The AFL-CIO is heading to Congress this week to sell Democratic leaders on the union’s new plan to “create or save” 2 million jobs over the next year. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will present the 5-point plan to a meeting of the Democratic caucus tonight before presenting it to the public at a speech in downtown Washington tomorrow morning.
TPMDC got an early look at the proposal this evening.
Essentially, the AFL-CIO plan calls for dramatically increasing the amount of government money spent on job creation efforts. Trumka will praise the stimulus package in his speech tomorrow, but will also criticize the government’s economic recovery program for not spending enough on infrastructure repairs or encouraging loans to small businesses.
The AFL-CIO plan calls on the White House to take remaining money from the TARP program and divert it directly to small businesses in the form of loans offered through the smaller community banks not eligible for TARP funds the first time around. Under the proposal, the banks would handle the loans and carry “first-dollar risk” for all the money lent out.
In the rest of the plan, the AFL-CIO calls for billions in direct government spending. The plan suggests at least $10 billion in new infrastructure spending, and billions in direct aid to states forced to cut their budgets during the economic crisis. The AFL-CIO calls on Congress and the White House to extend the expanded unemployment benefits passed in the stimulus past the end of the year, when the provisions are set to expire.
Trumka will announce the program at a meeting of the Economic Policy Institute, a union-backed think tank.
