Gulf Recovery: "It's [still] the economy, stupid..."

by rb137

This week, Obama signed a $26 billion bill that eases state budget crises and saves 300,000 teachers and policemen from imminent layoffs. The trade-off was DOE's renewable energy and transmission loan-guarantee program: it lost $3.5 billion.

The WH assured Nancy Pelosi that they intend to restore the funds, and claimed there is enough money to support current projects, but the enthusiasm for this program has been tempered from the start. The Office of Management and Budget has been slow fund it, and it does not seem to connect guaranteeing capital to job creation and economic recovery. Harry Reid describes this trend here in a letter to President Obama.

Defecit hawks' war on spending is a war on the middle class, and the DOE's clean energy loan guarantee program is a prime example of how the government can support small businesses and create jobs. Access to working capital is the spine that supports "green economy" and "green jobs", and the lack of it stops the show.

continued at Daily Kos...

Dear Mr President; We're Growing Broke

by hamesfarmer

Dear Mr. President:
 I'm a small farmer,which means I'm a blue collar entrepreneur. I don't mind hard work, and I don't need fancy benefits. All I want to do is to take care of my family, my farm, my animals, my community and the welfare of the country. But every time I try to do what I know will work, I meet another regulation/rule/legislation/policy that makes it impossible or impractical.  
 I raise the smallest of dairy goats, which make the smallest hoofprints on the planet, contribute to the soil, diversity of the farmyard, health of my family, and make the most amazing milk for cheese and yogurt. But they don't make enough to meet most industrial standards for equipment. I don't want to have different goats, and more goats isn't an option because of the nutrition and space needs that they have. But I don't need more goats, if the regulations were reasonable. If I could sell to my neighbors without fear of the government, making a living for my family would be much easier. There is much more demand for goat cheese than there are providers, because the regulations are geared toward industrial dairying, which goats don't thrive under.

continued at Daily Kos...