Obama Prioritizes Energy, Health Care and Education

Energy, Health Care and Education. These are the priorities President Obama laid out for us tonight. He also was realistic ... promising a tight budget which will halve the deficit within 10 years. Considering our last President left us with a trillion dollar deficit after he had inherited from Clinton a surplus, that's pretty good.

Please read the speech for yourself: Obama's Speech on the Economy.

You might also want to read "The Obama Code" by George Lakoff. In it, Lakoff points out how President Obama's speeches consistently emphasize his vision of America, sharing a moral vision and a view of unity for our country. A number of the blogs have the full piece published on their website. One of them is fivethirtyeight.com : George Lakoff on the Obama Code. Once you're read the President's speech, Lakoff's writing is a good place to add more analysis.

Stimulus Package Offers $7.8 B for Broadband for Rural Communities

Health care, education, business opportunities and more ... come to people who have access to High Speed Internet. Fortunately, among the benefits of the new Economic Stimulus Bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama is additional funding for rural broadband.

According to the 2008 Pew Internet and American Life Project Report, 38% of rural Americans now have broadband in their homes. That's 38% compared to 55% of all Americans, or if you compare the 38% to urban Americans, that "on the Internet" gap becomes even wider.

The gap in high speed Internet also affects

To get the picture about how Broadband's move in to rural communities is helping rural America, see the Chicago Tribune's story, "$7.2 Billion Plan to Wire Rural America Holds Promise, Pitfalls".

Author Rebecca Cole writes about how broadband is changing people's lives:

• A simple cholesterol check cost a Kentucky miner a day's work because the doctor's office was so far away.
• A Tennessee clothing store sells online.
• A California cheese maker offers artisanal cheese online.

And people who want to go to college, no longer have to drive to a far-away town where the school is located.
Read more here.

"Pelosi Hits Back"

The conservatives have once again been blaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failure to do team play. We disagree. See below for Rolling Stone's conversation with Nancy Pelosi:

• Pelosi Hits Back

Overall, it's pretty obvious to us that when the right-wing conservatives who remain in Congress fail to do anything but say ... No ... No .. No ... we want to do things just like we did them before (i.e., before the election), what they're really saying is they still don't get it! They created this mess and now the new Congress and the new President has responsibility to clean it up.

As we watched the news over the last several days, we think Frank Rich's column, "They Sure Showed That Obama", says it best. Rich starts out:

AM I crazy, or wasn’t the Obama presidency pronounced dead just days ago? Obama had “all but lost control of the agenda in Washington,” declared Newsweek on Feb. 4 as it wondered whether he might even get a stimulus package through Congress. “Obama Losing Stimulus Message War” was the headline at Politico a day later. At the mostly liberal MSNBC, the morning host, Joe Scarborough, started preparing the final rites. Obama couldn’t possibly eke out a victory because the stimulus package was “a steaming pile of garbage.”

We say "NO, Frank Rich, YOU aren't crazy." The whole column is worth reading word for word. Click here to do so.

Can Progress be made in America without the Feds Playing a Tighter Role in Regulation?

As we write this blog, today is Sunday, February 22 -- only about a month after Barack Obama was sworn in as President. Obama was elected with a strong mandate for change and now, barely more than 30 days after he was sworn in, "Change" is fast on its way. The economic stimulus package, State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act have passed and been signed into law.

Meanwhile, the housing crisis, the automakers' mess and the banking situation still need additional help, as does the need to bring the federal government back to its traditional role as the enforcers of tough regulation. Yesterday, one of our readers wrote in to ask,

"Where the hell were the auditors, regulators? This continuing string of travesties may be enough to cause the American people to become like Howard Beale in Network, "Mad as hell" and "Not going to take it any more." They might even give up their self-destructive love affair with Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, and Ronald Reagan's apotheosis of selfishness to the pantheon of virtues."

