Richard Trumka has a message for all the so-called progressives who don't actually look out for working people: "We can't be a world-class economy unless we make things." It's the key to rebuilding our infrastructure after years of neglect, after what he notes was "the party the rich had that we didn't get to go to," to helping to stabilize the climate and most importantly, to digging us out of the economic hole we're in. Creating jobs, green jobs, innovative manufacturing jobs, he argues, could solve all of that.
Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO, but he became known to many Americans through the fiery speech he gave to the Steelworkers' union against racism and in favor of Barack Obama. He joined Laura in the GRITtv studio for a frank conversation about jobs, the economy, and Obama's administration.
John L. Lewis was a plain-spoken man. It is true that he decorated his public pronouncements with locutions that drew upon past centuries of high oratory. But you always knew what he meant and upon what rock he stood. I wish it were so with Richard Trumka and all the other progressives who find themselves before a camera and a microphone. It is not. Trumka startled me this morning by seeming to assert that there is a backlog of infrastructure projects valued at two-point-two trillion dollars that, if undertaken by the Obama administration, could revitalize the economy. Unfortunately, instead of backlog he used the word deficit. The economy is less efficient, he said because of the deficit. If we embarked on an infrastructure program, he concluded, we could effectively deal with that deficit that “people keep whining about.” I hope that you see what is wrong with this response and realize that you should have insisted that Trumka clarify this conflation of two separate meanings of deficit. The deficit that some people “keep whining about” is a fiscal deficit, the difference between federal revenues and federal obligations. Spending 2.2 trillion dollars would, in the short add to several years of deficits, but in the best case it also would put people to work and it would make the economy more capable of producing and selling to the internal as well as to the global market. By his ambiguous use of the word deficit, Trumka perpetuated the myth that fiscal deficits cause economic downturns, whereas they are, in fact, both the consequence of downturns and the countervailing force that tends to make downturns less severe than they might be. Trumka’s task is to think about the questions that one of the peak spokesmen for labor will be asked for publication. Your task is to seize ambiguity by the throat and never let it pass, because your audience, as sophisticated as it is, is still an audience that needs to be educated with facts and not with well-meaning blather.
By Alan Bickley on September 30th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
[...] Trumka interviewed on Laura Flanders, saying this is the most business-friendly president we’ve had in a while, and warns that [...]
By Suburban Guerrilla » Blog Archive » Trumka: No CEO on October 4th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Who is Trumka’s provider of cheap pharmicuatals? If I still smoked I would like to smoke some of what he is smoking? If President Obama is the most business oriented President I am Bob’s uncle. I have been a registered dem since 1971 and the current majority of the dem party is made up of left wing liberal union lovers. This isn’t my Fathers or my dem party.
By RICHARD DIEFENBACH on October 4th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
When I moved to California in the early “70s” there were free or very inexpensive colleges and universities, apartments were cheap and most people either owned their own home or were renting homes. People also went on vacation regularly and many went on vacation two or more times a year. Everyone seemed to have healthcare from either their job, school or through the government. This level of public affluence existed because of the standards set by the unions of the many defense industry jobs that were then in the area and because of their size also set the standard that the greater society had to judge itself against. Ever since Ronald Reagan, the unions were first demonized and then decertified and along with their demise the good union jobs and the security and tax base that they provided.
By Angelo Allen on October 4th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
DEFEAT CON REPUBLICONS, THEY CRASH THE ECONOMY WITH TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WASTED ON FRAUDULENT WARS, WHAT WMD ? THEN THE CONS BAIL OUT WALL STREET AND NOT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN FALLEN ON HARD TIMES. DEFEAT THE CONS WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS AND CONTINUE TO OBSTRUCT EVERY EFFORT TO FIX THEIR MESS. VOTE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW.
By JIM on October 4th, 2010 at 10:39 pm