No-Brainer

I am exactly that cynical.

by Jeffrey C. Billman

This should be a no-brainer.

Inside the Beltway, after all, $2.5 billion is basically a rounding error — pocket change, more or less, in an annual budget (and budget deficit) that runs in the trillions. Meanwhile, this country faces the largest unemployment crisis of the last 60 years, prompted by three decades of capitalism-on-steroids recklessness championed by a generation of Ronald Reagan disciples. This pocket change can, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), save nearly 130,000 jobs nationwide, and nearly 13,000 in Pennsylvania.

It should be simple. But it's not. Once again, Senate Republicans — while chiding the president for lackluster job growth — are filibustering; the goal, sadly, is to ensure that even this most meager progress is put off until after the midterms, because a crappy economy is good for them politically. (And yes, I am exactly that cynical.)

At issue is the emergency fund of the federal government's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Authorized in last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the TANF Emergency Fund alloted $5 billion to help states manage the crush of Great Recession. It's not a one-size-fits-all program; states, and sometimes counties within states, can spend the money different ways, including emergency assistance to low-income families. (Only two states, Indiana and Wyoming, have taken no money from the fund.) Among the most common usages, says LaDonna Pavetti of CBPP, is to subsidize low-end, private sector employment for poor people (up to $13 an hour); 37 states have chosen this tack, including Pennsylvania. Of the fund's $5 billion, more than $1 billion went to this purpose.

As of Sept. 2, Pennsylvania had received $97.6 million to subsidize employment, Pavetti says — helping cash-strapped businesses defray the costs of jobs for 12,864 adults and another 7,854 summer jobs for teens. All of this has happened rather quickly. Although the fund was established last year, Pennsylvania did not get its program up and running until April. (It, like some other states, had to create a subsidized-employment program from scratch.) In other states, the fund has produced an even larger hiring boom: California's share has subsidized some 45,000 adult and teen jobs, according to CBPP; Texas's share has helped fund nearly 40,000.

In its annual budget request, the Obama administration sought $2.5 billion to keep the program — which has been endorsed by the likes of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and the far-right American Enterprise Institute, whose director of economic policy praised it as "a pretty cost-effective way to create jobs" — afloat. On March 24, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved this one-year extension.

But in the Senate, where good legislation goes to die, every single Republican (and four Democrats) filibustered a six-month, $1.3 billion extension. Given the times, this isn't altogether unexpected. It is, however, indicative of how absolutely broken-down and pathetic our political system has become.

In May — following the GOP's gimmicky online "YouCut" poll, in which party activists voted on their favorite part of the federal budget to hack; make what you will of the fact that this little bit of aid to the working poor "won" — House Minority Whip Eric Cantor tried to force a vote to do away with the program. He didn't succeed, but only because his party is deep in the minority (for now), and kicking the unfortunate in the teeth during a recession isn't likely to garner bipartisan support. And in any event, while Cantor couldn't rouse enough support to kill this thing dead, Harry Reid can't get enough senators on board to keep it going.

The clock is ticking: The money dries up Sept. 30. Those 130,000 jobs will disappear.

Think about this for a second: Right now, Democrats and Republicans are battling over extending Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent — a $700 billion proposition over the next 10 years that would do nothing to stimulate the economy. Rich people, basic economics tells us, save any extra money they come across; trickle-down is a busted myth. Poor people, struggling to make ends meet, spend it — which is exactly what this economy needs.

In short, this TANF Emergency Fund costs a fraction of continuing George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

This should be a no-brainer — but in the United States Senate, it isn't. If that's not an indictment of the whole damned system, I don't know what is.

(jeffrey.billman@citypaper.net)