Jobs and Elections

Jon Ryan at New Deal 2.0 does something the Democrats should have done this election year. He lays out a clear, and simple, progressive agenda that would trigger job creation and address the biggest threat this country faces (climate change.)

It seems to me that the centerpiece of a progressive economic agenda has to be about creating and maintaining jobs: permanent, high-skilled, good-paying jobs. And not just a million jobs here and there, but tens of millions of good jobs, to bring under- and unemployment down, lift the new (and old) poor out of poverty, and retain what remains of the American middle class.

He goes on to say this would be done by investing in a green economy, which he gives good detail on. Its worth a read.

It strikes me that this is something the Democrats really should have pressed. The Senate's climate change bill should've been framed as a Jobs bill, then put to a vote. Let the Republicans filibuster it and if corporate/coal state Democrats choose to join them, fine. But with that failure the Democrats could run a campaign saying they are for Jobs and the Environment and need your vote to make it happen (perhaps stress jobs more than anything else.) They could use the Republican's blockage against them; highlight that the GOP is "standing in the way" of progress and we need to vote in more Democrats. I think this would be very effective in at least stemming the coming huge losses for the Democratic Party.