energy

New Unemployment, Old Solutions

Eric Lotke — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:09:34 -0800

Today’s unemployment data contain gloomy news. Gloomy, but expected. The interpretation of the data is even worse.

First, the data. Unemployment rose to 10.2 percent last month, breaking the double digit barrier. Most people expected it to happen, though the job loss (190,000) was a bit worse than most economic forecasts (175,000). We can maybe be happy that the October job loss wasn’t as high as September (263,000), but this modest deceleration doesn’t mean much to the 15.7 million people without work, the 9.3 million people working part-time but looking for full-time, or the 3.2 million people who are discouraged or marginally attached to the work force and barely even looking anymore. Nearly 20 percent of the workforce isn’t where it wants to be.

In other words, it’s bad. You don’t need me or the Bureau of Labor Statistics to tell you that.

The interesting part is where it’s bad and what to do about it.

The biggest job losses in October were in construction (62,000) and manufacturing (61,000). In the last year, these sectors have lost over 2.5 million jobs between them. Job losses in these sectors hurt worse than most other sectors. Manufacturing jobs have a bigger economic “multiplier” than other sectors, creating more jobs and more economic activity around them. Manufacturing creates jobs “downstream,” as production workers buy sandwiches from restaurants; and “upstream,” as steelworkers and coal miners work to provide raw material. The benefits of construction obviously count for more and last longer than just the construction itself. Anybody who doesn't live in a cave knows that.

But manufacturing and construction are losing more jobs than any other sector. Health care and temporary jobs are the only positive — if we can cheer sickness or a temp job.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

This isn’t just a temporary blip. Construction is sinking from the burst of the housing bubble and general economic doldrums. Manufacturing is suffering from long term structural declines and a trade policy that favors imports over domestic production.

The solution leaps out from the data. These two sectors respond most clearly to public sector investment. During this downturn, we can build roads, rail lines and bridges. During this downturn, we can fix school roofs and turn temporary trailers for overcrowded schools into permanent classrooms for eager students. During this downturn, we can build the windmills and install the solar cells to move us towards energy independence. During this downturn we can rebuild a productive economy for the future.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Maybe a quarter of the 800 billion stimulus package pushed in this direction. We need more. First, we need more stimulus. Good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus during the downturn. Put people to work laying those rail lines and fixing those school roofs.

Second, we need to make sure the money stays in our own economy. We can’t ask American taxpayers to foot the bill or expect American workers to cheer when the windmills of the new energy economy are imported from Spain. It’s no gift to our economy to fix the water main with pipes imported from China that were dumped in US markets at below market costs, driving our own domestic pipe industry out of business. We can do better. We need to do better.

I’ll close with the thing we don’t need, the interpretation I warned against in the beginning. The Associated Press story about today’s unemployment data put it this way: “A robust economic recovery won't be sustainable if consumers don't pick up their spending.”

Wrong wrong wrong. The debt-driven consumption economy was the problem. The solution is not for consumers without jobs to start spending again. The solution is to rebuild our economy. From the ground up. The old fashioned way.

Building a Smart Grid, Smartly

Eric Lotke — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:04:42 -0700

President Barack Obama announced today $3.4 billion in government grants to help build a "smart" electric grid. Like many Obama initiatives, it’s a smart first step. But much more is needed and one piece is rarely mentioned at all.

Start with the problem. America’s electric grid is aging and not keeping up with demand. Electricity demand has increased by 25% since 1990 while construction of transmission facilities decreased by about 30 percent. The results are higher costs and more blackouts. Carol Browner, the president's top adviser on energy and climate change, called the grid “outdated” and “dilapidated."

Our discussion of energy is dominated by wind farms and solar panels. They’re important, of course. But they leave open the question of moving the energy from the where it’s made (offshore wind farms or sunny deserts) to where it’s used (cities and factories). That’s the grid. It’s called smart because it can re-route electricity in accordance with demand or around trouble spots.

In the end, we want it all. Wind farms, solar panels and a smart grid to bring the energy from point A to point B. That’s our clean energy future.

But we want something else with consequences we don’t always recognize. We want to be self-sufficient. We don’t want to replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on foreign manufacturing. And we want those clean energy jobs to be located at home. Especially if we’re funding them with our own tax dollars. As Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage puts it:

“Not simply a timid buy America policy satisfied with the final assembly of parts and technologies made elsewhere, but moving entire supply chains so that our workers and engineers and entrepreneurs are familiar with cutting edge technologies that our inventors can soon surpass.”