The widely reported story our reader referred to was "Madoff Never Made Supposed Investments" So far, the court-appointed trustee has examined records "only" back to almost 1993 and no evidence that any securities were ever purchased during that time has been found.

Assuming this remains true as the investigation continues, this fact raises further question, e.g., where did the trade confirmations and fake statements to investors come from ... from someone at the Stock Market? ... and why didn't all these "checks & balances" (Stock Market, Brokerage Firm, Bank Accounts, IRS, etc., etc.) ever come to light through our government "regulation" system? Remember that Madoff confessed ... no government regulatory authority actually looked into this crime.

Chairman Edolphus Towns from New York is the new Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Let's watch carefully to see that the Madoff situation gets the full investigatory spotlight, so that we can learn which regulatory agencies dropped the ball and who profited in addition to Madoff.

Mea Culpa

Occasionally, our editor fails to catch a mistake. For today, the mistake that was missed was in your email alert. Obviously, the Minnesota Senate race is in court right now, and neither Al Franken who has the lead nor Norm Coleman who is behind but has sued is allowed to vote on the Stimulus package. Our apologies.

"Wanted: Personal Economic Trainers. Apply at Capitol."

The Stimulus legislation isn't quite through the Senate yet, so if you have friends (who haven't lost their jobs yet), who still don't understand what the Stimulus does, writer and Post website editor Steven Pearlstein carefully explains in today's Washington Post: "Wanted. Personal Economic Trainers. Apply at the Capitol. " It's great reading ... absolutely accurate ... and family friendly -- suitable for all kinds of people, whether they are employed, unemployed or just plain stubborn about understanding the need for economic Stimulus.

Pearlstein's "must read" ends with a quick and easy but very accurate definition of economic stimulus:

"Spending is stimulus, no matter what it's for and who does it. The best spending is that which creates jobs and economic activity now, has big payoffs later and disappears from future budgets."

The bottom line: Our economy is in trouble. Number of jobs lost just in 2008 already is as many as were lost in 1945. Lose many more and we'll all be stuck in an uglier version of the Great Depression because the folks that don't want this bill in the Senate are in danger of being called the "Marie Antoinettes" of 2009 -- happily wondering why the unemployed aren't eating big pieces of cake with lots of frosting on them.

One particular "Marie" is Senator Tom Colburn from Oklahoma. Pearlstein reports that one in five workers in Oklahoma are government workers. Yet in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Colburn complained that one in five of the 3 million jobs that the stimulus package might create or save would be government jobs. We note here that Colburn's job is a government job and so is every one of the jobs his personal staff holds, some of whom are located in Oklahoma. If Colburn is going to look down his nose at government workers, maybe he should resign so at a minimum, he wouldn't be snarling about his own government salary.

But seriously, Colburn and his staff are evidence of the curmudgions who need most the "economic trainers" Pearlstein recommends. But for Colburn ... and other naysayers, too. See below for basics. Read them ... think thoughtfully ... turn off the radio ... this is too important to trust Rush Limbaugh and his pals. Then call your U.S. Senator -- see directions at the bottom of this article.

1. Stimulus = Spending
2. The best spending results in investments that stick around for awhile, e.g., roads, sewers, school buildings, transit and high speed rail, medical equipment and more -- all different kinds of infrastructure. To build or repair infrastructure, it takes workers.
   
3. The middle class is hurting. Why? ... because as our economy shrunk during the last eight years, they were asked to pick up the slack -- working more, paying more taxes proportionately than the very rich and all the while, finding that with the cheap interest available then, they could balance their budgets by borrowing money. Now the piper has come with higher interest rates, squeezing the very people who paid the bills while the rich danced.
4. The middle class is hurting. What to do? ... See Stimulus package ... it creates jobs (see #2 -- infrastructure investments creates jobs) and tax breaks ($500 per individual) give immediate extra cash (to pay for the long delayed bills) in the way of specifically targeted tax breaks for the middle class.

