Obama Pledges to Push for 2.5 Million New Jobs via Infrastructure, Recovery Package

CafeSentido.com :: President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday in his weekly radio address —now also a video staple on YouTube— he has already tasked his economic team “to come up with an economic recovery plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January 2011″. Obama has long pledged he would incentivize development of a green-energy economy, as a response to the imperatives of economic sustainability, job-creation and reduced environmental impact. The president-elect added that “it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job-creation”, ostensibly a first building-block in what may be a broader economic recovery, which he hopes will be in full swing before the end of his first term.

Highlighting the need to support aggressive development of alternative energy technologies, to spur job-creation, restructure the economy, and secure a future of sustainable economic growth not tied to the economics of foreign-sourced petroleum, Obama explained that this is an urgently necessary process which has been ignored for too long. He seeks to inform both the American public and the established structures of power in Washington, that this refashioning of the overall economy is not just an idea among many or an environmentalists green dream, but an urgent economic imperative.

“The survival of the American dream”, he said, “for over two centuries, is not only a testament to its enduring power, but to the great effort, sacrifice and courage of the American people. It has thrived because in our darkest hours, we have risen above the smallness of our divisions to forge a path toward a new and brighter day.” He challenged the American people to act “boldly” and to view this time as a “new beginning”.

Obama has been urging an emergency “bridge loan” for the Detroit automakers, to help them avoid bankruptcy —a possibility some fear could cause the loss of 1 to 3 million jobs nationally—, in exchange for conditions about future technological direction, namely, greener automotive technologies. The “greening of Detroit” with clean energy technologies would make the industry more competitive, would make its products more viable in fuel-pressured economic straits, and would help generate a new wave of infastructure and manufacturing development nationwide, not to mention its potential benefits to the natural environment and public health, via reduced threats to air and water quality.

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