We did it for Europe after the most devastating war in world history. We did it in Japan, the country that attacked us and brought us into World War II. Now it’s time for America to declare it has lost wars abroad and declare a Marshall Plan for the United States of America.
A combination of poor fiscal policy (tax breaks to the rich for 30 years) and devastating economic policies (like the “free trade” pacts or repeal of the Glass Steagall Act) with the relentless thrust for American Empire that has led to countless wars since World War II–has blighted our country and depleted our treasury. We are virtually broke nationwide; our largest and wealthiest state (previously) California, has been bankrupt for several years. Michigan, the site of a formerly vibrant industrial economy, has been turned into a wasteland with almost 15% unemployment. Nationwide we have 10% of our work force unemployed and almost 20% of it underemployed. A Democratic administration with overwhelming majorities in the Senate and House has set up a “deficit reduction commission” stacked with people who want to privatize social security and poised to undermine one of the greatest of FDR’s achievements. The Congress, corrupt and petty, is held in the lowest esteem it has been ever viewed.
We need change, not just an ambitious Chicagoan who bandies about the phrase to get elected either. Real change, now.
America needs to launch a Marshall Plan at home. We gave Europe (including our military adversary) billions. Now is the time to do the same thing here at home.
We must spend billions of dollars building our own infrastructure (note the stories in the press recently about the oil spill of 800,000 barrels in Michigan, due to a pipeline that was built in 1969). Billions for roads. Billions for a new railroad system. Billions for schools and hospitals and medical schools (more doctors means lower medical bills). Billions for the poor and needy who do not have enough food or cannot see a doctor. Billions for job creation programs. Billions in grants to needy states. A Marshall sized program for the United States.
Why is it that a President who was elected on a mandate of change seems to settle for less than half a loaf and seems to be without any ideas and without any fight? Why is it that our politicians do not care for the cries coming from their own people (but recently gave $8 billion “in aid” to Pakistan)? Why is it that the response to the economic troubles have been so slow and so timid? Why is it that the government is so often in bed with corporate interests to the detriment of average Americans? Why is it that our Supreme Court turns farther and farther to the right, even striking down well meaning and well though out legislation on campaign contributions?
We need a Marshall Plan for the United States. We need for our Democrat in Chief in Washington, D.C. to stop thinking of only deficit reductions and start thinking about massive plans to stimulate the economy. We need our President to stop stocking his “deficit reduction commission” with corporate elitists opposed to the best of the New Deal programs. We need action from our leaders, not pretty but vapid speeches.
We need a Marshall Plan for the United States. We don’t need a $37 billion supplemental spending bill for a war in Afghanistan that is already lost. We don’t need a $700 billion DOD budget that is higher than W’s budget by 8%. We don’t need costly bases in Germany and Japan 65 years after the end of World War II. We don’t need more than 700 military bases worldwide.
The distinguished military historian, Andrew Bachevich, had this to say about President Obama’s failed strategy on Afghanistan. Talking with Democracynow’s Amy Goodmanhttp://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/2/andrew_bacevich_on_afghanistan_war_the , he said:
“I mean, we’re bankrupt in the country. We are headed towards, I think, ever greater, more difficult economic times that will result in us failing in our most fundamental obligation, laid out in the Preamble of the Constitution, which is to provide the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. The path on which we have embarked and on which we continue to pursue is very much at odds with what the founding purpose of this republic was supposed to be.”
We need a Marshall Plan now for the United States of America.
We don’t need a half-hearted “insurance reform” bill that simply builds on the failed system of private insurance. We don’t need this bill which doesn’t even kick in until 2014: we need real health reform now. We don’t need a half-loaf of a financial reform bill that is mostly smoke and mirrors. Bring back Glass-Steagall now. We need a Marshall Plan now for the United States of America.
We did’t need an underfunded $765 billion stimulus bill when by the accounts of several Nobel Prize winning economists, that amount was too little too late. We need a government that recognizes that the private sector is doing nicely (big business profits are up 42% in the first quarter according to the New York Times) but that it is incapable and unwilling to create meaningful new jobs. As Harold Meyerson http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_ffd4a9ea-3ef9-5fee-b96c-88d36a3328a3.html has pointed out:
“The problem isn’t merely the greatest downturn since the Great Depression. It’s also that big business has found a way to make big money without restoring the jobs it cut the past two years, or increasing its investments or even its sales, at least domestically. …How can America’s corporations so defy gravity? Ever adaptive, they have evolved a business model that enables them to make money even while the strapped American consumer has cut back on purchasing. For one thing, they are increasingly selling and producing overseas. General Motors is going like gangbusters in China, where it now sells more cars than it does in the United States. In China, GM employs 32,000 assembly-line workers; that’s just 20,000 fewer than the number of such workers it has in the States. And those American workers aren’t making what they used to; new hires get $14 an hour, roughly half of what veterans pull down.
The GM model typifies that of post-crash American business: massive layoffs, productivity increases, wage reductions (due in part to the weakness of unions), and reduced sales at home; increased hiring and booming sales abroad. Another part of that model is cash retention. A Federal Reserve report last month estimated that American corporations are sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash reserves. As a share of corporate assets, that’s the highest level since 1964.
We need a Marshall Plan now for the United States of America.
Robert Kuttner has over at the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/the-appeal-of-austerity-i_b_666762.html asked the right question:
“But where is the high-profile Obama speech making clear that the top priority for now is putting America back to work, that deficit reduction will come when the economy is back on track — and that the budget will not be balanced on the backs of those who depend on Social Security, Medicare, and other key social outlays?
The misguided Erskine Bowles, with his austerity program, did not drop into the budget debate from Mars. He was appointed by Barack Obama [To Obama’s Deficit Reduction Committee just as Obama picked Alice Rivlin and Anne Fudge, both who want to privatize social security].
…Maybe if Obama got serious about putting Americans back to work and explaining the real connection between an economic recovery and deficit politics, incumbent Democrats — and voters — might welcome the president into their districts.”
We need a Marshall Plan now for the United States of America.
We don’t need timid politicians. We don’t need corrupt politicians like Charlie Rangel or Max Baucus. We do’t need politicians who do not fight for average Americans (which means most of the politicians in Washington). We don’t need a political party that is afraid to do away with a senate rule (60 votes) that undermines democracy.
We need a Marshall Plan now for the United States of America.