We’ll be covering President Obama’s visit to Kansas City tomorrow, both at the Smith Electric Vehicle plant and at one of the fundraising events for Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s U.S. Senate campaign. As a prelude to tomorrow’s activities the White House offered a media conference call with administration officials this afternoon on the Recovery Act event:

The White House

Office of Media Affairs

For Immediate Release

July 7, 2010

CONFERENCE CALL: Administration Officials to Preview the President’s Upcoming Visit to Kansas City, Missouri

WASHINGTON- Today, at 1:00 p.m. EDT Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist to Vice President Biden, and Matt Rogers, Senior Advisor to Energy Secretary Chu will hold a conference call to preview the President’s upcoming visit to Kansas City, Missouri.  

In Kansas City on July 8, President Obama will visit Smith Electric Vehicles where he will tour the facilities and deliver remarks on the economy to workers.  Smith Electric Vehicles is an all-electric, zero emissions commercial truck manufacturer that received a $32 million Recovery Act grant to build all-electric trucks.  The award, which is part of the $2.4 billion in Recovery Act advanced battery and electric vehicle grants the President announced last August, is helping Smith Electric establish operations at a re-purposed jet engine overhaul facility at the Kansas City International Airport, the first of as many as 20 regional assembly plants Smith Electric plans to open in the U.S….

The transcript:

Matt Lehrich, White House Communications: Hey everybody, it’s Matt Lehrich, in White House Communications, thanks for joining us today.  We are joined by Jared Bernstein who is chief economist for Vice President Biden and by Matt Rogers, Senior Advisor to Energy Secretary Chu. Gonna talk a little bit about, uh, what the President’s gonna be talking about tomorrow as well as the Recovery Act more broadly, and some of the specific programs under Department of Energy. And with that I’ll turn it over to Jared Bernstein….

….Jared Bernstein , Chief Economist to Vice President Biden: Uh, thank you very much Matt, and I, uh, very, uh, happy to be here along with, uh, another  Matt, Matt Rogers, uh, the Senior Advisor to Secretary Chu, and someone who’s, uh, been working tirelessly on, uh, uh, uh, efficiently implementing the kinds of programs we’re talking about today.

Uh, uh, before we even took office, uh, President-elect Obama recognized the urgent need to do two things. First, get economic medicine into system quickly and address what was then morphing into the deepest recession in decades. And second, incentivize investment that would both create good jobs today and plant the seeds of key new industries for tomorrow, particularly in the area of clean energy. The President’s trip to Kansas City, Missouri tomorrow to Smith Electric Vehicles is a great example of this second priority and Matt will present, uh, the details in a moment.

But first, I’d like to put the President’s visit in the broader context of the current economy and the Recovery Act. Now remember the act was passed back in February of two thousand and nine, a time when the nation’s job market was hemorrhaging jobs at, at a truly nightmarish rate. In just the first six months of last year, uh, the job market shed close to four million jobs. The Recovery Act quickly got the medicine into the system in the form of tax relief for over a hundred million working families, relief for strapped states as well, as millions who had lost their jobs and needed fast help making their family budgets. Almost immediately, as these stimulus dollars began to circulate throughout the economy the pace of job losses slowed and now we’ve seen net job growth in six of the last seven months. Now think about the pace of this turnaround. As I noted a second ago, in the first six months of last year we shed three point seven million private sector jobs. In the first six months of this year we’ve added five hundred and ninety-three thousand private sector jobs. All told the Recovery Act has widely credited with creating or saving two and a half million jobs so far, on track to create or save three and a half million by the end of this year. That’s solid movement in the right direction, but it’s not good enough. While this economic recovery that’s underway is slowly being felt in many parts of the country it’s clearly not yet provided the American middle class with, uh, the, the full [inaudible] of opportunities they need and they deserve. We’ve got to do more, uh, a lot more, to build on the momentum, uh, achieved thus far. And that’s what the President’s trip tomorrow is all about.

The Smith Electric story provides a great microcosm of the Recovery Act’s innovation agenda. First, while the quickly acting programs got up and running right away, folks on Matt’s team over at DOE, the Department of Energy, were busy choosing the best applicants, the ones who were gonna deliver the best bang for the buck from applicants to programs like the electric vehicle grants one. And this two point four billion dollar program is a subset of over one hundred billion dollars of innovation investments in clean energy, health IT, grid modernization, high speed rail, and broadband Internet access. It’s precisely by planting these seeds that the federal government incentivizes private capital to come in off of the sidelines and get to work building new sectors of our economy, and in the process, creating good jobs here in America. In fact, the two point four billion dollars from the electric vehicle program leverages up dollar for dollar partnering with private investment to increase the American footprint in this industry. Now last year the U.S. had only two factories manufacturing advanced vehicle batteries. And the produced less than two percent of the world’s advanced vehicle batteries. While the investment from the re, with the investment from the Recovery Act, by twenty-twelve thirty factories are expected to come online with capacity to produce more than twenty percent of the world’s advanced batteries, enough batteries and components to support five hundred thousand plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles.

