When asked by USA Today's pollsters last week, sixty-eight percent of Americans said we worry that the cost of the Afghanistan War hurts our ability to fix problems here in the U.S. This week, we learned just how right we were about that. Friday's terrible jobs report shows that a crushing 9.8 percent of us are unemployed. And, millions of us are about to lose our lifeline because Congress refuses to extend unemployment insurance benefits. We're spending $2 billion per week -- per week! -- in Afghanistan while millions of people face going hungry during the holidays.

Do our elected officials not get it? We're drowning out here, and the administration is throwing money that could put Americans back to work at a failed war on the other side of the planet. In fact, that's where the president was when the jobs report came out this morning -- in Afghanistan, talking about "progress" again.

Now, it's great that the president met with wounded troops. Goodness knows they deserve our attention. Their pictures ought to be on the cover of every newspaper until this war ends. But it would be better if the president stopped sending them to get wounded for no good reason, and it would be even better if the hundreds of billions of dollars we're wasting each year over there were putting people back to work in the U.S.

Here's one way to think about it: just one Hellfire missile fired in Afghanistan costs $58,000.00. That's enough money to provide unemployment insurance benefits for almost 4 people for a full year. For the full cost of the war for one week, about $2 billion, we could extend unemployment insurance for about 6.7 million people for a week. What are the 2 million people who are about to lose their unemployment insurance benefits supposed to think when they hear senators yelling about the cost of keeping them from going hungry, while at the same time those senators shove enough money to keep the benefits going into that money pit of a war?

Do we care more about dropping bombs than we do about putting Americans to work and keeping them from going hungry when they get laid off? Are those the kind of people we're paying to represent us in Washington, D.C.?

If so, we want our money back. And while you're at it, bring back the money being wasted on a war that's not making us safer. We'd like to use it to put people to work again.

If you're fed up with wasting money on war instead of putting people back to work, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.

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White House Acknowledges Some Low Wage Earners Will Have Less Money In Their Pocket Next Year – Today’s Q’s for O’s WH

December 08, 2010 4:07 PM

National Economic Council director Larry Summers and White House senior adviser David Axelrod joined White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at today’s briefing.

As first noted by the New York Times, some low wage earners may be getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop in this tax cut compromise, in the sense that they may have less money in their pocket next year as opposed to this year. That’s because they receive tax credits through the Making Work Pay tax credit, which expires at the end of this year. That tax credit will be replaced by a payroll tax reduction of 2% -- and for some low wage earners, the tax credit is bigger than 2% of their income.

TAPPER: I was wondering if you could comment on the New York Times report today that those at the -- at the lower end of the economic spectrum will actually be the only ones with less money in their pocket as a result of this deal because of the Making Work Pay elimination and the...

SUMMERS: It's a good question. It's a very -- it's a very good question. You -- you have to figure out what comparison you're going to do. It is true that for a $16,000 a year, so that's an all-year minimum wage worker, it is true that the Making Work Pay would have given that -- would have given that worker $400, and the -- this proposal, the pay roll tax holiday, will give $320. That's -- and there is that $80 difference. On the other hand, the proposals, such as the House bill that contained the Making Work Pay, would not have -- would not have included any of the three refundable tax credits that I mentioned, which, cumulatively, for that family, on average are worth several hundred dollars.

Obviously, it depends on how many kids the family has and what the situation is, but on average would work out to about $300 for such a family. One. Two, would not have included the continuation of unemployment insurance benefits, which provide $300 a week in benefits. And, three, takes no account of the extra growth increment that will come from this program. If you raise GDP by 1 percent, that's $2,000 for the average family.

So we, as -- as I've emphasized, this was a compromise. But if you look cumulatively at the elements that were in this compromise, relative to no deal or even relative to the bill that passed through the House, that $16,000 a year family gets much more support from this bill than it would have -- than it would have in its absence. And we believe you have to look at the totality of the program, not just take one provision from it and compare it with one provision in some other bill.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But, just to be clear, there are those on the lower end of the economic chart who will be -- who will not benefit in 2011 compared to 2010 in this deal, while everyone else on the financial spectrum will.

SUMMERS: No. No. That's not right. That's not right. But you just said -- what you just said is factually -- is -- is wrong.

TAPPER: A single person. No family. Doesn't get a child credit. $16,000 a year.

SUMMERS: Right. That person will get $320. That person will get -- will -- will get $320.

TAPPER: As opposed to $400 this year.

SUMMERS: Right. So there's a person who, if they have -- if they don't benefit from the unemployment insurance, if they don't benefit from the economic growth, if they don't benefit from the EITC or the child care or the American Opportunity Credit, might be $80 behind. There's a far larger number of families, however, who will be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars ahead, because of the refundable tax credits, because of the unemployment insurance and because of the growth.

--Jake Tapper

December 8, 2010
in Current Affairs, David Axelrod, Jake Tapper, Political Punch, President Obama, Today's Qs for Obama's WH, Weblogs, White House, White House Press Briefing
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White House Acknowledges Some Low Wage Earners Will Have Less Money In Their Pocket Next Year – Today’s Q’s for O’s WH

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