Anderson@Large

No Ford in New York’s Future

Like most native New Yorkers, I don’t know much about cars. But I do know that New Yorkers would rather buy a Ford Edsel than hitch a ride with Harold Ford Jr.

In a new Quinnipiac poll, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand leads Ford 2-1.

www.colbertnation.com

Ford is the chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, which the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. derisively referred to as the “Democratic Leisure Council.”

A darling of Wall Street banksters who has never voted in New York, Ford could not find his way to “Chinatown or on Riverside” without a helicopter pilot.

President Barack Obama recently observed:

Bankers don’t need another vote in the United States Senate. They’ve got plenty.

If Ford wants to represent banksters, he should waltz his you-know-what back to Tennessee.

Stimulating Equity

It’s time again for states to submit their quarterly Section 1512 reports on how they spent stimulus funds and the number of jobs “saved or created” funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The reports will be posted to Recovery.gov on Jan. 30. But there will not be much to report on the impact of stimulus spending on the African American community. As the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. observed during the opening sessions of the Wall Street Project Economic Summit:

We need a Stimulus II that’s bottom up.

[...]

The first stimulus prioritized bailing out the banks but did so without linkages or obligations to reinvest ... Harlem and Wall Street are on the same island. Wall Street riding the tide does not lift Harlem or any other part of the country.

Jackson continued:

Small businesses last and big businesses first. Bail out the big banks and small businesses get what’s left. But there’s nothing left.

Jackson said minority entrepreneurs must engage in a sustained struggle. He observed that the business of the Wall Street banksters is not small businesses:

They’re making money off of foreclosures.

He noted that the bailed-out banksters did not have to comply with Title VI:

We want a radical thing -- the law enforced. We want the government to enforce the laws to protect the people.

We want a measure of justice ... When there’s inclusion, there’s growth. When there’s growth, everyone wins.

Jackson plans to buy stock in the leading predatory lenders that got us into this financial mess and go to their shareholders’ meetings, where he will ask them to follow the law.

He also plans to launch a multi-city campaign to push for “reconstruction banks” to provide access to capital for small businesses and homeowners. The reconstruction banks would be modeled after the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the Great Depression.

To stay informed, join the Coalition to Empower Minority Business Enterprises on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Coalition to Empower MBEs Launched

For everyone except Wall Street banksters, insurance companies, lobbyists, automakers, and Fannie and Freddie, 2009 was an annus horribilis.

Back in February, President Barack Obama told Black Enterprise he was committed to “making sure goals are set that ensure participation of every type of business imaginable” in his economic recovery plan. But studies show minority business enterprises have been shoved aside from Washington, DC to Seattle, Washington.

MBEs have been shut out of stimulus contracts and loans. Indeed, La Opinión recently editorialized:

Community leaders are demanding an explanation and they are entitled to one. The stimulus package money comes from taxpayers and the banks are not assuming any risk at all with these loans, so the government should ensure that access to the program is equitable. It may have been smarter to have granted the loans directly through the Small Business Administration (SBA) rather than through the banks, which tend not to want to disclose how and why the make their decisions, even when they receive taxpayer assistance.

The program must be reviewed and measures must be implemented to facilitate access for minorities who, in many cases, are the main economic pillars of their communities.

In a New Year’s Day op-ed in the Philadelphia Tribune, my colleague, Della Clark of The Enterprise Center, noted that cash-strapped minority businesses cannot compete against primes who are also trying to keep their businesses afloat.

Della wrote:

In these tough economic times, competition for ARRA-funded contracts is fierce. But disadvantaged businesses cannot compete against prime contractors who are submitting low bids to weather the economic storm.

Sure, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell signed an executive order establishing an “aspirational goal” that at least ten percent of ARRA opportunities should go to disadvantaged businesses. But Della is not sitting around hoping for change. Instead, she is mobilizing minority entrepreneurs in an effort to remove systemic barriers to participation.

For this indefatigable visionary, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line:

In speaking truth to empower, the Coalition to Empower Minority Business Enterprises can change the culture in procurement offices across the commonwealth. In doing so, minority entrepreneurs will be better positioned to grow their business, create sustainable jobs and contribute to the economic recovery of Pennsylvania.

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, then resolve to do something. To get involved with the MBE Coalition, send an email here.