The economics of all this are very compelling right now. The American middle class needs robust job growth, but that’s not all. In order to tap the productive potential of the greatest workforce in the world and create lasting opportunities for working Americans, the ones they need and deserve, our firms and our industries must overcome a set of steep market barriers to entry and expansion that they currently face, including tight credit, high fixed costs, scale economies, and highly aggressive competition from abroad. Programs like the advance battery grants can help businesses overcome these barriers and that leads to good jobs here at home. That in turn leads to higher living standards for working families as they finally have a clean shot at claiming their fair share of the growing economy, something that has eluded them for decades as economic growth was too often a spectator sport for the middle class. It’s a whole other dimension of the Recovery Act at work and we’re excited to see it unfold as the new economic expansion gets underway. Uh, Matt.

Matt Rogers, Senior Advisor to Energy Secretary Chu: Thank you Jared and, and thanks to that, uh, good, uh, overview of where we are overall in the Recovery Act. Smith specifically received a thirty-two million dollar grant under the Recovery Act. They matched this with thirty-six million dollars in their own, uh, private capital as part of a project to build five hundred all electric trucks in Kansas City. This was all part of the two point four billion dollars in battery and transportation electrification awards we announced last August. And these are, again, all electric trucks that will be used by Coca-Cola, AT and T, Staples, Frito Lay, Pacific Gas and
Electric, and Kansas City and Power and Light in their fleets. These all electric trucks have a hundred mile range. They can carry sixteen thousand pounds, making these vehicles very well suited for stop and go short haul circuits for delivery, equipment installation, uh, and maintenance, uh, service truck fleets. Like those, uh, we mentioned earlier.

These all electric trucks should deliver significantly lower fuel costs, lower operating costs, less particulate [inaudible] and CO2 pollution than the largely diesel  powered vehicles that they will replace, uh, in these fleets. Smith’s assembling these vehicles in an eighty thousand square foot facility at Kansas City International Airport that used to actually be a jet engine overhaul, uh, facility. Smith has three assembly lines, uh, in operation, uh, today. Uh, total employment for this facility under this contract, uh, will grow to seventy, but we expect there is a large market for these, uh, electric trucks. And we expect demand to grow as the market proves out the economics for these vehicles.

Importantly this investment is part of the administration’s major push to restructure the transportation sector, reducing our dependence on oil, improving our environment, developing god jobs, uh, today, and laying the foundation for long term economic growth by positioning the United States as a leader in high growth markets like the electric vehicle, uh, markets for the twenty-first century. This is also an important part of a Kansas City story, where Kansas City is building out a, uh, very attractive smart grid network, also under the Recovery Act, uh, and it developed a, a , uh, green zone within Kansas City that is bringing in, uh, renewables, more transportation electrification, uh, and doing a whole set of things around energy efficiency within the, within the community there. So it’s a great story about growing on a national basis and it’s also a very good story about, uh, Kansas City….

We plan on plenty of coverage of the two events tomorrow.

Wednesday afternoon I took part in a media and blogger conference call with Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden. The subject for the briefing and questions which followed was the “impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”.

Our previous coverage of Jared Bernstein’s opening remarks:

“…most American families get by on their pay checks, not their portfolios…”

And our previous coverage of the opening set of media questions on the call:

“…and frankly, it’s not rocket science…”

The final eighteen minutes of the conference call:

Jill Miller Zimon themoderatevoice.com: Thank you for taking my call. Um, I am in Ohio and I had a question regarding what remains in the package for home buyers. Um, I don’t know, I’m guessing, uh, you may be familiar with Congresswomen Kaptur’s, um, suggestion about individuals staying in their homes when they’re facing foreclosure and demanding that the mortgages be produced. Are you familiar with that?

Jared Bernstein: Uh, you know what I’m famil…, I’m, I’m not, I’m not sure and I’m sort of actually paging through some stuff [crosstalk] on the conference while we speak.