Right now, half of our wind turbines are imported from overseas. Ninety percent of our solar cells are manufactured in China — which requires that its own solar installations use domestic (Chinese) content.

This isn’t about protectionism or neanderthal rejection of global trade. It’s about thriving in a competitive global economy. America needs to think strategically. Move away from asset bubbles and debt-driven consumer spending. Rebuild our real economy of production and manufacture.

Public investment in infrastructure is a crucial step in that direction. It creates jobs now and increases our competitiveness in the future. A new smart grid is part of it — and it’s even smarter if the transformers aren’t imported from China.

If you’re near DC, please come to our conference Thursday October 29, building the new economy. It’s free, and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) will share his ideas over lunch. It’s time to pop the bubble economy.

-------------
UPDATE: After this post was published, the White House released additional detail. Most important: The smart grid program includes $25 million to expand the necessary manufacturing base. It's a small amount and nowhere near the top of the release -- but the White House calls it "a significant and growing export opportunity for our country and new jobs for American workers." It's nice to see details trending in that direction.

Shorter CBO, Media: 'We Need Science Classes'

Natasha Chart — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:55:41 -0700

It's remarkable how often economists ignore physical reality. Whether they're suggesting that economies can act as perpetual motion machines or suggesting that resource availability is meaningless to economic growth, I'm always prompted to think they should make science classes a mandatory part of the economics curriculum.

This week is no different, as the Congressional Budget Office director, Doug Elmendorf, testified that the US economy would barely notice changing environmental conditions such that we should be more worried about potential economic damages and job losses caused by climate mitigation.

The already desertifying American Southwest has cost the agricultural sector billions of dollars every year, just in California, and wildfires are expected to increase as a result. Increased floods in the Midwest have cost farmers and municipalities dearly, as well as costing the federal government aid dollars sent to clean up disaster areas. Those are just two projected impacts of climate disruption, drought and flooding, that have been happening at a minor scale compared with what will occur during projected changes.

In fact, the Midwest is also expected to get heat waves within our lifetimes that would prevent corn crops from setting seed. Does Elmendorf live in a cave that this prospect means nothing to him?

Elmendorf really doesn't see the US economy being much affected by such events increasing in magnitude, spread across the entire globe? The killer heat waves, coastal inundation, environmental refugees, reduced water supplies, none of that will put a dent in the smoothly purring economic engine we've got going here?

Preposterous.

Ignored by the media headlines reporting Elmendorf's testimony, (and in fairness to Elmendorf, not entirely in context) is that the shift away from fossil industry jobs to clean energy jobs will result in a net gain of jobs. Also ignored is that the CBO scoring methods count energy efficiency promotion [and puppies!] as a cost without any economic benefit, in spite of the fact that it would save industry and consumers billions of dollars while lowering emissions dramatically.

And let's get back to that jobs issue. An analysis by Greenpeace International and the European Renewable Energy Council indicated that an emissions reduction target of 50% below 1990 emissions by 2050 would lead to a global net gain of energy sector jobs by 2030. And that's in comparison to a baseline, status quo scenario that has the global ener gy sector losing jobs, especially in nuclear and coal.

That's right. If we do nothing, nuclear and coal industry jobs will be lost anyway, and there won't be enough clean energy sector and efficiency employment to make up the difference.

Consider that per MegaWatt (MW) of capacity, solar creates 15-30 jobs and nuclear, 0.4-0.9 jobs. Bringing up the rear, climate-busting coal creates around 0.18 jobs per MW.

Adding in that nuclear energy is ridiculously expensive and that it would be a decade before we saw any new capacity, its opportunity costs are too high to compare favorably with solar power. Even if you solved its huge water needs and the waste disposal problems. Those are big 'ifs'.

Looking at wind power, the European Wind Energy Association estimates that an installed MW creates around 0.4 jobs, so it does as well as nuclear power once it's up and running. But it's created good manufacturing jobs in recent years, and has a construction employment rate of 2.57 jobs/MW [pdf]. Even in industry-devastated Michigan, a 10 percent state renewable electricity standard is bringing new wind turbine manufacturing jobs, which also highlights the fact that every state stands to gain jobs [pdf] from investment in clean energy and renewables.