‘Shovel Ready’ and Shoved Aside

Later today, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the “Jobs for Main Street Act,” which includes $50 billion in spending for highways, mass transit, affordable housing and school renovation. The bill provides that “priority shall be given to projects that are projected for completion within a 3-year time frame, and are located in economically distressed areas.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

It is a bill that creates jobs, that meets the needs of those who are unemployed, and puts us on a path to prosperity.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey added:

We want to redirect $75 billion which had been focused on the needs of Wall Street – we want to redirect that to Main Street and use it in order to preserve the jobs of teachers, firemen, policemen, prison guards, you name it, and at the same time provide another boost to construction of infrastructure projects around the country. If we don’t do this, we are going to see unemployment in the construction industry in some states approaching 30 and 35 percent.

Nice work if you can get it, but studies show that stimulus-funded jobs did not go to the people most in need. Minority workers and minority-owned businesses have been shoved aside.

A new report from the Transportation Equity Network shows infrastructure stimulus spending has bypassed the hardest-hit communities .

Inequities in Transportation Stimulus Spending 

During a teleconference call, Laura Barrett, executive director of Transportation Equity Network, said:

Funds from ARRA are not reaching into our community and creating jobs. It seems that minorities and women are getting fewer jobs than they have in the past.

Barrett’s concerns about the inequities in infrastructure spending were echoed by Richard Copeland, founder and chairman of THOR Construction Inc., the largest African American-owned construction firm in the nation. Copeland observed:

We have been fighting this fight for inclusion in the mainstream of the economy for the last 20 years… Our communities have been systematically excluded… Once stimulus money comes in, it goes into the same grind mill. So it stands to reason that we would be excluded from stimulus projects. It’s not trickling down so that disadvantaged business firms are benefiting from the stimulus dollars.

Julie A. Cunningham, president and CEO of the Conference Of Minority Transportation Officials, noted:

Instead of offering a hand up, ARRA is continuing the bad pattern of segregation that has long plagued federal programs.

Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, said that in order to fix the problem “we must understand how big the problem is and then develop innovative strategies.” LeRoy is pushing for Recovery.gov to add demographic data fields to the reports recipients are required to file. The data would include the race, gender and residential zip code of workers, as well as disadvantaged business contracting data.

Rev. Paul Slack of ISAIAH/New Creation Church cut to the chase:

There is too much focus on good faith when our focus should be on good results.

Can I get an Amen?!

A Modest Job Creation Proposal

President Barack Obama will deliver remarks on job creation and economic growth at the Brookings Institution this morning. Obama reportedly will propose redirecting $200 billion from TARP to pay for a jobs package.

To reach those most in need, Obama will have to do more than propose more infrastructure spending. As Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News, observed during a breakout session at last week’s jobs summit, infrastructure spending is fraught with “politics, patronage and private deals”:

You have to take it out of the political system and put it in some kind of professionally-managed decision-making process where decisions are made much more in the national interest and economic values of the country than the system we have now.

Sending more money to the states and hoping for a better ROI than the stimulus package would be insane. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. A jobs package that does not target economically distressed areas would again leave African Americans standing in the unemployment line.

Without targeted spending, states and localities will use federal dollars to plug budget holes and save the jobs of public employees. While there are growing doubts about the number of jobs “created or saved” by stimulus spending, there is no doubt that people of color are disproportionately unemployed.

Any jobs package must include a public-works jobs component with the government as the employer of last resort. Sure, private sector jobs will lead to sustainable economic growth, but it’s any port in a storm. And right now, Americans need a job to weather the economic storm.

The bottom line: Obama must do more than propose more of the same. He must listen to the voices of the Congressional Black Caucus and African American leaders who say that black joblessness is the “civil rights issue of the moment.”

House of Credit Cards

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

With “Black Friday” looming, you might want to check your local listings for Frontline’s investigative report before you reach for your credit card.

You can also watch the full program here.

Tax Cheat Geithner May Get the Ax

Finally, some good news. Progressive Democrats are calling for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to get to stepping.

The Hill reports:

A Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) member said there's “growing consensus” among liberals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should step down.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he and other liberal House members are becoming increasingly tired of Obama administration economic policies that they say are too focused on maintaining the stability of Wall Street firms and largely ignore “Main Street.”

DeFazio told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz “we may have to sacrifice just two more jobs [Geithner’s and Larry Summers’] to get millions back for Americans.”

DeFazio’s sentiment was echoed by Republican Rep. Kevin Brady, who during a Joint Economic Committee hearing told Geithner:

Mr. Secretary, the public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job. Conservatives agree, Democrats agree that it really is time for a fresh start, and I would urge you to consider it.

Geithner, get ready. The bus may be coming.