This morning we were pleased to welcome Congressman Tim Bishop, of the 1st District in New York.  Mr. Bishop’s talk today was on the economy and job creation. You can see the entire meeting on video including the feisty Q&A session on Pro Image Studios website:  http://proimagegroupinc.com/limba/2-5-10 In his opinion, there are three keys to recovering from the recession:

 

• Putting people back to work so they can begin to spend again and get economic demand stoked.
• Stabilizing the banking system to get lending moving again, providing working capital to business.
• Foreclosure mitigation, keeping homeowners in their homes.

Mr. Bishop went on to describe the stimulus program (ARRA) as a modest success against those three goals, and a singular success at pulling our financial system back from the brink of a total depression.  It is easy to take shots at TARP, but it worked to avoid a complete collapse.  The ARRA has served to begin the process of bringing us out of a deep hole, with GDP swinging to a positive direction during the year since its announcement.  The Congressman provided many statistics to reinforce his assertion.  He claimed the best evidence for the ARRA’s influence on Long Island is to look at education on Long Island.  He said that the program backfilled the cuts that would have had to happen without the injection of $157 million dollars to the local education authorities.  It saved local jobs, avoided a property tax increase, and preserved the quality of education on Long Island.

 

Tim went on to say that until the recovery of jobs takes place, we can’t claim to be out of a recession.  We desperately need infrastructure investment, as these are investments whose benefits remain with us for a long time.  The ARRA didn’t include enough for infrastructure, the Jobs for Main Street program does.  This program also has money in it to continue to backfill education cuts at the state level.  This will hopefully help us avoid a double dip recession which is possible with the upcoming negative stimulus of state budget cuts.

 

The congressman went on to describe the differences between the Obama administration’s budget proposal and the House and Senate versions.  The President’s budget focuses more on small business and less on infrastructure.  Four important points in the budget are tax credits for new hiring, rebates on the employer portion of the Social Security tax, an increase in the SBA’s 7A loan program, and the creation of a small business credit facility from the remainder of unissued TARP funds.  This facility would be geared to small businesses of under 500 employees and administered by smaller community banks.  He described this year’s budget as a set of efforts among the administration, House and Senate that he feels confident will be hammered out into a set of good policies to get us back on track.  Time will tell us whether it is successful, we have begun to turn things around today.  In closing, the Congressman said nobody s! hould be crowing about where we are now, but he asserted that we are in a better place than where we were a year ago.

 

The Q&A program was feisty, focusing on infrastructure investment and research. There were questions on MAGLEV, the Gas Tax, and the US National debt. It was punctuated by a sharp exchange between one of our guests and the congressman.  See it for yourself on your computer or smartphone at http://proimagegroupinc.com/limba/2-5-10  Come to a LIMBA meeting to participate, network and greet our elected officials and community leaders.

Craig Plunkett

Our efforts to provide the video of these meetings has been very helpful in getting our comunications to our readers. This would be a high profile opportunity for you to sponsor the efforts of our video team.  Pro-Image Studios have been sponsoring the work themselves. and we thank them. Call me I’ll tell you what is involved.

Ernie Fazio 631 757-1698