Further, clean energy jobs pay well without requiring a college degree. Considering the often ruinous expenses of getting a degree these days (trust me) it's important that living wages be available without taking on that expense.

To protect existing fossil energy industries is to protect industries that are destroying our home and that are already losing jobs. A failure to invest in clean energy is a failure to protect our future interests in the necessities of life and dignified employment. It's also a failure to invest in a growth industry, one that created jobs faster than the rest of the economy even in the face of limited federal attention and huge subsidies for its competition.

If the CBO and the media are incapable of looking at the facts and recognizing the truth of the situation, they need to go back to school.

Choosing One's Battles

Susan Ozawa — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:40:05 -0700

Isn’t it funny how the Obama administration outlined very rough principles for congress to hash out in designing the energy bill and health care reform while for financial regulation congress received an explicit outline of the entire structure down to the letter and now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is rounding up the heads of the regulatory agencies and strong arming them to sign on, peppering his warnings with expletives in frustration that they have opinions on the matter that differ from the administration’s?

There’s an argument to be made that these two different strategies to push these sets of policy changes should have been reversed. The result of the hands-off approach with the energy bill was that cap and trade ended up significantly weakened in terms of emissions targets and creating a truly market based system for permits without crowding out private participation with governmental subsidies. Using that same strategy, health care reform with a public option appears to be in complete jeopardy and if anyone needed to be shaken vigorously by the Democratic leadership it’s the faction of the Democratic party itself that has undermined the President’s mandated platform. Still, placation and autonomy were the administration’s chosen modus operandi. But frankly, of all three pieces of legislation, financial reform has the least white papers in circulation outlining specific ways to move forward. Most that are written are penned by the financial community, so focusing on health care and stepping back from financial reform would have given think-tanks and academia some time to respond. Further, legislators could use some time to educate themselves and their constituents on the options before simply signing onto what’s been handed to them.

Knowing how important grassroots advocacy is, Treasury has already mapped out a field strategy plan for the recess and handed out talking points to congressional members to generate support for the administration’s financial reform plan. But a publicity campaign to seek the public’s support of a platform before any thoughtful dialog takes place between constituents, Congress members and regulators would seem to circumvent the democratic process. Afterall, it’s not as if Obama’s presidential platform was grounded on allowing standardized derivatives and giving the Fed discretion over systemically significant institutions in the same way his platform involved moving away from energy dependence and creating a 21st century health care system for all. More to the point, what’s wrong with healthy democratic engagement? If some of our most respected regulators and congressional committee chairs have reservations about pieces of the Obama financial reform plan like the Federal Reserve becoming emboldened without any check and balances, why not work on designing ways to address the Fed’s past failures and consider placing financial regulation within congressional jurisdiction if the Fed is to remain independent? The administration has compromised repeatedly over key points in spirit and letter on the recovery act, cap and trade and health care so why are dissidents with good points being scolded now over financial reform? It’s a bad strategy and bad PR. Did I mention it being undemocratic? It would also seem to reveal what the administration’s priorities really are and forces us question why that's the case.

It’s not too late to step back on financial reform, at the very least to wait for some findings to be released by the investigative panel on the financial crisis to motivate the changes the administration is advancing. But the soft power course on cap and trade and health care, cannot be reversed. Still, the administration could put all its muscle instead into grassroots campaigning for a public option during the recess if it was sincere about its platform promises.

Hobbled, We're Losing The Global Energy Race

Eric Lotke — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:01:13 -0700

When the U.S. added modest “Buy American” provisions to the February stimulus bill to help keep (some) U.S. assistance in the U.S. economy, people cried foul.

-- “A classic protectionist measure,” charged Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

-- “The worst instincts of Congress,” declared the Wall Street Journal.

-- “Counterproductive,” accused the Chamber of Commerce.

But while the U.S. dithers, the rest of the world is moving ahead on its own terms. The New York Times reports, “China Builds High Wall to Guard Energy Industry.”

Energy is key to the new economy of the future — key to end our dependence on foreign oil, advance new technologies and create new jobs. “We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century,” explained President Obama in his February address to a joint session of Congress.

But leadership takes more than just hard work, technology or innovation. It takes place in a real world that isn’t always fair.

China is positioning itself for that leadership role. Just as Japan and South Korea sheltered their domestic automakers from American competition until they developed skills, products and economies of scale, China is shielding its clean energy sector while it matures and grows. The New York Times reports:

-- China’s exports over 95 percent of its solar energy products to the United States and Europe. But China required that at least 80 percent of the equipment in its own solar power plant be made in China.

