$100 billion proposal to save sanfran city worker jobs
15 replies, posted
[B](03-10) 04:00 PST Washington -[/B] -- With unemployment still stubbornly high despite last year's $800 billion fiscal stimulus, a top House Democrat and Bay Area lawmaker on Wednesday proposed sending cities $100 billion over the next two years to forestall predicted layoffs of hundreds of thousands of city workers, teachers and other local public employees.
The bill by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, is part of a welter of legislation, including a major extension of unemployment benefits in a jobs bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday, that Democrats are trying to enact to boost employment. About 8 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, and while the economy has been growing smartly and job losses have slowed sharply, job growth has not yet rebounded.
About 17,000 of 26,000 San Francisco city workers received pink slips on Friday, but Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to hire most of them back with a shortened workweek that would amount to a 6.25 percent pay cut. Spokesman Tony Winnicker said the move will avoid the kind of mass layoffs taking place in cities across the country, such as Los Angeles, which has announced that it will terminate 4,000 city employees with more likely to follow.
Miller predicted his bill would immediately create 1 million jobs, counting spillover effects on private businesses that sell goods and services to public sector employees. He did not propose offsetting spending cuts or tax increases despite Democrats' vow to institute pay-as-you-go budget rules, arguing that deficit spending is necessary to boost job growth.
"I think it should be considered part of the Recovery Act, funded out of the deficit," Miller said. "You cannot cure the deficit when you're running with 15 million unemployed, and you can't cure it at the local level by laying people off and raising taxes."
[B]Senate action[/B]
Miller said the stimulus has done "a pretty fair job" but "clearly is not going to be sufficient" to reduce the current 9.7 percent national unemployment rate.
The Senate's $138 billion legislation would extend stimulus-funded unemployment insurance, tax cuts and health care for unemployed workers through the end of 2010, and provide $25 billion more in aid to states. It would borrow $97 billion, with the rest offset by giving the Internal Revenue Service new tools to go after tax shelters.
The Senate bill also included $150 million in disaster relief for California produce farmers hit by water cutbacks. California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, inserted the aid into a broader $1.5 billion farm disaster relief provision that was added to the Senate jobs bill by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat whose seat is considered one of the most endangered in the Senate. Feinstein said three years of drought in California has led to $600 million in crop losses last year.
Another $18 billion Senate plan would give companies a tax break for hiring people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. The House is also working on another bill to give small businesses $13 billion in tax breaks, including lifting capital gains taxes on certain small business stock.
[B]Input from mayors[/B]
Miller's "Local Jobs for America Act" was written with input from mayors across the country who said they are confronting a meltdown in property tax revenue from the real estate crash and cutbacks in aid from similarly strapped state governments. Miller said local budgets have been cut to the bone, receding to their level of 1980, and that many cities are facing layoffs of firefighters, police and teachers.
He said the money would go directly to city hall officials, who would best know what their local needs are and be able to hire people immediately.
The effort won rave reviews from liberal interest groups, including the labor-friendly Employment Policy Institute, which called it "exactly the kind of bold response we need," but there are no Republican co-sponsors. Miller and other Democrats acknowledged an uphill battle and said it would be up to the House leadership to decide how and when to take up the bill. They said they hoped a big push by mayors visiting Washington next week would build momentum.
[B]San Francisco deficit[/B]
San Francisco faces a $522 million budget deficit. "Many of the cuts we're facing as a city are result of trying to grapple with state cuts," said Newsom spokesman Winnicker. He said last year's federal stimulus "helped us enormously."
Newsom has been pushing hard for an extension of the "Jobs Now" program that was part of the stimulus and created 2,100 jobs in San Francisco, two-thirds of those in the private sector, according to the mayor's office.
The program provides hiring subsidies directly to private businesses, nonprofits and government agencies through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It was killed by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., on a procedural vote but Newsom is pushing to add it to the Miller bill and more upcoming Senate jobs legislation.
"Everybody is talking another jobs bill for sure," Winnicker said. "None of this is done yet by any stretch from what we're hearing."
Sauce: [URL]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/10/MNM21CDP5U.DTL#ixzz0hqqSDbHc[/URL]
It looks like the shit hole, otherwise known as California, is collapsing from the inside.
The whole state is a fucking hole, why even bother at this point? Most of the laws are fucking outrageous, and crime there is more rampant than almost any other place.
Heh, I like the criticism FP has for my state.
[QUOTE=Fables;20679537]Heh, I like the criticism FP has for my state.[/QUOTE]
California deserves worse.
[I]Far worse.[/I] :colbert:
Governer schwarzenegger should terminate their employment.
CA is pretty nice actually. Well where I live it is anyway.
I guess you could say... they'll need to [I]work[/I] for the solution
California has paid far more into the economy than small states. The country can turn its back on us, but the country will pay the price anyways.
The hard part of dealing with this is that many states, not just California, are in terrible economic shape.
Meanwhile, I noticed a story about the world's billionaires. The usual "blah blah so and so is the world's richest man....", but something else too. The last year saw billionaires around the world INCREASE their wealth an average of 500 million dollars. So while everyone else(average people) are seeing their jobs disappear, bank accounts run dry, healthcare cost skyrocket, and homes being foreclosed, the billionaires made out like bandits.
But we're going to fire teachers, cops, and others because there's no money for them.
And where is this $100 billion coming from, Taxes and China. Democrats can pull money out of anywhere it seems.
I totally read the thread title as "$100 billion proposal to save [B]Saffron City[/B] workers jobs".
[QUOTE=SkynrdFan1;20699823]I totally read the thread title as "$100 billion proposal to save [B]Saffron City[/B] workers jobs".[/QUOTE]
Where will all the Pokemon go?
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;20680722]California deserves worse.
[I]Far worse.[/I] :colbert:[/QUOTE]
I agree with this statement not in spite of but in fact for the very reason that I do live in California.
The land is great.
The people are OK.
We are a big economy in fields ranging from computer technology to agriculture.
This state has potential but it is run by people who have their heads so far up their asses they're running something brilliant strait into the ground.
[QUOTE=BANNED USER;20679403]The whole state is a fucking hole, why even bother at this point? Most of the laws are fucking outrageous, and crime there is more rampant than almost any other place.[/QUOTE]
The town I live with has had 2 homicides in the past 15 years
The issue isn't "is California a shithole" or even "should we let the state go bankrupt".
The real issue is that states can not spend more then they have. Why is California doing this? Why are the voters in California allowing them to do this? Is there a plan to get the states finances in order?
Edit sorry for shit bump i didn't realize how old this was. I clicked sen headlines and this came up.
I can only guess I must have skipped several billion pages somehow.
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Terrible bump" - Craptasket))[/highlight]
[QUOTE=H8Entitlement;40520844]The issue isn't "is California a shithole" or even "should we let the state go bankrupt".
The real issue is that states can not spend more then they have. Why is California doing this? Why are the voters in California allowing them to do this? Is there a plan to get the states finances in order?[/QUOTE]
Why the fuck did you bump this thread and also how did you even find this?
Man, I got all excited and thought Wakka was back.
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