stimulus
GRITtv: Heather McGhee: Deficit Obsession is Depression-Maker
"Saying when the economy is at its weakest we're going to put into law that we can't spend more to pick ourselves up...that's a depression-maker," says Heather McGhee of Demos. But despite warnings from economists from all over, the government in Washington, Democrats and Republicans both, remain obsessed with the deficit. Heather joins Laura in studio to grade Obama, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and of course the Ryan plan on the budget, the deficit, and the need for more stimulus.
Email this pageGRITtv: Controversy, Copyrights, $: Funding the Arts
The economic situation hasn't been good for anyone, but funding for the arts always takes a hit first in tough times. The $50 million for the arts in the stimulus bill was a site of contention, with Republicans complaining loudly about going into debt for art's sake. And when funding is crunched, our guests note, the fear of controversy grows--art that doesn't fit the "moral values" of those holding the purse strings is first on the chopping block. We're talking arts and funding for them with William Ivey, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Svetlana Mintcheva, Director of Programs at the National Coalition Against Censorship, today in studio. As the culture wars hit a fever pitch, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List center for Art and Politics at the New School are holding a series of panels on censorship and art funding.
GRITtv: Compromise, Capitulation and Capitalism
Yesterday, we noted that the fangs seem to have been pulled out of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and financial reform seems to be quietly fading from the agenda. But our friends at the Roosevelt Institute are in the middle of a groundbreaking conference on market reform, and we asked a few of their guests to join us in studio. Lynn Parramore, editor of New Deal 2.0 for the Institute, Raj Date, chairman and executive director of the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, and Lawrence White of NYU's Stern School of Business discuss where financial reform is headed and what will happen to us if it dies.
GRITtv: Making Infrastructure Sexy Again
After our terrifying experience with a manhole explosion and fire at the office last Thursday, the pressing need for infrastructure investment was brought home to us here at GRITtv in a very real way. Years of budget cuts and tax cuts have led to public safety hazards around the country, and the stimulus bill isn't enough to fix all the electrical, structural, and other problems. We talk to Fabiola Carrion of the Progressive States Network, Amanda Little, Grist contributor and author of Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells---Our Ride to the Renewable Future, and Glenn Von Nostitz, former director of the Office of Policy Management, Office of the NYC Comptroller and Senior Fellow in Policy Research and Development at the Center for an Urban Future, about the problems with infrastructure and ask where our priorities should lie: with public safety or green technology.
GRITtv: State of the Union: Overhauling Agenda or Strategy Shift?
Obama's preparing for his first State of the Union speech, and we're wondering if once again he's going to try to be all things to all people. After all, on the campaign trail he dismissed talk of a spending freeze, only to adopt that language a year into his administration, and with the economic team he's still using, he's starting to remind us of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton -- who may have slashed the deficit, but did so on the back of his "welfare reform." We talk about Obama's choices for the economy and the path we hope he'll take now with Kai Wright of The Nation and The Root, Jeff Madrick, author of "The Case for Big Government" and Lynn Parramore of the New Deal 2.0.
GRITtv: Structural Solutions for Jobs Crisis
President Obama spoke today about the need for more government action to spur job creation, saying that small businesses and green jobs were the way forward for the nation. He proposed shifting funds from the TARP program to job creation programs and offered tax cuts and incentives. But as Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion, Tim Casey of Legal Momentum, Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress and Max Fraad Wolff of The New School for Social Research explain, the problems with unemployment and underemployment in this country aren't just results of this current recession, and they will not be fixed simply by returning to where we were.
GRITtv: Making the Green Economy Equitable
Green jobs have been touted over and over as the solution to the crisis in manufacturing in the U.S., able to solve climate problems and employment issues at the same time. But they won't be any kind of solution at all if they aren't available to those who need them the most. The Applied Research Center has put together a toolkit for ensuring that federal funds for green jobs are used to create well-paid, union-represented jobs that are available to women and people of color and that help to rebuild communities that have been hardest hit by the economic collapse.
GRITtv: The F Word: Man-Made Disaster in New Orleans
This week a federal district judge finally ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was indeed responsible for part of the devastation in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and parts of St. Bernard Parish. The failure of the Corps to recognize the hazards wetland destruction had created was "clearly negligent on the part of the Corps," said U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. No judgment, of course, will bring back the Ninth Ward, which years after Katrina and Rita is still largely a ghost town. But this acknowledgment that the destruction didn't have to happen is important. You want national security? Stimulus? Jobs? That's it, and this is the time.
GRITtv: Dean Baker & John Nichols on Changing the Jobs Debate
The Nation's John Nichols writes of the growing sense of urgency within an administration facing a purported recovery that hasn't extended to everyday people. Around the country, decaying manufacturing towns and communities are suffering in ways that are hidden by the statistics, and a rising GDP doesn't do much for Main Street. Economist Dean Baker wrote: "Even with the prospect of extended benefits, unemployment is still a crisis for the families affected, as they struggle to pay their mortgage or rent and cover other essential expenses." Baker and Nichols put their heads together and came up with ways to create good, meaningful, well-paid jobs and rethink the way Americans look at work.
GRITtv: Taking the Mystery Out of Solar Panels
Environmental journalist Karl Grossman gets the dirt on solar energy from Dean Hapshe of Majestic Son & Sons Solar Energy. Since the Reagan years, when government tax credits for installing solar panels were killed, we've come a long way as far as efficiency and costs are concerned. In New York, on top of the federal tax credit recently passed in the stimulus bill, you can get a state and local tax credit for installing the panels -- and then it's possible to produce more than enough energy to run your whole home. Learn more in this video exclusive for GRITtv.