-- The Chinese government bid 25 large contracts for wind turbines this spring — and Chinese companies won every one of them. All six competitive multinationals were disqualified on technical grounds. (Chinese companies that had never built a turbine won the contracts.)

-- China requires 70 percent domestic content for wind turbines installed in China. European manufacturers built turbine factories in China specifically to comply — but they still don’t win contracts, and many have stopped bidding.

-- While T. Boone Pickens delays plans for his American wind farm, China is building six wind farms twice Pickens' size – financed by low-interest loans from state-owned banks.

China isn’t alone. Public Citizen points out that the European Union and Canada negotiated to exclude broad swaths of government procurement from WTO and NAFTA (for Canada) requirements.

“[W]hile the United States safeguards its preferences (only) for domestic iron and steel used in federally funded state transportation projects, Canada carves out steel, motor vehicles and coal altogether (for all provinces, for all sectors), and also carves out all construction contracts issued by the Departments of Transport. The EU carved out of its WTO procurement obligations contracts awarded by federal governments and sub-federal governments in connection with activities in the areas of drinking water, energy, transport or telecommunications.” (Links added).

So in European countries, stimulus money stays in Europe — while U.S. stimulus money is free to bleed overseas to buy imported goods and equipment. While other countries use energy to grow domestic industry, the U.S. imports solar cells from China.

This isn’t about protectionism. It isn’t about the ethics of Chinese exclusion or American freedom. It’s about the real world.

While American ideologues talk free market purity, countries with intelligent, carefully considered industrial policies are pulling ahead of us. This is real world competition, not game-theory in think tanks. We’re losing jobs, hemorrhaging money and squandering the competitive advantage given us by generations before.

Next time you hear a conservative cry protectionism, think about that great wall in China. This is real world competition, and we’re playing with a handicap. We can do better.

Building a Clean Energy Economy: The IMPACT Act

Eric Lotke — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:17:08 -0700

The Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act squeaked through the House of Representatives late last week (219-212). Although some expressed doubts, many people consider the bill a terrific breakthrough and important step in the right direction. But one unheralded addition to the Manager’s Amendment in the closing hours makes the bill even stronger and more important — the IMPACT provision to support clean energy manufacturing in America.

Manufacturing is critical for both the American economy and our move to energy independence. America lost nearly a third of its manufacturing jobs since 2000, accelerating a downward trend that started in the 1980s. The production of goods represented nearly half of America’s gross domestic product in 1960, but it’s below 10 percent of GDP today. These were the rock-solid middle class jobs that built America into an economic powerhouse, and spread the prosperity to our people as a whole.

The disappearance of these jobs is more than just nostalgia. We can’t replace manufacturing jobs with check-out clerks at Walmart. And it turns out that medical, engineering, and financial services jobs can also be outsourced to India and Indonesia. We need to rebuild our economy. We need to move beyond a bubble economy based on high-consumption, low-wages and foreign borrowing.

Energy is a place to start. We can’t just swap our dependence on foreign oil for dependence on foreign manufacturing.

President Obama said it in his February address to the Joint Session of Congress: “We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it…. Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don’t either. It is time for America to lead again.”

Right now, more than half of our wind turbines come from overseas. Roughly 90 percent of our solar cells are imported from China.

America can make this transition. Gear boxes for automobiles aren’t all that different from gear boxes for wind turbines. A company that makes one can make the other — but the transitional costs are formidable, especially in an era of tight credit and slack demand.

The IMPACT Act added to Waxman-Markey will help solve those problems. IMPACT (Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology) creates a $30 billion Manufacturing Revolving Loan Fund to help small and medium-sized manufacturers finance retooling, shift design, and improve energy efficiency. It also adds $1.5 billion to the existing Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, to include specific support for clean energy retooling.

The Apollo Alliance — a coalition of business, labor and environmental groups concerned about clean energy — estimates that the IMPACT Act could create 680,000 direct manufacturing jobs nationally and 1,972,000 indirect jobs over the next five years. “It is critical that Congress enact legislation that provides direct and substantial investment in clean energy component manufacturing to ensure that jobs are created in the U.S., and to wean us from our dependence on other nations to meet our energy needs,” said Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides

Credit Senator Brown (D-Ohio) for conceiving this legislation and introducing the original bill in the Senate. Credit Representatives John Boccieri (D-Ohio) and Zack Space (D-Ohio) for adding the IMPACT language to the Waxman-Markey bill. And yes, credit Apollo for putting wind in the sails.