Jill Miller Zimon: It’s been making its rounds, she…[crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: I mean the thing I’m familier with is the, uh, that was in the Senate version of the bill was a new home buyer’s tax credit. And I don’t know, uh, and I sh…, I sh…, I want to check whether that. I’ll, I’ll check and see if that, if that’s still, still made it, how that ended up in conference. Uh, [crosstalk] but oh, actually that’s gone I see. Uh, oh, oh wait, is that right? …Um. Actually, I’m not sure about that. [crosstalk] I take that back on the housing part. I have, I have to learn more about it. This, this thing was signed just a few minutes ago…

…Jill Miller Zimon: So my general question is, really kind of two parts, one is: What can you tell us that you believe has stayed in that works for the individual such as the home buyer situation? I know you’ve mentioned a little bit about tax cuts. And then the, the second is, although I guess you don’t have as much familiarity as I would have um, likes about Congresswoman Kaptur’s suggestion, basically her suggestion was advising individuals who aren’t paying their mortgage to still stay in the home until the mortgage is produced. Um, it basically, you know, using the law for, for their benefit until, uh, the, their situation is resolved. I’m just curious… [crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: Until the mortgage is reduced you said?

Jill Miller Zimon: No, until the mortgage is produced, that the physical mortgage itself. Her point being that these mortgages get swapped around and purchased out[crosstalk]…

Jared Bernstein: I see. [cross talk] Uh huh. Yeah.

Jill Miller Zimon:…so much that they can’t even be accountable for it. You know, she is from northwestern Ohio and, um, Ohio is most likely gonna be one of the exceptions, even with the package, that we’ll end up going into double digit unemployment. So, uh, as much as we’re looking forward to whatever relief we’ll get from the package, um, it, the, this, the foreclosure rates here are, um, some of the worst in the country in addition to Florida. [crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: So what’s your question?

Jill Miller Zimon: So my question was, uh, number one was: What was, what would still be in the package, uh, regarding home buyers? And I think you’ve answered that by saying you’re not sure.

Jared Bernstein: I’m not sure about about [crosstalk]…

Jill Miller Zimon: Right.

Jared Bernstein:…the, uh, uh, uh, the one I mentioned.

Jill Miller Zimon: And the second question, related to that would be, your opinion of the Congresswoman’s advice that individuals who are in foreclosure dem…, basically become squatters and demand that the mortgage holders produce the document. Her, her point being they swapped hand so many times that’s not gonna be able to happen.

Jared Bernstein: Yeah, no, I’m definitely not in a position to give an opinion on that, but, uh, I will, while we’re talking here, and don’t stay off.

Jill Miller Zimon:Okay. [crosstalk] I appreciate that.

Jared Bernstein: I will look for something. [crosstalk]

Jill Miller Zimon: I know it’s difficult and specific question, but for places like Ohio…[crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: well, it’s a good question. [crosstalk]

Jill Miller Zimon: …which are big. [crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: It’s a good question. And I have some, I’m getting information on this as we, as we go along, so let me, let me… [corsstalk]

Jill Miller Zimon: Thank you. [cross talk]

Jared Bernstein:… get back. You’re welcome…

…Casey Gane-McCalla newsone.blackplanet.com: Yeah. Thanks a lot for doing this, you know, for all us bloggers. Uh, we appreciate it. Um, Obama briefly spoke about, uh, the school system and more money going to schools, um. The urban education system has needed a bailout, you know, for twenty plus years in cities like Detroit, uh, drop out rate of eighty per cent, New York is fifty per cent, uh, Baltimore, seventy five. What measures in the stimulus package will not only, uh, prevent these schools from further failing, but actually maybe help them, because I know at least in New York state they’re talking about cutting, New York City, excuse me, they’re talking about cutting twenty three thousand jobs? And in the already struggling school systems. So what measures from the stimulus package will go to help out the urban educational system?

Jared Bernstein: Um, hm. Uh, there are a number of measures. Uh, I would say that, uh, help in that regard. Um, and again, I have to warn you that, uh, I’m doing my best to keep up with, uh, the new numbers that are coming in from the conference, but, uh, let me go through a few components of the bill that I, uh, I know, uh, would speak to the question you raised. Um, I’m just lining, um, there is, uh, there, there’s, uh, funding in this package for, uh, education and training, um, uh. And the education component of that is, uh, uh, well together it’s over a hundred billion dollars. There’s funding here for early childhood education, uh, Head Start, uh, for, um, uh, uh, school, school improvement, Title I, um, the uh, uh, significant funding for, uh, for Pell Grants, uh, there’s, uh, training dollars I think which are actually critically important for some of the populations who are under served in this regard. Um, training, there, there’s uh, uh, youth training, there’s employment service training, there’s, uh, a, uh, training for dislocated workers who lose their jobs. Um, the, uh, I think some of the key, uh, factors that will help to, um, uh, uh, promote, uh, the, uh, the, uh, that will help to, and will offset some of the pieces you’re talking about are, um, are Title I grants, school improvement grants, some of the IDEA grants, uh, some of the, uh, uh, uh, small grants for, uh, education for homeless folks. Um, I don’t know the magnitudes of those in the final deal, but I, I, I know that they were all under negotiation and, and I’m, uh, confident that some of those remain in the package.

