Anderson@Large

Where the Jobs Aren’t

In his weekly address, President Obama called on Congress “to get its act together” and pass the American Jobs Act:

It’s been almost three weeks since I sent the American Jobs Act to Congress – three weeks since I sent them a bill that would put people back to work and put money in people’s pockets. And now I want it back. It is time for Congress to get its act together and pass this jobs bill so I can sign it into law.

A study by the Transportation Equity Network suggests that getting “construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges” will not help African Americans.

The report, “The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work,” will not be released until Tuesday, but the media advisory says all you need to know:

Most states are failing to boost job access to those hit hardest by the recession—minorities and women—in the multi-billion-dollar federal highway construction field.

The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work presents the first-ever compilation of data from all 50 states on their use of on-the-job-training and apprenticeship programs to boost job access for minorities and women in the federal highway construction field from 2008-10.

The study finds that most states are doing a poor job of using proven training programs to boost highway construction job access for minorities and women, though unemployment rates for minorities are nearly double those of whites, and female unemployment is ticking up while male unemployment is dropping.

For more info, contact Stephen Boykewich.

UPDATE: TEN has released the report, “The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work.”

Waters to Obama: You Talking to Me?

There has been a mixed reaction to President Obama’s speech before the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s awards dinner.

Rep. Maxine Waters gave her take during an appearance on CBS’ “Early Show.”

Waters said she “wasn’t sure who the president was talking to.” Waters found Obama’s rap “a bit curious”:

I found that language a bit curious because the president spoke to the Hispanic Caucus and certainly they are pushing him on immigration. And despite the fact that he’s appointed Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, he has an office for excellence in Hispanic education right in the White House, they’re still pushing him. And he certainly didn’t tell them to stop complaining.

And he never would say that to the gay and lesbian community who really pushed him on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Or even in a speech to AIPAC, he would never say to the Jewish community “stop complaining” about Israel.

Oh no she didn’t!

Solyndra in the Hot Seat

This morning, executives from the bankrupt Solyndra will be hauled before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to tell what they did with taxpayers’ $535 million.

While Chief Executive Officer Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer Bill Stover are expected to take the Fifth Amendment, some former Solyndra employees are talking.

The Washington Post reports:

Former employees of Solyndra, the shuttered solar company that exhausted half a billion dollars of taxpayer money, said they saw questionable spending by management almost as soon as a federal agency approved a $535 million government-backed loan for the start-up.

[…]

As the $344 million factory went up just down the road from the company’s leased plant in Fremont, Calif., workers watched as pallets of unsold solar panels stacked up in storage. Many wondered: Was the factory needed?

“After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right,” said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. “Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.”

The issue of crony capitalism was raised by Robert Johnson during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s town hall on jobs and economic opportunity.

Johnson asked how a risky start-up like Solyndra received $535 million when black-led start-ups can’t get access to capital. He observed:

Somebody said there’s a compelling interest in seeing green. But nobody said there’s a compelling interest in seeing black wealth.

It is said there are no coincidences in politics. I hope congressional investigators find out who in the Obama administration thought the Solyndra fraudsters had a compelling claim to taxpayers’ money.

The hearing is open to the public. Opening statements, witness testimonies, and a live webcast will be available here.

National Town Hall: Economic Opportunity and Jobs

Civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr. once said, “The hardest work in the world is being out of work.”

That is the sad reality for 25 million Americans, including nearly three million African Americans.

At today’s town hall, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation will focus on the jobless crisis in the African American community and strategies for job creation that will help those who have been hardest hit by the recession.

CBCF Chairman Rep. Donald Payne said in a statement:

We are facing an unprecedented crisis in our community, with the possibility of generations of African-Americans permanently detached from economic opportunity. The CBCF understands the importance of bringing our brightest minds to the table to find solutions that will provide jobs and bring financial security to families.

Those bright minds include:

• Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president, Bennett College for Women
• Marc Morial, president and CEO, National Urban League
• William Lucy, president, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

The National Town Hall is free and open to the public. It will take place from 9:00 am to 11:30 am in Ballroom A in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

If like me, you can’t make it to DC, no problem. You can join the discussion via a live webcast. I wil tweet the event (hashtag #41stALC).

CBC Week 2011

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference 2011 starts today. This year marks its 41st anniversary.

For me, it will always be “CBC Week.”

The Congressional Black Caucus kicks things off with the “Jobs for the People” Commission, led by CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver. Given the depression-level unemployment rate in the African American community, the discussion will focus on strategies to create jobs, jobs, jobs.

The event is free and open to the public. To join the conversation on Twitter, use the hashtag #41stALC.

Pass this Bill

During his address before a joint session of Congress, President Obama exhorted Congress to “pass this bill,” the American Jobs Act.

Until yesterday, no bill had been filed in the House. That changed when Republican Rep. Louis Gohmert bust a cheeky move and introduced H.R. 2911, the “American Jobs Act of 2011.”

In a statement, Gohmert said:

We have heard a lot of rhetoric about job creation from President Obama over the last several days. After waiting to see what the President would actually put into legislative language, and then waiting to see if anybody would actually introduce the President’s bill in the House, today I took the initiative and introduced the “American Jobs Act of 2011.” It is a very simple bill, which will eliminate the corporate tax which serves as a tariff that our American companies pay on goods they produce here in America.

Ten days later, Obama’s message is: Show me some love and help me pass the “American Jobs Act.”

Confused?

GOP Upset in NY-9 Special Election

It was a long night but the results are in: Republican Bob Turner won the special election to fill the seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner.

While David Weprin’s name was on the ballot, Republicans and others, including former New York Mayor Ed Koch, cast the race as a referendum on President Obama. The New York Times reports:

As Mr. Turner declared that the election had been a referendum on the president, his buoyant supporters, gathered at a restaurant in Howard Beach, Queens, shouted “Yes, we can,” appropriating the galvanizing phrase of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign. Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.

“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”

[…]

The unexpectedly tight race stirred anxiety among Democrats already worried about elections next year for president, the House and the Senate. The Turner campaign had eagerly courted disenchanted Democrats, and outside polling places around the district on Tuesday, multiple longtime Democrats confessed that despite concern about Mr. Turner’s eagerness to slash federal spending, they chose him hoping that his election would get lawmakers’ attention.

Political commentator Stuart Rothenberg recently wrote:

But make no mistake about it, the albatross around Weprin’s neck is named Obama, and Democrats who value honesty will tell you privately that the president’s 37 percent approval rating in the district is making it difficult for Weprin to win a race that in almost any other time would be a slam dunk, no matter how mediocre a campaign the Democratic nominee ran.

Polling conducted by Siena College shows that jobs and the economy are the top issues of the day, and Republican calls for voters to “send a message” to President Barack Obama clearly have worked far better than Democratic charges that Turner and his party want to eliminate Medicare and Social Security.

Israel is also a very visible issue, and popular former New York Mayor Ed Koch (D) has endorsed Turner because of the former mayor’s unhappiness with Obama’s level of support for Israel.

Rothenberg continued:

Democrats also want to avoid the public relations disaster that losing a reliably Democratic district would entail. The loss would play into the Republicans’ narrative about the president’s unpopularity, giving GOP talkers ammunition to argue that 2012 will be a nightmare for Democrats and that Medicare will not be the disaster for Republicans that Democratic strategists hope it will be.

Weprin, an Orthodox Jew, lost in a district with a heavy population of Jewish voters and where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3-to-1 margin.

If Weprin couldn’t make it there, can Democrats make it in Florida next year?