This IMPACT amendment is good on the substance — for manufacturing and for clean energy independence. And it’s good politics — to help both coal mining and industrial states make the transition to the clean energy economy.

Manufacturers and environmentalists looking ahead to the future. Trade unions and scientists developing new technologies. Ohio and Kentucky both coming out ahead. Go, team.

Good deficit, bad deficit.

Eric Lotke — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:16:17 -0700

Obama has introduced his budget, and people are hyperventilating about the deficit. Piling “debt on the backs of our kids and our grandkids,” declares House minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). "Bloated," exclaims Democrat Evan Bayh of Nebraska.

With all the hyperventilating, we are forgetting what’s most important. Deficits aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes deficits can be good.

• Credit card debt for a plasma TV? Bad.
• Low interest loans for a college diploma? Good.

• Buying a second car you don’t need? Bad.
• Borrowing for a house when the kids are born? Good.

Deficits have taken almost mythical hold of our imagination. The word “deficit” has become a stand-in for words like waste and irresponsibility – so running a deficit is nearly synonymous with irresponsibility. But deficits are not necessarily irresponsible. Economists consider deficits simply one economic variable to be taken into consideration among many others.

• Every successful business starts with a loan. Entrepreneurs earn their ulcers looking at their loan schedules, not expecting a profit until the third year. But still they borrow. It's necessary to succeed.

The Obama budget shows deficits in the trillions. Maybe that’s okay. The US had a budget deficit for most of our stunning boom after World War II.

Our deficit might appear less frightening if we think not in terms of dollars, but as percent of GDP. The U.S. is a gigantic economy, so national numbers become frighteningly large.

Our deficit this year is $1.7 trillion. That’s big. But our economy is $14.2 trillion. That’s even bigger. Put them together and our deficit is 12% of our GDP. It is high, but not extraordinary by historical or international standards. It is like a person who earns $30,000 with a $3,500 deficit at the end of the year. It’s a lot. But it can be managed. Indeed, if the deficit bought some education or a new set of tools, it might not be irresponsible at all; it might even be worth it.

Source: OMB history, 1930-2008; CBO projections, 2008-10

Even if we look at the accumulated debt, not the annual deficit, the U.S. level of debt is lower than most advanced industrial countries’ – and during the current crisis, many other countries are, like the U.S., deliberately raising their deficits. In 2008, France’s public debt was 64 percent of its GDP; Germany’s was 63 percent. Japan sets the scale at 170 percent.

Source: CIA

Obama seems to understand this. He’s at his best when he talks about cutting waste, but “what we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and prosperity over the long term." Energy, health care and education are usually at the top of the list.

He’s at his worst when he promises to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his first term. First, it creates an impossible expectation. Second, it accepts deficit reduction as more fundamental than it needs to be.

The conclusion: Don’t panic. Our deficit is high and it deserves attention. But at this time of crisis, deficit spending to make sensible investments and put people to work is both necessary and affordable. It can turn our troubles around, and build the resources that we need for the future – clean energy, an educated workforce and a 21st century infrastructure. Build, and build big.

Fixing the Economy. Seriously.

Eric Lotke — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:26:19 -0800

There were no theatrics. No single women came in to protest life’s travails, no displaced workers told of the factory shut down. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Forum was government as it should be. Serious people hard at work.

They didn’t sugar coat the problem. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich called it the “most serious economic downturn in more than sixty years.” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, expected this to be “the worst year for the U.S. economy since the end of the 1930s.”

But the solution is taking shape as well. Speaker Pelosi called for “bold action,” stressing both the urgency of quick action and the need for long term solutions. The broad outlines from multiple speakers and the Q&A look roughly like this.

1. Act Fast. We are heading downhill and picking up speed. Action is needed quickly to put money and energy into the economy. The fastest way to do it is to put money into hands of people who will spend it. Food stamps. Unemployment insurance. Child tax credits. It’s good for people and good for the economy, and it should be done by February.

2. Put People to Work. Repairing schools, strengthening levees, laying rail lines. These are good jobs now and smart investments in the economy for the long run. Some infrastructure needs to be “shovel-ready” so work can start and money can flow immediately, but the queue can begin now for next year’s work.