Casey Gane-McCalla: Okay, thank you very much.

Jared Bernstein: Sure…

…John Morgan Pennsylvania Progressive: Thank you again [garbled] for, uh, involving the bloggers, uh, with policy and news and information. Uh, here in Pennsylvania, uh, I also serve as a board member for Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania Advocates. And, one of the first things that was cut from the stimulus bill was, uh, family planning funding. Uh, we actually laid off our public affairs policy person, uh, due to declining revenue. So, this funding will act
ually save and create jobs. Uh, is there any intention of, of restoring this funding in a future bill, [garbled] omnibus preparations act?

Jared Bernstein: Uh, the, the, I’m sorry, could you b…, I didn’t hear everything you were saying, you, you wanted, just repeat your question again. Just the last part. [crosstalk]

John Morgan: Okay. All right. Um, the, uh, funding, the initial bill provided funding for family planning contraceptives.

Jared Bernstein: Um, hm.

John Morgan: It was one of the first things stripped in the…[crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: Okay. Um, hm.

John Morgan: Uh, uh, is the administration gonna, uh, put that in an additional, uh, bill, maybe the omnibus appropriations bill?

Jared Bernstein: Yeah, I can’t [crosstalk], I, I, I’m sorry, I can’t speak, as I said earlier, to plans, to administration plans to, uh, get back to pa…, pieces of the package that were taken out specifically. Um, I can, once again, reiterate this point. Um, there were folks who made the argument that, uh, you know, that you shouldn’t fund family planning or whatever. That, that, uh, that, that’s kind of a political judgment that I’m, uh, I’m not gonna speak to. Um, I think the economics of this, of some folks objections were, “look that’s not really part of a job creating stimulus plan” and they, they, they had, they had a point. And so we, we listened and made, and made changes to certain aspects of the plan in that regard. Um, what we will absolutely come back to ideas that came out of here that we still think are good ideas. I’m not gonna, uh, uh, get ahead of, uh, a lot of other people here in terms of what, of what those ideas are. But, the fact that something didn’t get into this package by no means means that, uh, this, this shouldn’t be interpreted as, as meaning we are, uh, not going to come back to, um, uh, proposals that we think are worthy.

John Morgan: [garbled] That’s encouraging to hear. That you know [garbled] that’s worthy. [garbled] [crosstalk][garbled]

Jared Bernstein: I want to be very clear. [crosstalk] I want to be very, [crosstalk] I want to be very clear because I, I don’t want to be misquoted. I, I, I’m not specifying any particular element like the one you raised as being, uh, uh, you know, a worthy element, uh, uh, in, in terms of something we want to get back to. What I’m saying is that some the things came out of this plan because people had a decent argument that they weren’t, uh, reasonably placed in an economic recovery package. Uh, I am not in a position to a…, to say, you know, this idea was good, this idea was bad.

John Morgan: I, I understand. [crosstalk] Thank you.

Jared Bernstein: You understand. Thank you…

…Jonathan Singer mydd.com: Hi, um, there, there’s been a lot of debate in the last week, as I’m sure there has been even in the last decade, about the, um, there’s a lesson to be learned from Japan, um, there’s an article in, in the New York Times week in review, uh, that, that’s kind of ar…, you know, arguing whether construction, the things of that nature, were stimulative, if they were the right type of construction [garbled]. I was wondering what, in general, what the lessons were to be taken from, you know, the last ten, fifteen years in Japan and how not to get into this [garbled] growth for a couple decades?

Jared Bernstein: Sure. Um, the problem Japan, the problem, the mistake that Japan’s economic policy makers made is actually one, uh, that’s really very relevant today. I’m glad you raised the question. And, and that was the mistake of of forbearance. That is, that as these problems, uh, deepened in their economy, uh, problems of a recession generated, by the way, in ways that weren’t all that different from our own. They, they had a combination of bursting housing bubble and stock market bubble, big real estate bubble. But also, a stock market bubble, at around kind of the same time. And, uh, they, they made, uh, uh, first, kind of an error, which was not unlike the one we, we almost made in the great depression, uh, where, um, uh, uh, Hoover et al, uh, uh, kicked back and said, um, let’s let the market handle this. Uh, the idea was that, uh, um, there, there’s never a role for the public sector in a, in a, uh, free market economy. And so the worst thing you can do is, uh, intervene even when things are down on the mat. And that helped Japan, uh, uh, essentially go into a, uh, down turn that lasted by some measures almost a decade. Certainly, uh, uh, now one could look back at our own, uh, period of the 1930’s and, and recognize that Roosevelt, somewhat under the tutelage of the great economist Keynes himself, uh, rejected that philosophy and invested massively, uh, in, in economic activity. Uh, and, and we’re tr…, obviously we’re following that model. Um, following that model in terms of, uh, of the recovery package, we’re following that model in terms of the financial sector as well. And, and so I would argue we, we are, we are, um, acting, uh, very deliberately not to make the forbearance kinds of, uh, mistakes in judgment that Japan evidenced, uh, in their lost decade…

