We Don't Need Any More Speeches

Yesterday, President Obama gave yet another eloquent and beautiful speech about the economy. He vividly described the problem of "rising inequality and declining mobility." He discussed empowering workers, creating promise zones, raising the minimum wage, enacting the Pay Check Fairness Act and enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He said all of the right things. He usually does. Aside from his sharp rhetoric about class inequality, we heard this speech before.

Five years into the Obama Presidency and all we get is more speeches about the economy.  Congress refuses to act. As black unemployment remains disproportionately high, all we get is more speeches. Congress refuses to act.  As Detroit goes bankrupt and retired city workers face the real prospect of losing their pensions, all we get is more speeches.  Congress refuses to act.  The New York Times reports that:

In a ruling that could reverberate far beyond Detroit, a federal judge held on Tuesday that this battered city could formally enter bankruptcy and asserted that Detroit’s obligation to pay pensions in full was not untouchable.

The judge, Steven W. Rhodes, dealt a major blow to the widely held belief that state laws preserve public pensions, and his ruling is likely to resonate in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and many other American cities where the rising cost of pensions has been crowding out spending for public schools, police departments and other services.

The judge made it clear that public employee pensions were not protected in a federal Chapter 9 bankruptcy, even though the Michigan Constitution expressly protects them. “Pension benefits are a contractual right and are not entitled to any heightened protection in a municipal bankruptcy,” he said.

James E. Spiotto, a lawyer with the firm Chapman & Cutler in Chicago who specializes in municipal bankruptcy and was not involved in the case, said: “No bankruptcy court had ruled that before. It will be instructive.”

If Congress and the White House can get together to bail out filthy rich, avaricious companies on Wall Street, why can't they get together to bail out Detroit and the rest of Main Street?!?   Why can't they enact the legislation that the President mentioned?  If the U.S. can afford to squander billions in Afghanistan, why can't the U.S. bail out Detroit and the rest of Main Street?  We don't need any more beautiful speeches. We need action. Instead of patiently waiting on Congress to save us, we must force them and the White House to act.

Today is A Beautiful Day!

Good morning, family. Today is a beautiful day. Yesterday, New Jersey elected its first African American U.S. Senator and the federal government is open for business. As reported in the Star Ledger,

Cory Booker’s star-quality and his skill at surviving the roughhouse politics of New Jersey’s biggest city took him from the mayor’s office to the U.S. Senate today in a hard-fought victory over Republican iconoclast Steve Lonegan.   

With his special-election win, Booker will become the first African-American to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, and is the first Newark mayor to win higher office in more than a century. He also extended the Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate race winning streak to 14 elections in New Jersey, dating back to 1976.   

The Newark mayor will serve the remaining 15 months of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s term after a two-month campaign marked by bizarre turns, wild accusations, erratic polling numbers and blistering attacks.   

Booker won by double digits, but it wasn’t the landslide many had predicted at the beginning of the campaign. With 94 percent of the precincts reporting, he had about 55 percent of the vote to Lonegan’s 44 percent.  

From the outset, the 44-year-old, two-term mayor had one advantage his conservative firebrand opponent could never hope to match: name recognition. From city hall to the morning talk shows, Booker’s good looks, big smile and his championing of his beleaguered city won him plenty of big name fans — and evidently the approval of Jersey voters who elected him in a rare October election with light turnout.

Hopefully, Cory Booker's election is a sign that new possibilities are on the horizon for African Americans. I hope that the people are not simply pacified by the power of symbolism. We must be agenda focused and results oriented. As black politicians rise, we must ensure that our agenda and interests are not marginalized.

Speaking of being marginalized, President Obama and the Democrats soundly defeated the idiotic Tea Party fanatics in the U.S. House of Representatives, at least for now. As reported in the Washington Post,

Federal agencies, parks, museums and monuments began to reopen Thursday morning, after a chastened Congress ended a bitter funding standoff that triggered a 16-day government closure and drove the nation toward the brink of default.   

The agreement struck by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) funds agencies through mid-January, calls hundreds of thousands of civil servants back to work and raises the $16.7 trillion debt limit...   

The bill passed late Wednesday ended a stalemate created last month, when hard-line conservatives pushed Republican leaders to use the threat of shutdown to block a landmark expansion of federally funded health coverage.   

That campaign, however, succeeded mainly in undermining popular support for the Republican Party. By the end, dozens of anxious GOP lawmakers were ready to give Obama almost exactly what he requested months ago: a bill to fund the government and increase the Treasury Department’s borrowing power with no strings attached.   

The Senate overwhelmingly ratified the deal Wednesday evening, 81 to 18, with more than half of Senate Republicans voting yes. A few hours later, the House followed suit, approving the measure 285 to 144. Eighty-seven Republicans joined a united Democratic caucus in approving the measure, allowing Congress to meet a critical Treasury Department deadline with one day to spare.    

Obama signed the measure into law shortly after midnight,reopening parks and monuments across the nation, restoring government services and putting furloughed federal employees back on the job, many of them in the Washington region.  

The measure guarantees those workers back pay for time spent at home, aid flood-ravaged Colorado and provide extra cash for fighting wildfires out West. And it would grant the D.C. government, which relies on Congress to approve its budget, authority to manage its own affairs through the 2014 fiscal year.

I commend the President and the Democrats for standing up to those no good, hostage takers. President Obama must continue to stand strong. No surrender on entitlements!