Late Night: Working Class Hero

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 11:50:00 PM EST
Tags: Hillary Clinton (all tags)

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John Lennon, r.i.p, would be proud. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan for 3 million new jobs.

At the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton announced a plan to create three million new jobs through increased investments in the nation’s infrastructure. Hillary would create these jobs over 10 years by combining emergency initiatives like fixing the immediate safety risks of the I-95 bridge in Philadelphia along with long-term investments to create a greener, sleeker 21st century highway and transit system.

"President Bush has stood by and watched as we've lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. And he’s done nothing about the loopholes in our tax code that actually encourage companies to ship jobs overseas," said Clinton. "It's time for a different approach. I'll fight for every single job in America – and create millions of new, high paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. We're trying to run today’s economy on yesterday’s infrastructure – and we’re jeopardizing tomorrow’s prosperity. So I will rebuild America – by rebuilding, repairing and modernizing our infrastructure."

It's a $7 billion plan of tax incentives to companies that will keep jobs from going overseas. [More...]

On Wednesday, she will explain more:

At an economic summit in Pittsburgh on Wednesday organized by her presidential campaign, the former first lady was expected to propose the elimination of tax breaks for companies that move jobs to other countries and use the savings to persuade companies to "insource" jobs in the U.S.

Clinton has focused on job creation and challenges to the U.S. economy at campaign appearances across Pennsylvania, whose primary is April 22.

Read the plan now, so when you see Barack Obmama's competing plan emerge in the next few weeeks, you can say, "That sounds familiar."

Why is this plan emerging now?

Pennsylvania and other states holding upcoming primaries, including Indiana and Kentucky, have suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs in recent years and have yet to transition to new industries and other ways of expanding their economies.

We've only got one working class hero in this race, and it's Hillary. 30 years ago, she could have been Tess (Melanie Griffith) in the movie Working Girl. You can speechify and borrow and take credit for work done by others, or you do what Hillary does, and learn every facet of the problem and have a hand in creating a proposal that results in a solution.She did it with Health care and with her Economic Stimulus Project. Now she's done it with a job plan.

She's a work horse, and she'll be a work horse for all of us if she gets the chance.

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Late Night: Working Class Hero | 17 comments (17 topical)

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She is a great candidate! Time is ticking down (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by voterin2008 on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 03:14:32 AM EST

and we are a few months away from knowing our eventual Nominee. Lets hope that whoever it is will follow through and turn this economy around.

i've seen part of this before, in history (5.00 / 3) (#2)
by cpinva on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 03:45:15 AM EST

class. i suspect sen. clinton has as well. FDR called it the WPA, specifically designed to put people to work on public projects (national parks, highways, bridges, etc) and it was pretty successful. if you go to your local national park, you may see evidence still of the work done by the WPA there. nice to know at least one candidate reads history.

the Internal Revenue Code is the "welfare for the rich" in the US. supposedly, the 1986 "tax reform and simplification" act was to rid it of the various loopholes. for a brief moment (.0237 seconds, by my stopwatch) it did. then the lobbyists got ahold of it, and it's not been the same since. that's going to be a tough sell, too much money at stake.

i expect, by the end of the week, we'll see a slightly tweaked version of this come out of the obama campaign, like he just now thought of it.

it's a good thing for sen. obama that you can't fail a campaign for cheating off of someone else's ideas. granted, he'd still be an improvement over mccain, but not by one heck of a lot, from what i'm seeing.

: I was thinking the same thing (5.00 / 4) (#6)
by Kathy on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 07:01:22 AM EST

My grandfather called it the "We Piddle Around" (farmers could be smug that way). Many of FDR's programs were later deemed unconstitutional, but I think the WPA was a sound investment in America. A bit like the Peace Corps for the states.
What Clinton often talks about in speeches is not unemployment, with is relatively low in the US, but underemployment. An arm of her education platform calls for re-funding of vocational schools (which many high schools no longer have) and trade schools that train skilled workers in construction trades.
It is remarkably refreshing to see a potential president wanting to repeat history in a good way rather than the usual, more destructive ways (wars, taxation, revocation of rights, etc)

The poor and the WPA (5.00 / 2) (#4)
by koshembos on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 05:32:19 AM EST

First, I am delighted to read a comment that is devoid of name calling and knowledgeable about the political history of this country (i.e. WPA).

I have two short points:
First, the poor as a whole have been widely neglected by the Democrats and are now political orphan. It's 40 years since Johnson quit and the war on poverty kind of quit as well.

Second, I will not vote for McCain, but I cannot vote for Obama. I will betray myself and my parents legacy if I'll vote for a candidate who encouraged hate and racial divide. I cannot vote for Obama because, knowingly or not he has built a semi-fascistic support organization with rituals, absolute dedication to the leader, lack of tolerance for others, hate, etc.