…John Aravosis americablog.com: …Hey guys, thanks for doing this. Um, I wanted to ask you a question about the income thresholds we’re using in the stimulus package and in, in other legislation. I’ve written about this a few times on my blog but. For example, the five hundred per person tax cut, whatever you want to call it. Um, the first time home buyer tax credit, which wasn’t you guys I know it was the House, but still, you know, making a real tax credit. In those legis…, [garbled] legislation we always set an income limit beyond which it, uh, starts to phase out and finally goes away, right. [crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: Um, hm.

John Aravosis: If you make a hundred fifty, or whatever, thousand a year you don’t get it.

Jared Bernstein: Right.

John Aravosis: What, you may or may not have seen, there was a recent New York Daily News article, like in the last week, with a study showing that a hundred and twenty four thousand dollar a year salary in New York City is equivalent to a fifty thousand dollar a year salary in Houston because of the relative cost of living.

Jared Bernstein: Uh, huh.

John Aravosis: I know that we, this is the way we do tax policy anyway [Jared Bernstein: laughter] You know, we’ve said this is how much you make, this is how much you pay.

Jared Bernstein: Um, hm.

John Aravosis: But at some point is there something we can do? Or how do you guys even respond to that concern about basically if you cut people off at a hundred or a hundred fifty or whatever it is, if you live in New York or D.C. or perhaps San Francisco, you’re not rich.

Jared Bernstein: [crosstalk] Yeah, t’s a great, it’s a great, it’s a great point.

John Aravosis: [crosstalk] [garbled] …it’s your five per cent line that Obama always uses, he’s correct, but are you really in the upper five per cent if you live in an expensive city?

Jared Bernstein: Yeah, no, I think that, uh, I mean, not only are you not really in the top five per cent, you’re not literally in the top five per cent. In other words, if you took the, the top five per cent in New York City obviously you’re looking at a much different cut off if you took the top five per cent in, uh, a different part of the country.

John Aravosis: Well that’s true, too. [crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: So, um, I, I, I think your point is, it’s interesting, it’s a point that I myself have, um, uh, spent a good deal of time on when I used to do research out there in the, uh, in the think tank world. Before I came here I worked at the Economic Policy Institute for years and one of the things we developed there were, um, family budgets for uh, families of different sizes and different number of kids and different kinds of profiles throughout ov… close to five hundred metropolitan areas. And we observed grea
t variation in prices. Um, one of the problems here, uh, uh, what’s your na..? What’s your name again?

John Aravosis: It’s John.

Jared Bernstein: John. One of the problems here John, and it’s not widely known, is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which does fantastic work, I, I’m a huge devotee of their, of their work, I’m not criticizing them, they would do whatever we asked them to. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish, uh, intra area price deflators, that is, it does not publish any price index that will allow you to tell, tell you what a dollar in, in New York is worth in Houston.

John Aravosis: But we do it for what, could we apply the system we use for the FAA, for example where if you work in Alaska and Hawaii you actually get twenty four to twenty five per cent increase in your salary?

Jared Bernstein: Yeah. Well there are systems out there [crosstalk] and, and but there’s no rigor…, there’s no, uh, [garbled] price index that would allow you to do that. Now, there is some work by this woman, who’s name is Bettina Aten, that’s a-t-e-n, who works for the government in various statistical agencies. You can find her stuff on the web. Who actually has been, um, um, generating precisely this kind of information. And at some point I could see, uh, where that might be, uh, um, useful to apply to government, uh, uh, programs. Whether it’s poverty lines, right? [cross talk] I mean, isn’t that the same thing? You know po…[crosstalk]

John Aravosis: It’s exactly the same thing, yeah.

Jared Bernstein: Poverty measurement, uh, is the same, uh, you know, the poverty threshold is the same in, in, in the deep South as it is in, in northern urban areas. And so, uh, there are lots of placs where you could apply that kind of a technology if you had it. Now, you know, again, I want to be very clear, [crosstalk] I’m not a think tanker anymore. I’m not saying [crosstalk] the U.S. government is about to do any of this. But I’m saying you raise a good point. Okay?

