With sequester underway, what should Obama do next?

With the sequester enacted, President Barack Obama must reframe the public debate around the future of the country and the investments we must make together in that future, rather than austerity economics, Reich writes.

By Robert Reich,?Guest blogger / March 5, 2013

President Barack Obama speaks about the sequester after a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House in Washington. The president should now focus on good jobs and broad-based prosperity rather than prosperity for a few and declining wages and insecurity for the many, Reich writes.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/File

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What should the President do now?

Skip to next paragraph Robert Reich

Robert is chancellor?s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. Time Magazine?named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including ?The Work of Nations,? his latest best-seller ?Aftershock: The Next Economy and America?s Future," and a new?e-book, ?Beyond Outrage.??He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

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Push to repeal the sequester (a reconciliation bill in the Senate would allow repeal with 51 votes, thereby putting pressure on House Republicans), and replace it with a ?Build America?s Future? Act that would close tax loopholes used by the wealthy, end corporate welfare, impose a small (1/10 of 1%) tax on financial transactions, and reduce the size of the military.

Half the revenues would be used for deficit reduction, the other half for investments in our future through education (from early-childhood through affordable higher ed), infrastructure, and basic R&D.

Also included in that bill ? in order to make sure our future isn?t jeopardized by another meltdown of Wall Street ? would be a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a limit on the size of the biggest banks. ?
I?d make clear to the American people that they made a choice in 2012 but that right-wing House Republicans have been blocking that choice, and the only way to implement that choice is for Congress to pass the Build America?s Future Act.

If House Republicans still block it, I?d make 2014 a referendum on it and them, and do whatever I could to take back the House.?
In short, the President must reframe the public debate around the future of the country and the investments we must make together in that future, rather than austerity economics. And focus on good jobs and broad-based prosperity rather than prosperity for a few and declining wages and insecurity for the many.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. This post originally ran on www.robertreich.org.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/TBzQzHQVb4Q/With-sequester-underway-what-should-Obama-do-next

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