Congress is expected to take up consideration of trade deals with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea as early as this month. Ahead of that debate, top executives of 32 major corporations ranging from General Electric to Dow Chemical signed an open letter calling on Congress to immediately pass the deals, warning that “U.S. goods, services, and farm exports are losing ground every day” without them.

Using a database of workers who benefited from Trade Adjustment Assistance — a program that aids workers who lose their jobs due to foreign trade — the public interest group Public Citizen analyzed the jobs records of these corporations and found that 18 of the 32 outsourced at least 18,600 American jobs to other countries since 2001 thanks to prior free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):

We have a searchable form of the TAA database on our website. There you can see that some of these 32 corporations have shipped a combined 18,600 American jobs overseas since 2001. Consider that an example rather than a full accounting of the damage, as TAA is a narrow program that excludes many workers who may well have lost their jobs to trade pacts and imports but who do not meet the program’s criteria. [...] Just to pick out a few examples, Whirlpool took advantage of NAFTA and shipped over 1,000 jobs at their Fort Smith, Arkansas facility to Mexico in 2008. Caterpillar, a major backer of the proposed trade pact with Colombia, laid off 338 workers at its Mapleton, Illinois facility when it shifted their work to Mexico.

Advocates of the new trade agreements have long maintained that these deals will lead to American job growth. But the evidence from previous agreements and estimates of the job losses from the deals Congress will be deciding on does not bear this out.

In an interview yesterday with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) had almost nothing but criticism for President Obama’s jobs plan. “This looks like to me not a very good sign, because it looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path,” he commented. Ryan did, however, express his support for a program that asks the unemployed to work for no wages while receiving unemployment benefits.

Under the Georgia Works program, Georgians receiving unemployment benefits are matched with employers who provide them with up to eight weeks of training during which they work for free. Instead of being paid by the employer, workers continue to receive their unemployment checks and a $240 stipend to help cover transportation, child care, and other expenses.

According to Ryan, this state program is “something we’re looking at” to replicate on the national level:

“The Georgia plan sounds pretty interesting,” Ryan told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday. “I think that’s something we are looking at, which is unemployment reform.”

Ryan’s remarks echo House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) support of the idea.

“We stand ready to work with [President Obama] if there is interest in implementing a similar program on the federal level,” Cantor said.

The top weekly unemployment benefit in Georgia is around $330, or a maximum of $2,640 for two months of work.

It’s significant that the Georgia Works model is the only part of Obama’s proposal that Cantor and Ryan — who are against middle class tax cuts and believe raising taxes on millionaires is “class warfare” — endorse. Republicans seem to be aiming for another “reform” of unemployment benefits, much like welfare reform in 1995, that requires the jobless to work more and more for less in less — so little, in fact, that they can end up being used essentially as slave labor by more unscrupulous companies. Republicans in Congress have continually opposed to extending unemployment insurance.

While there are some positive aspects to the program — training that teaches important skills increase the chances that the unemployed will find jobs — companies benefit disproportionately from two months of free labor while the government picks up the tab for the very modest stipend. From participants’ perspective, the stipend just covers the expenses necessary to get to work, so there is no net financial gain (at least in the short term).

Numbers from the Georgia Department of Labor reveal that there is little to recommend about the program. Between 2003 and 2010, only 16.4 percent of people that participated in the program were hired by the company that trained them during or at the end of the training period. As of late August, there were only 19 trainees enrolled in Georgia Works.

Our guest bloggers are Heather Boushey, Jordan Eizenga, and Matt Separa of the Center for American Progress Action Fund economic policy team.

A new paper by Jesse Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics from the University of California Berkeley and former chief economist at the Department of Labor, throws cold water on the notion — touted by many conservatives — that extending unemployment insurance benefits provides a strong disincentive for the unemployed to look for work and thus, is a major reason for our persistently high unemployment rate.

Using data from the Department of Labor’s Current Population Survey, Rothstein demonstrates that extensions of unemployment benefits have actually had a very small effect on the unemployment rate during the Great Recession. He estimates that extended unemployment benefits have raised the unemployment rate by between 0.2 and 0.6 percentage points. And about half or more of that increase is attributable to individuals who remained in the labor force and searching for a job because unemployment benefits allowed them to continue to do so.

In fact, Rothstein finds that unemployment insurance benefits extensions increased the share of people who became reemployed by about 1.3 percent, as of January 2011, because it motivated people to not exit the labor force and stop looking for work. Rothstein writes:

Any negative effects of the recent unemployment insurance extensions on job search are clearly quite small, too small to outweigh the benefits of transfers to people who have been out of work for over a year in conditions where job-finding prospects are bleak.

This evidence directly contradicts the talking points of many conservative lawmakers such as Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) who has said unemployment insurance “is a disincentive for [the unemployed] to seek new work” because it pays them to do nothing. It also rebukes other research by Robert Barro (2010) and David Grubb (2011) that has claimed that unemployment insurance extensions have contributed approximately 2.7 percentage points to the unemployment rate.