John Aravosis: Thank you. That’s fine…

Jared Bernstein: Well thank you very much everyone, it’s been great talking to you…

Yesterday afternoon I took part in a media and blogger conference call with Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden. The subject for the briefing and questions which followed was the “impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”.

Our previous coverage of Jared Bernstein’s opening remarks:

“…most American families get by on their pay checks, not their portfolios…”

The questions from new media in on the call:

Adam Siegel – getenergysmartnow.com: Uh, thank you very much for doing this call. Much appreciated. Uh, looking to [garbled] and focus on energy, global warming, as well as economic issues and the intersection of all of them, uh, when we’re looking at the limited news so far we see that the, uh, deal continues the slashing of a lot of the things that might be considered long term infrastructure such as aid for school construction [garbled] even while looking to try to get this bill passed are you already starting to lay the ground work for trying to recapture many of the good things from the House bill that don’t seem to have made it through the conference committee?

Jared Bernstein: Well, and I, I have to be mindful of the fact that I am, uh, uh, one of the team, uh, some of these folks are on their way back from the, the capitol now. Uh, so let me speak broadly in answer to your question. I can’t tell you we plan to go back to the well tomorrow to, uh, get back some of the things that were our original preferences. But, I, I can tell you that they, they were our original preferences and I can tell you that, you know, my understanding of some of the negotiations were that, that some of the opponents of pieces that were in this legislation were not saying we’re against, uh, school construction, we’re against, uh, uh, fiscal relief to states. uh, we’re, we’re, against, uh, expanding some of the health care. They were saying we’re against putting them in a, uh, stimulus or a recovery package, uh, that is intended to spend out quickly and, uh, um, well, fulfill the kinds of stimulative economic goals I talked about earlier. So, um, uh, my view, uh, is that, uh, no windows are closed when it comes to, uh, these good ideas…

…Matt Copper – Talking Points Memo: Uh yes, hi. Uh, I, I know you’re here primarily to talk about the recovery act but I’m just curious, uh, your sense of, of whether we are really gonna start to see a turnaround in the economy ’til we have a bailout, a bank bailout plan more firmly in place. In other words, how much can this, uh, this one piece of legislation do until we get some of these other components in?

Jared Bernstein: Uh, by the way, I used to write for Talking Points Memo.

Matt Copper: I, I know…[crosstalk]

Jared Bernstein: TPM cafe. Um, I think it’s a good question. And I’m happy to talk about it. I think it’s actually very much on point. Uh, I view the stimulus package and the financial stabilization package as, as extremely complimentary. Um, on its own the stimulus package will absolutely help in the ways I said and, and, and frankly, it’s not rocket science. I mean if you let a contract to fix a bridge, especially in a climate where those jobs aren’t being created otherwise, you’re gonna create some jobs. Uh, the, uh, but for the, for, for the, uh, package to have its full impact, including what economists call the multiplier effects, such that you, you begin to generate some economic activity over here and you get more economic activity over there, i.e. you build that bridge and one of the, uh, uh, uh, formerly un…, unemployed people  who’s now working on that bridge construction takes his, uh, or her pay check and goes to, uh, a retailer, a food store, whatever, uh, makes some new purchases that, remember, wouldn’t have occurred otherwise, that starts a chain of economic activity that, uh, uh, uh, helps to, um, get the economy back on track. That chain won’t be able to, uh, uh, function to full effect, uh, if, uh, credit lines remain frozen. So, the way I think that to, to wax, uh, medical on you for a second, is that, uh, the stimulus, uh, plan, the recovery act gets the heart beating again. The stabilization act, uh, uh, cleans out the, uh, the a, uh, carotid veins of the, uh, economy, uh, which has, uh, kind of been gouging on some, uh, pretty bad debt. Um, with the heart beating and the blood flowing, uh, the patient’s, uh, uh, uh, uh, back on track…

…Baratunde Thurston – jackandjillpolitics.com: Uh, good afternoon Mr. Bernstein, thanks so much for, uh, doing this call and, uh, everybody else for being here. I haven’t, you know transparency was marked, as a, as a big hallmark of how this act might be different from those that have come years, decades or even generations before. What can you say would be the, what are the metrics of success, uh, for, if this is actually working? You sort of mentioned two years down the line.

Jared Bernstein: Uh, huh. [crosstalk]

Baratunde Thurston: Jesse in his opening remarks said you will be judged by this. What are those judgments gonna be based on? What are your, what are the quantitative or qualitative goals you have?