Now, please call your Senator. Let him or her know that you support the Stimulus Bill. You might even tell them how your town has a crumbling school or has had to lay off workers, stop fixing the road, or how bottled waters is required for its babies because of its lack of water/sewer.

For Senate phone numbers, click here. At the top of the page, write in your state and your Senate contact info will pop up. Thank you for caring about your country.

PS: Pearlstein's got a new blog spot on Leadership. You might want to put it on your read list. Find it here.

Change = Progress in Only 16 Days

Just think -- in less than 16 days, this new Administration has made three really big accomplishments:

1. President Obama has signed SCHIP -- State Children's Health Insurance Program into law. Last year, readers of My Rural America worked hard to pass it, and we couldn't be more proud of this new Congress' action to pass SCHIP. About 1/3 of rural kids rely upon SCHIP and usually Medicaid. This year -- with the collapsed economy that President Bush left us stuck with, SCHIP is even more important because for every one point rise in unemployment, 700,000 kids in unemployed families become eligible.
   
2. Even before signing SCHIP, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. This bill combats wage discrimination, making it possible for more employees to challenge wage discrimination based upon gender, race, age and disability. The bill is named after Lilly Ledbetter who learned decades later that she was being paid significantly less than her male colleagues who were doing the same job at the same time, for many years of work at Goodyear. A lower court ruled that Goodyear was wrong, awarding Lilly $3M but Goodyear challenged and the case went to the Supreme Court, where the Court's extremely conservative Justices ruled that past discrimination didn't matter, saying Lilly should have sued sooner. The problem with that decision is that often those who are discriminated against in this way do not find out until many years later and the Court decision made sure that companies that discriminated wouldn't have to make things right. Now Congress and President Obama has fixed this injustice.
   
3. Obama Stimulus has passed the House. President Barack Obama warned a few hours ago, "The time for talk is over." As you read this tonight -- February 5, the Senate is likely to vote on the package later this evening. There has been much misinformation about the Stimulus, including that from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative news sources, but the bottom line is that Roosevelt did it right to get us out of the Great Depression and Obama's plan, like Roosevelt's, is one that can work. The Stimulus Package includes:

• Tax breaks for 95% of American workers. This is immediate cash on hand, which will be reflected in paychecks. What the conservatives are complaining about is that the top 5% of income earners (the extremely rich) aren't getting more tax cuts (like the rich did under the Bush Administration when essentially, the middle class got left out).
• First time home buyers will receive additional tax credits -- so more incentives for these new buyers to stop waiting and get into the market. As it is, just like the banks (even those with capital) are afraid to loan money right now), and so are the home buyers, who are waiting to see what happens. The tax credits offered should be the necessary incentive to get these buyers to be braver and quicker about buying the first homes they need and want.
• Infrastructure investments -- roads, bridges, schools, rails and mass transit systems ... a whole generation of new green jobs are in this Stimulus.
• Buy American ... there is a requirement that materials will need to be made by American workers. This means more jobs for Americans. Presently, the unemployment rate is the highest it's been in 16 years, i.e., since George H.W. Bush was president, and in 2008, more jobs were lost than in any other year dating back to 1945.
  

So watch the Senate carefully. This is about our future. Watch carefully. You may expect a report here about who votes yes for moving forward, and who votes no, trying to stop progress and return to the last eight years.

Lessons from FDR ... let's get the truth out now!

Somehow it seems that the conservatives have grabbed the bully pulpit, telling a story about how FDR's programs failed to work. To say it simply ... say it quick ... this simply isn't true.

The Center for American Progress gets it right today. We urge you to read it, digest it, get the FDR story right!

"Selective Keynesians"

Scott Lilly is the author and the expert. We congratulate him on setting the record straight. It's a "set the record straight" that is most important for our rural families, urban families and our nation as a whole. While you're at it, be sure to read the Center's "Recovery: Reversing the Downward Spiral". That story includes interactive maps that detail how the Obama Stimulus Package can begin America's comeback.