I escaped D.C. yesterday to attend the rollout of House Republicans’ “Pledge to America,” a policy document that’s heavy on campaign rhetoric about Democrats’ profligacy but missing a blueprint for balancing the budget.
I also have a piece up about a San Francisco program called Jobs Now, a stimulus-subsidized initiative that has provided work to 4,000 unemployed San Franciscans with dependents. Jobs Now is one of many programs nationwide that have used a little more than $1 billion in federal stimulus funds — drawn from the stimulus bill’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Contingency Fund — to put some 250,000 Americans back to work since last year, giving ailing local economies a much-needed boost in the process. The problem? Congress has to act to extend funding for TANF ECF by the end of the month, and while the House has passed such a measure twice, it’s stagnated in the Senate–largely because the stimulus, despite the assessments of most economists, remains wildly unpopular. On a local and state-wide levels, programs like Jobs Now enjoy bipartisan support; in San Francisco, business groups like the Chamber of Commerce are on board, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, whose state has benefited from a similar program (they call it STEPS), backs it as a “welfare-to-work” initiative. It would cost $2.5 billion for the program to be reauthorized for another year, and it’s possible the Senate could do so through a continuing resolution. If they don’t, tens of thousands of workers nationwide will likely lose their jobs.