Jared Bernstein: Sure, Um, first of all in terms of tran…well, uh, uh, part of the success, at least on the transparency front, will be the extent to which we track the progress of this legislation on, in, in, uh, on the, uh, the web site, uh, that we’ve, uh, announced we’re gonna form. I believe it’s recoveryact dot gov, although, uh, I doubt it’s…

Unidentified voice: It’s recovery dot gov.

Jared Bernstein: Recovery dot gov. So, so, you know, that’s obviously, uh, a level of transparency, uh, we haven’t seen, uh, in a really, uh, I don’t know, uh, uh, I can’t think of any other examples in the past. So, so, you know, I think we should be graded on the extent to which we do what we said we were gonna do in that regard. Um, uh, and I’m confident we will. Uh, this is a, this is something that comes from the very top. This is the President recognizing, uh, the need for, uh, that kind of accountability.

Uh, but the, the kind of quantitative metrics you suggested I also think are important. Um, the unemployment rate, uh, is expected in the absence of, uh, this, uh, uh, package to get up into something close to double digits, uh, um, by, uh, um, the, uh, probably, uh, late, uh, uh, later, uh, sometime a, I, I would guess, uh, around, um, late this year, uh, next year in the absence of, of our package. Um, I think, uh, the package should help to reduce the unemployment rate by about a couple of points. So, instead of being nine, nine and half, ten, ten and a half per cent, uh, the unemployment rate, uh, uh, um, may go, uh, oh a point, a point and a half higher than it is right now. It’s about seven and a half, so we could be looking at eight and a half, you know, maybe, maybe that neighborhood instead of, uh, maybe seven and a half by the end of, uh, two thousand and ten kind of back down to where we are now. Uh, if, uh, if the program is, is, successful. Now, uh, you have to be very careful when you give these quantitative metrics because, uh, they’re kind of, uh, uh, if things go as planned and obviously, uh, there’s lots that could happen between now and then. And no economist can, can, can know the future. That’s one of the reasons why our forecasts have large, um, guess, uh, confidence intervals, but large margins of error around them,

And so, uh, I think we should look for unemployment that, that is lower than it would be otherwise. Uh, um, we think we’re gon…to, as I said, create or save, uh, three, four million jobs. We’ll be tracking that closely. And, uh, I think probably more to the ground, uh, we should be looking for, uh, uh, uh, action that’s really identifiable whether we’re talking about, um, roads, and, and bridges, and repairs made in, in, you know, your, uh, look where you live. Um, uh, the
re’s gonna be, uh, in, in a state like California, obviously a large state, you’ve got, uh, uh, twelve, uh, million people. Twelve million workers who ought to be benefiting from the making work pay tax cut. Where are you from, by the way?  

Baratunde Thurston: I’m in New York state.

Jared Bernstein: Okay, so you know, you look at, you look at New York state. Uh, we expect about seven million people, uh, to benefit from the making work pay tax cut. That’s something we ought to be able to know about. Uh, we expect something like three hundred thousand families to benefit from the refundable college credit. Um, there’s a lot of unemployed people up in New York, about a million of them are gonna have, uh, uh, unemployment insurance benefits higher  by about a hundred dollars a month. You know those, those are the kinds of things that we ought to be able to quantify…

Approximately eleven minutes (one third) of the phone conference call remains to be transcribed. That will get posted when it gets posted.

This afternoon I took part in a media and blogger conference call with Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden. The subject for the briefing and questions which followed was the “impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”:

Jared Bernstein:…Thanks very much…I’m a, I’m really glad to be talking, uh, to this group. I talk to lots of different groups. And while I, I can’t see you, uh, I know you’re out there. And, uh, I’m glad of that. Um, folks may know, uh, some of my work. I was, uh, blogging for the Huffington Post before I, I came here.

Um, I’m just gonna quickly talk about, uh, where we are, uh, how I think we got here and how I believe, uh, this plan, ah, is, uh, critical to getting us back on track, uh, economically. Um, where we are is at best told from an economist’s perspective, and that is my curse, uh, by reflecting on some jobs numbers. Uh, last month, uh, we lost six hundred thousand jobs. Uh, that is the worst month for job losses in over three decades. And that got a lot of attention, because that kind of number just kinda, uh, screams out for precisely the kind of attention it got. The, the thing that maybe didn’t quite land as much in people’s thinking was the fact that the prior two months were revised such that they were almost just as bad. So over the past three months we’ve lost close to two million jobs. That’s a little bit less than a per cent of the, uh, of the, uh, employment out there in, in the country. And this is a, uh, a very serious, uh, uh, acceleration in the rate at which the job market is, is declining. Now, you know, when you’re talkin’ about it at that level it sounds, you know, fairly antiseptic. But the President, the Vice President have been traveling to venues where unemployment is, uh, uh, a lot higher than it was a year ago and, and in the case of Elkhart, Indiana and Fort Myer, Florida, basically in double digits. And these are folks who are facing, um, this tough economy on the ground. Uh, it’s, uh, as many of you know, and it’s one of the things that I think put our administration here in the first place, there are lots of middle class families that were having trouble even when the economy was expanding.Well now it’s contracting, and, uh, those folks don’t have a lot to fall back on. So this is, this is, this is very difficult times…

