisma, but by example. This jobs plan might be his finest example yet.
Joe Wisniewski is the Programming Director for AU Democrats.
The Jobs Act's impact on education
By Rachel Lomot
Coming from the perspective of a college student who is an incessant advocate for education, I hope President Obama’s Job Act will be successful in aiding education. However, I am skeptical; partisan politics are taking over congress, halting any real progress.
Education needs to be reformed. The President knows this, as do our congressmen. The Jobs Act has a plan. It proposes to spend $30 billion solely to renovate deteriorating schools. Obama asks, “How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart?” This is true, I have spent some time in an after school program where supplies were scarce. That environment is not conducive to working. We can feel it here as AU students, I enjoy my class in the new SIS building a great deal more than my class in the basement of EQB.
The Jobs Act report states, “The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs.” Modernizing our classrooms could motivate students to reach further education. Furthermore, Community Colleges are also included in the funding. This may in turn put more students into the workforce, which will undoubtedly strengthen our economy.
Can this be successful? The problem regarding education is much more complex than many deem it to be. Making a classroom more attractive by itself will not change the mindset of students. It is a start, but not an answer.
President Obama intends to dedicate part of the bill towards hiring new teachers. The act plans to, “invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more.” However, the answer to furthering education cannot be simply hiring more teachers. Fixing education requires quality teachers teaching to high standards in safe schools. This money will not do that.
Say this bill miraculously passes without any amendments; it is still only securing our economy for the short term. The Jobs Act is a starting point. Education in our country needs a long term plan. Students across the nation will not be justifiably served if the administration only pushes money into the system. Critical decisions needs to be made on where to put the money to better the quality of education within our schools.
Rachel Lomot is a Freshman in SIS and SOC and a Quick Take columnist for The Eagle.
How to improve on a problematic jobs plan
By Professor Robert I. Lerman
Department of Economics, American University
President Obama’s jobs plan is wildly inefficient, poorly targeted, and does virtually nothing to deal with the moribund housing sector, the sector most restraining economic recovery. While we need 10 million jobs to move unemployment rates to 5.5 percent from today’s 9.2 percent (nearly 15 percent for 20-24 year-olds), government actions that lead to 4-5 million added jobs would probably generate enough added economic activity to reach the 10 million target.
So how do we generate an added 4-5 million jobs? Mr. Obama proposes a tax and spending plan of $448 billion. Unfortunately, the plan is projected to add no more than 2.1 million jobs by the end of 2013. Simple division reveals that the deficit cost per added job amounts to $213,000 ($448 billion/2.1 million). In today’s $1 trillion+ deficit environment, we ought to do much better.
I suggest five steps. First, expand energy development. We have massive economically recoverable reserves of natural gas. Speed up permitting for extraction and distribution, substitute natural gas for more polluting coal and oil, and in the process create hundreds of thousands of high wage, high value jobs, reduce imports of foreign oil, and lower world demand for oil and oil prices. Second, address the housing issue by implementing my plan to create 1 million homeownership vouchers (explained here ). Third, adopt a more effective subsidy for employers that expand jobs. Obama’s approach is weak compared to a range of good alternatives. Fourth, expand training with a subsidy for increasing apprenticeships, which provide serious, work-based learning with classroom instruction to master occupation skills. Fifth, use direct job creation for projects that compete to produce social outputs and employ people at low wages.
Together, these components would create over 4 million jobs at less than $50 billion, a bargain compared to the Obama plan. Today’s college students ought to strongly favor the more cost-effective plan, both because of the urgency of new jobs but also because they are the generation that will eventually have to pay our exploding debt.
Robert Lerman is a professor in the Department of Economics at American University.
Obama, like economy, needs more than this
By Joe Gruembaum
Obama was elected as an FDR no. 2, a gleaming leader who would use the power of the federal government to rescue the economy from collapse and to return hope to millions of Americans. But expectations don’t often equal reality. A minuscule stimulus bill slowed the recession a bit, and created a couple million jobs. Obama’s economic team sorely underestimated the depth and length of the recession in the size of the stimulus bill, and with it gone, we’re seeing the results of a laissez-faire recovery. So far, it’s not boding well for Obama’s re-election.
Revised CBO estimates put unemployment over 8 percent until 2014. We probably won’t return to full employment until 2017. And even if Obama is able to slip his teeny-tiny Jobs Act through the gnashing jaws of House Republicans, our economic outlook is still pretty cloudy. We’re in deep—well, you know. But some are deeper than others.
Recessions always concentrate economic power; corporate profits return years before jobs do, and the middle class and the poor take the brunt of economic hardship in a crisis. Minorities are pushed further into poverty—at the moment, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households, and 18 times that of Hispanic households. The crisis halved the income of black families, and reduced the income of Hispanic families by 66 percent. White family income declined by only 16 percent. And unemployment is inherently inegalitarian as well; the unemployment rate for African Americans as of August was 16.7 percent, while the unemployment rate for whites was 8.1 percent.
But the group most ignored, even by progressive media outlets, is one that voted 66 percent for President Obama: young people. Here at AU, we’ve seen the effects: there are less internships available in the district, and many of those that do exist have stopped paying, forcing some students who need the income to take campus jobs or work at local restaurants instead of gaining valuable experience. And the unemployment rate among 15 to 24-year-olds for the entire country is an incredible 18 percent.
The very people who elected President Obama—his most ardent supporters—are the groups most harmed by our country’s ongoing economic woes. The American Jobs Act is a step in the right direction, but I’m doubtful that “Well, it helped a bit,” is going to be a great campaign slogan.
Joe Gruenbaum is a Freshman in SIS and a Quick Take columnist for The Eagle.