Rothstein’s findings are especially important as Congress begins to consider extending emergency unemployment insurance benefits amidst conservative opposition to grant such an extension. As recently as last month, Majority Leader Eric Cantor stated that Washington should stop “worrying” about providing unemployment benefits, given the budget deficit.

As President Barack Obama made clear in his recent joint speech to Congress, “If the millions of unemployed Americans stopped getting this insurance, and stopped using that money for basic necessities, it would be a devastating blow to this economy.” This is because economists estimate that for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance benefits, the economy grows by $2.00, since recipients typically spend — not save — those dollars.

Unless Congress passes an extension of these benefits, millions of Americans currently still unable to find a job will be left without unemployment benefits beginning in January 2012. Failure to extend these benefits would be devastating to the 14 million American workers still searching for a job and the 6 million people have been out of work for six months or more.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) have sparred recently over their slightly differing views regarding the future of Social Security, with Perry denouncing the program as an unconstitutional “Ponzi scheme” and Romney hitting back from Perry’s left, ignoring not just his own support for privatizing the program but also his refusal to consider the easiest way to make it viable for the next three-quarters of a century.

This weekend, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), once considered a potential front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, weighed in on the growing controversy that has engulfed the race. After urging the party’s candidates to be more honest with voters about the country’s future, however, Daniels said the only problem with Perry’s position on Social Security was that it was “too frank,” and his failure to explain it was unnecessarily scary, the New York Times reports:

“I don’t think any of this is very helpful,” Mr. Daniels said. “If there’s a problem with ‘Ponzi scheme,’ it is that it’s too frank, not that it’s wrong. But by stopping there, he might be unnecessarily scaring people.”

Republicans have had a hard time with Perry’s characterization of Social Security, as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) refused to say whether he agreed when he endorsed Perry and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) saying that Perry really meant he wanted to “preserve this valuable safety net program.” But as Matt Yglesias notes, the answer is simple: Social Security is simply not a Ponzi scheme.

Daniels is right on one count: the Republican presidential candidates aren’t being honest with the American people about the future of Social Security. Unfortunately, neither is he. Social Security can pay out full benefits until 2037, and raising the payroll tax cap and allowing income over $106,800 to be taxed for Social Security purposes would make it solvent for the next 75 years.

As soon as news broke regarding President Obama’s plan to institute the “Buffett rule” — which stipulates that the wealthy shouldn’t pay lower tax rates than the middle class — Republicans began criticizing the president for engaging in “class warfare.” “It looks like to me not a very good sign. It looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Leaving aside that the GOP is crying class warfare to preserve low taxes for the rich, while simultaneously trying to raise taxes on the middle class, the president’s plan is far from an unfair shot at the rich. As the Center for American Progress’ Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger wrote, Obama’s plan “is the embodiment of the ‘balanced approach’ that he has been calling for from the beginning — and that we know from poll after poll that the American people want.” Here are some of the tax measures that the president released today:

– Allow the 2001 and 2003 high-income tax cuts to expire and return the estate tax to 2009 parameters: These tax cuts, respectively, benefit the richest two percent and the richest 0.25 percent of Americans.

– Reduce the value of itemized deductions and other tax preferences to 28 percent for families with incomes over $250,000: This tax change alone will raise $400 billion over ten years, while ensuring that the very wealthy don’t benefit disproportionately from tax deductions.

– Tax carried (profits) interests as ordinary income: Due to a loophole in the tax code, hedge fund managers — who often make billions of dollars annually — are able to pay a 15 percent tax rate on income (known as carried interest) that they make for managing other people’s money. Taxing carried interest as ordinary income eliminates that disparity.

– Eliminate special depreciation rules for corporate purchases of aircraft: This provision allows corporate jets to be depreciated over a five-year period rather than the seven-year period required for commercial ones. Repealing it would save about $3 billion over 10 years.

– Eliminate oil and gas tax preferences: Repealing tax subsidies to the hugely profitable oil and gas industries would save about $4 billion annually.

– Repeal last-in, first-out (LIFO) method of accounting for inventories: This accounting boondoggle allows companies to assume, for tax purposes, that their entire inventory was purchased for the last (most expensive) price. Thus, when they sell off their inventory, their taxable income looks smaller. Repealing it would raise $72 billion over five years.

– Require the financial services industry to pay back taxpayers: The administration’s Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, which has been proposed multiple times but never moved in Congress, would require the nation’s biggest banks to pay any outstanding costs associated with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which currently stands at $48 billion.

These tax provisions would end inequities in the tax code, stop tax boondoggles benefiting the nation’s biggest corporations, and ask that the financial industry pay back a pittance for the support that it received during the financial crisis (not just from TARP, but from the extraordinary efforts of the Federal Reserve). At a time of skyrocketing income inequality and soaring corporate profits, these changes only make sense.