…And the urgency that those kinds of statistics, but more importantly, those kinds of people’s experiences, the urgency that that puts in, that that put into, uh, moving this legislation was something that was not lost on us here, uh, uh, at the White House. And thankfully I think not lost on many in Congress as well. And, uh, I’m very pleased to see, uh, the bill, uh, coming out of conference, passed by the House and the Senate, uh, and, uh, as I, as I already said, uh, it’s not over ’til it’s over. But, uh, we’re, uh, we now have a, uh, a deal struck on a stimulus, uh, package that’s, uh, about a huh…a seven hundred ninety billion pac…, we can talk a little bit about the, the composition of this if folks want. Um, look, uh, let me preempt one question there or just some thoughts there. Um, this is a political process with many, uh, moving parts and lots of different people with lots of different constituents. Um, there’s no bill that’s gonna come out of this process that every, every player is gonna say is perfect. But, and here I’ll, I’ll, I’ll wind down with this set of comments here, um, uh, because like I said I wanna tell you how I think this bill helps us get it out, get us out of where we are.

Um, you know Christina Romer who’s the, uh, chair of the, uh, Council of Economic Advisors here, uh, she and I wrote a paper a few weeks ago looking at, uh, uh, the job impacts that we would expect from a bill like this. And w.., we, we found that this, this package, uh, will create, uh, or, or save, uh, three to four million jobs over the course of the next couple of years. And that for us is the bottom line because, while there’s a whole bunch of talk right about, uh stock portfolios, uh, uh, most American families get by on their pay checks, not their portfolios. And so, uh, if they’re not, if they’re not working, uh, they’re, if they’re not drawing a pay check, if they can’t buy, if they are working but they can’t find the hours they need to make ends meet, uh, uh, they’re hurting.

Uh, and, uh this package, with its investments in infrastructure and roads and bridges and water systems, in schools, in, uh, the, uh, in, in, in making a down payment on, uh, the electric, uh, on, on the smart, uh, grid that, uh, is  critically important if we’re going to begin, begin to implement, uh, President Obama’s energy agenda. Uh, if we’re going to move, uh, uh, our IT over into health technology so we can, uh, uh, move towards electronic records, controlling costs and lowering error rates. Uh, if we’re going to make, uh, uh, investments in, in, in, in weatherization retrofits. Those investments are in here. Uh, they’re not, uh, the complete package by any stretch of the imagination, but remember, this is a, uh, a package that’s, uh, uh, supposed to spend out over a couple of years and then, uh, and, and then wind down, uh, by, uh, by late, uh, next year. Uh, we obviously need to continue and deepen those investments in the areas of energy and health care, particularly that’s one of the things this President ran on. Uh, but, uh, those down payments uh, are, are important. To save time, the package, uh, uh, has, uh, some different tax cuts. Uh, the making work pay tax cut which is, uh, um, one, another, uh, part of the President’s platform. Uh, that helps boost the pay checks of ninety five per cent of working families by five hundred to a thousand dollars.

Uh, that package, once we get this medicine into the system, that, these interventions will begin to, to create those three, uh, to four million jobs. They’ll help states that are facing budget constraints, they’ll help create economic activity, that’s uh, that’s missing, uh, in, in terms of, uh, of in…infrastructure, in terms of retail, in terms of, uh, uh, financial markets, in terms of really every sector of the economy. In fact, Christy and I found in our paper that ninety per cent of jobs we create will be in the, in the private sector.

So, uh, uh, I’m confidant that, uh, uh, the, uh, recovery act, um, is going to start turning this, uh, uh, the, this economic problem, uh, around. Uh, it’s not gonna happen tomorrow, it’s not gonna happen next month, uh, we, uh, uh, are going to face economic challenges, uh, even with this plan in the system. Uh, everyone know that or should. Uh, but it’s certainly gonna help a lot. I’ll stop there and, and, uh, take some questions…

The paper by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein:

The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan [pdf]

Our previous coverage:

It’s the stimulus, stupid

Transcript(s) of the media questions and answers will follow in later posts as the Show Me Progress corporate headquarters transcription elves get to them.