Monetary policy like lowering interest rates is good – but it’s not enough. We need not only to increase the supply of money, but to increase the demand for it. That means we should spend.

3. Build People, not just Things. Behind the drive to invest in physical infrastructure is the investment in human capital. From early childhood and pre-kindergarten education, to post-college graduate degrees in engineering, we need to invest in our people. That’s the innovation infrastructure that will power the economy when the two year stimulus package is a distant memory.

4. Think Big. The U.S. economy is huge, and actions to affect it need to be big as well. One percent of GDP is roughly $150 billion, and recommendations range from roughly 3 percent of GDP to 7-8 percent of GDP. You can do the math yourself (or just read this parenthesis: no less than $450 billion and up to $1.2 trillion is needed to affect an economy this big).

a. This is not the time to worry about deficits. This is the time to spend. We need to add money to the economy – so spending with offsets doesn’t do the trick. It just breaks even.

b. With interest rates low, this is a good time to borrow.

c. Deficits in the trillions seem big, but again it’s a big economy.Our current and expected deficits as a percent of GDP are not so alarming. (And the way to reduce the deficit as a percent of GDP is to grow the economy, not shrink the spending).

5. Problems are Inter-related, and so are Solutions. Energy affects foreign policy and our dependence on foreign oil, but also our domestic economy. New energy solutions can put people to work – improving insulation on old building, revamping the power grid, or inventing the plug-in hybrids.

Health care was also a cross-cutting theme. Starbucks spends more on health care than on coffee, and General Motors spends more on health care than on steel. It’s hard on business and harder to compete in the global economy. The problems occur at every level. A worker loses her job and with it her health care; she goes on Medicaid. Now the state has to pay for her Medicaid, but the state just lost the revenue of her payroll contribution. Health care problems amplify each other and cry out for systemic solution.

6. Act Fast, and Keep it Up. We need to stimulate now — but even if it works, everything won’t be fixed two years from now. We need to use this crisis to lay the groundwork for longterm solutions, not just postpone the next crisis.

That’s the substantive overview, but the atmospherics were important as well. I sat there in the audience, listening to the speakers and reviewing the data, and felt better about America than I have in a long time. These were serious people doing serious business. The people’s business.

They were smart and they were trying. They weren’t flailing around and blaming others. The ideas might not work – Rob Reich spoke of “experimentation” – but at least they were trying. With that in the background, maybe we can get something done.

Coal Ash Spill Is Much Larger Than Initially Estimated

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:49:09 -0800

With A Compass, Not A Roadmap

Eric Lotke — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:14:55 -0800

The complaints are starting on the new Obama administration. Some are concerned that he filled his administration with former Clinton hands, reflecting the old school (if more competent), not the change we need.

“What worries me is there is not one person in the senior group who is the outsider to this club,” cautioned Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect. “Where is the diversity of opinion in this economic team?”

David Sirota of our own Campaign for America's Future observes that some terrific progressives have been appointed to high-level positions in the Administration, but they are political jobs, not substantive ones. They are “positions that are focused on selling policy, whatever that policy may be. “ In contrast, the “policy advisers who actually craft policy are almost all right-of-center, Establishment choices.”

Discontent is coming from the other direction as well, as Democrats increase estimates of the cost to revive the economy. During the campaign Obama pledged roughly $150 billion in spending over 10 years to create new jobs for clean energy and rebuilding schools. Now Congressional Democrats are estimating immediate expenditures in the $700 billion range. The GOP has created a spendometer to track the continuing increases.

Obama himself dodges questions about cost. “It is going to be of a size and scope that is necessary to get this economy back on track,” he said in his November 24 press conference. “I don't want to get into numbers right now.”

The question for progressives is whether to demand the details or question his choices.

Both seem premature. Political change happens with a compass, not a roadmap. Obama has clearly indicated which way he wants to lead: in the direction of clean energy, massive public investments, an exit from Iraq and “affordable, accessible health care for all Americans.” These are important and fundamentally progressive goals.

Digby sees a positive side to the appointments to political -- if not substantive -- positions. Simply using progressive language drives our country in a positive direction.

Let’s trust that those old Clinton hands will have the skills and experience to navigate the changing terrain. Obama’s job is to set a direction. Our job is to push him forwards and keep him on course.