Stimulus

Speaking this past week at the Ex-Im Bank, President Obama laid out his strategy for doubling American exports within five years, a goal he announced in his State of the Union Address. Naming it the National Export Initiative, he described the strategy as “an ambitious effort to marshal the full resources of the United States government behind American businesses that sell their goods and services abroad.” The Initiative calls for the creation of an Export Promotion Cabinet, made up of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor along with the United State

A year ago on this page, we cautioned that the enormous cost of the financial industry bail-outs and the stimulus plan would sharply curtail US President Barack Obama’s ability to push for investment spending and for healthcare and entitlement reform. We felt that by further exploding our federal debt and our reliance on foreign capital, our economic security would decline, especially vis-à-vis China.

Raise your hand if you think filing a federal tax return will bring you thousands of dollars. Or if you think tax time this year could bring a windfall of federal stimulus dollars to Fresno's economy.

Most hands, I predict, are down. Everyone dreads doing their taxes. But this year, every working family with an income of less than $48,000 could have a big reason to look forward to it. That's because of something known as the Earned Income Tax Credit. It could be called Big Bucks For Fresno.

It makes filing that tax return very, very worthwhile for many people.

Congress has stripped the jobs bill of the reinvestment in America's infrastructure that would put people back to work and make the country more prosperous in the long run.

Instead, the bill relies on tax credits that are too small and too temporary to make a dent in America's high unemployment.

The California Asset Building Program released a report on the federal Earned Income Tax Credit’s impact on the California economy yesterday in Sacramento, and let’s just say that these bucks have a lot of bang.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the federal government’s largest resources for working low-income Americans. It is widely regarded as the nation’s most effective and efficient anti-poverty program and has been expanded by a series of Democratic and Republican presidents. Hundreds of thousands of Californians, however, fail to claim EITC refunds, which range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The families and individuals who miss out are not the only losers when these refunds go unclaimed. Local economies never benefit from this money.

Is the love affair between California’s Republican governor and the Democratic president over?

Big business and advocates for the working poor often have trouble finding common ground. But that shouldn't be a problem for the next few weeks leading up to April 15. New research shows they both have more than ever at stake this year in boosting California's woefully low participation in the country's largest program for the working poor – the earned-income tax credit. They just need to realize it.

The central issue in American politics isn't health reform, though you'd never know it from watching the news. Rather, the central issue, the one that helps define all others, is wages. When real wages increase, societies tend to be more open and generous. But when living standards are under pressure, a climate of distrust prevails. People grow fearful of losing what they have, and so they question the ambitions of social reformers and free-traders and others who promise to overturn old and familiar ways of doing business, whether from the right or the left.

On March 9th, 2010, the Asset Building Program released Left on the table, a new report on the EITC's economic impact in California. Read the press release, which describes the report's main findings and features statements from Governor Schwarzenneger, report author Dr. Avalos, and New America's Anne Stuhldreher, here.