Good for Hillary! (5.00 / 5) (#5)
by kenoshaMarge on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 05:42:45 AM EST

She doesn't just blather on with talking points and sound bites she says things of substance. She has plans. She knows her subject and is able to discuss it intelligently. Will all her ideas work? Of course not. But some will. And those that will bring hope and change to people that have been abandoned by both parties for far to long. Obama may have co-opted the words hope and change but that is exactly what the WPA brought to a lot of people feeling hopeless and abandoned.

One consistent message she gives is that the whole country does better when we all do better. Seems to me that's a pretty progressive message.

And if the media were not so Obama-Friendly, just like it's always been McCain-Friendly, they would be chastising Obama for continuing to use his "me too" strategy.

This (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by CognitiveDissonance on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 02:18:33 PM EST

is exactly why Reagan Democrats are voting for Clinton and not Obama. Despite what the media would tell you, it has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with the economy. Obama just doesn't get it.

Lennon would be proud - unlikely ! (none / 0) (#3)
by Andreas on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 05:16:21 AM EST

Do not claim the support of dead people for Hillary Clinton.

There is no basis for the assumption that John Lennon would have supported her:

A former agent for the British Security Service (known as MI5) has alleged in a sworn statement that the agency received reports from a high-level spy inside the Workers Revolutionary Party during the late 1960s.
The ex-agent, David Shayler, is currently living in exile in France, where he has fled to escape prosecution for his exposure of state secrets. In his February 18 affidavit, Shayler asserts that the spy provided MI5 with reports of financial support given by John Lennon to the WRP.
Shayler recounts that he was shown portions of an MI5 file relating to the agency's surveillance of Lennon, whose socialist and anti-imperialist sentiments angered the British ruling class.
The affidavit states that the material "concerned Lennon's support for the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), a Trotskyist organization. According to the file, a source in the WRP had reported that Lennon gave tens of thousands of pounds sterling to the WRP in the late 1960s and also provided some funds to the Irish Republican Army at around the same time."

The John Lennon revelations:
Was there a high-level MI5 agent in the British Workers Revolutionary Party?
By David North, 2 March 2000

The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) and its predecessor, the Socialist Labour League (SLL), at that time were the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The WSWS is published by the ICFI.

: Indeed (none / 0) (#12)
by jondee on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 10:39:35 AM EST

Lennon was a little too much of a genuine socialist to buy into the idea that someone who gets millions in donations from the quarter that considers wage and benefit cuts a windfall for them could be comitted to looking after the interests of American workers.
Rather than focusing our attention on what Hillary/Obama/Shrub are doing, maybe it's time to ask the (alleged) Americans who work on Wall St. what they're doing -- other than insuring that working class kids will always have an endless supply of cheap, toxic toys from China to play with.

I certainly hope (none / 0) (#7)
by DandyTIger on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 08:25:27 AM EST

that either Clinton wins or is at least put in position of Senate majority leader. Because all of the ideas of what to do with the country clearly come from the Clinton camp. However this turns out, that is still were all the ideas are going to come from.

out sourcing (none / 0) (#8)
by NYMARJ on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 09:25:11 AM EST

Hadn't read it myself- but my husband told me he had read that our passport operation has been outsourced to Thailand. We are not even producing our own passports in this country.

: re: (none / 0) (#10)
by scoopenator on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 09:57:47 AM EST

Not only that but we are outsourcing tutors for our children to India.

: As long as Thailand doing (none / 0) (#13)
by jondee on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 10:43:58 AM EST

it cheaper means billions for the political donor class, nothings going to change too drastically.

job promises really? (none / 0) (#9)
by scoopenator on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 09:56:30 AM EST

Where are all the jobs in NY state she promised when she became Senator huh? Guess she had to wait to become President. (NOT)

check her Senate site (none / 0) (#11)
by Jeralyn on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 10:04:47 AM EST

here


: how... (none / 0) (#14)
by mindfulmission on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 10:53:14 AM EST

... does that address her failed promise of jobs?

I'm not entirely sure I understand (none / 0) (#15)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 12:08:31 PM EST

how changing the tax laws for co's that move manufacturing to Mexico or overseas somewhere is going to increase the number of bridge and highway building/repairing jobs here in the US.

I'm also not sure I understand how increasing the number of building/repairing bridges and highways jobs will decrease US unemployment rates since the TL-championed undocumented immigration will dramatically increase to take advantage of the new construction jobs.

Sounds like a step in the right direction (none / 0) (#17)
by splashy on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 06:45:24 PM EST

People need jobs!