Thursday, August 9, 2012

Well, when Richard Trumka's happy, I'm happy...

Via TPM:

Labor and President Obama haven’t always seen to eye. But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says he couldn’t be happier with the way the campaign is shaping up.

“I think the president’s making the case right now that he should be making — that this is about two different types of economy,” Trumka told reporters Thursday at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

It wasn’t always this way. After Republicans took over the House in 2010, the White House pivoted to deficit reduction, agreeing to major spending cuts as the GOP threatened to shut down the government — or worse. Trumka and other labor officials were put off by the new emphasis on trimming government and warned it was a political as well as economically dangerous.

But last year, with the recovery unexpectedly slowing down and Democrats convinced there was no overcoming the Republican Party’s anti-tax fervor, Obama launched a new legislative push for the American Jobs Act, a bill designed to stimulate the economy with tax cuts, relief for state government and infrastructure investments.

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ but last Labor Day he started talking about jobs and the economy and creating jobs and a different vision, and he’s not let up since then,” Trumka said.