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA)

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) appeared on MSNBC with Chris Jansing this morning to attack President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, which includes some tax increases on the wealthy. Taking up the typical GOP talking point, Fleming said raising taxes on wealthy “job creators” is a terrible idea that kills jobs because many of these people are small business owners who pay taxes through personal income rates.

Fleming is himself a businesses owner, so Jansing asked, “If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?” Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” Watch it:

Jansing pointed out that whining about tax increases while making $400,000 annually is “not exactly a sympathetic position.” Fleming could only respond by saying that “class warfare has never created a job” and that his success is a “virtue.” But he noticeably never answered Jansing’s question about whether he would actually be forced to lay off workers if his taxes went up.

Considering that he has $400,000 “left over,” it seems that Fleming could actually afford to hire workers and still bring home a respectable pay. The average household income in the U.S. in 2010 was just under $50,000 — down 2.3 percent from 2009 and lower than it was in 1997.

And how hard does the congressman work to make the equivalent of eight median household incomes? Fleming told the Wall Street Journal that “he spends very little time on day-to-day management, though he weighs in on broad strategy decisions.” “I monitor the reports. I’m certainly in communication with the managers,” he told the paper.

American corporations are holding more cash on their balance sheets than at any time in nearly a half century, as they continue to save instead of investing or hiring workers, according to a Federal Reserve report released Friday. At the same time, Republican presidential candidates and corporate leaders continue to lobby for lower corporate tax rates and huge corporate tax giveaways under the guise that they will lead to higher rates of job creation.

According to the report, non-financial corporations held more than $2 trillion in cash at the end of June, a $88 billion jump since the end of March. Cash holdings made up 7.1 percent of all company assets, the highest level since 1963.

And the report doesn’t even include foreign cash holdings, though 11 companies — including Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco — have foreign cash holdings of at least $10 billion. Those funds, the corporations argue, could be used to spur hiring and job growth domestically through tax breaks like a repatriation tax holiday, as one executive told the Wall Street Journal:

But Jeff Agosta, chief financial officer of Devon Energy Corp., said that whatever companies use the money for—such as investments, dividend payments or stock buybacks—the U.S. would benefit by having the funds come home.

“That’s money that’s going to be put into productive use in the United States,” Mr. Agosta said.

Evidence from past repatriation tax holidays, in which corporations can bring foreign cash holdings back to the U.S. at lower tax rates, shows that companies wouldn’t use the funds to spur job growth. As one of the members on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers said, the 2004 repatriation holiday “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the U.S.” After the holiday ended, corporations cut thousands of jobs and stashed more money overseas in anticipation of a future holiday — a perhaps prescient move, as multiple Republican presidential candidates have endorsed an even bigger tax holiday than the corporations have asked for.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates continue to endorse drastic reductions in the corporate tax rate, even as American corporations pay one of the lowest effective tax rates in the developed world.

Those who favor lower corporate tax rates and bigger giveaways continue to argue more cash on hand will equal more jobs created. The Fed’s latest report, however, is more evidence that equation simply doesn’t work out.

During the 2010 debate over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans continually claimed that allowing tax rates for the richest two percent of Americans to go back to where they were under the Clinton administration would disproportionately affect small businesses. The claim wasn’t true then — as just 3 percent of people with any business income at all, from a business large or small, would be affected if the top two tax rates increase — but that didn’t stop the GOP from parroting it over and over.

Today, President Obama plans to unveil a deficit reduction plan that will, once again, call for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for those in the top two income tax brackets, as well as a new “Buffett rule” — a minimum tax for millionaires, inspired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s continued outrage that tax rates for investors are lower than those for working class Americans. So, inevitably, Republicans have revived their talking point regarding small businesses:

“It is disappointing the president has nothing but a fresh slogan for the same job-killing small business tax hikes opposed by bipartisan majorities in Congress,” [House Speaker John] Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) followed suit on Fox News Sunday:

And don’t forget the fact that most small businesses file taxes as individuals. So, when you are raising these top tax rates, you’re raising taxes on these job creators where more than half of Americans get their jobs from in this country.

To review: fewer than 2 percent of the small businesses in the country face either of the top two tax brackets. Far more, in fact, are in the lowest tax bracket. Plus, “many of the roughly 650,000 filers with small-business income who face one of the top two tax rates are merely passive investors who have nothing to do with running the business.”

On a final note, small business owners that file their taxes as individuals (instead of through the corporate tax system) pay taxes on the income they actually take home. A small business owner who is pocketing one million dollars annually should be taxed like anyone else taking home that much. Claiming that the tax hikes Obama proposed would adversely impact small businesses is just another way in which the GOP is going to bat for the very rich.