By: Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
One of the highlights of the National Urban League's recently concluded annual conference in Chicago was Vice President Joe Biden's keynote speech on July 31st. The Vice President focused on the progress the Obama Administration has made in combating the economic downturn, which he called, "the great recession," and declared that the nation would emerge from this crisis stronger than ever.
Vice President Biden directly addressed critics who question the effectiveness of the Administration's recovery efforts as unemployment continues to rise and nears 15 percent among African Americans. He reminded conference attendees and the nation that six months ago, the nation's economy was clearly sinking, but today, while we are certainly not out of the water, our economic ship is beginning to right itself.
As proof, he pointed to the slowdown in housing foreclosures, the stabilization of the financial system and the "relief, recovery and reinvestment" that is beginning to take hold as a result of the Administration's $787 billion stimulus package. All these signs give us hope that the worst may be over.
The Vice President explicitly thanked the National Urban League for reminding the Administration early on that while job creation was our long-term goal, millions of people in our cities and across this nation needed immediate help. That is why the stimulus plan included more money to extend unemployment benefits, to lower health care costs for people who have lost their jobs, to provide tax relief for individuals and businesses, to extend food stamp benefits to 30 million more people, to keep 20 million people from falling off the Medicaid rolls and to prevent layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers, police and firefighters. Fully one-third of the stimulus plan has been devoted to providing immediate relief for people who are in danger of falling through the deep hole of our troubled economy.
The Vice President spoke passionately and personally about, not only the loss of income, but the loss of dignity resulting from being out of work. He recalled the day his own father took what he called the longest walk in the world up a short flight of stairs to tell his son that daddy had just lost his job. Quoting Urban League legend, Whitney M. Young, Jr., he added, "The hardest work in the world is being out of work."
The Vice President also said that the Obama Administration is committed to building "a new economy", rooted in green jobs, renewable energy, and greater investments in health care and education. In his customary folksy way, he cautioned that while progress is being made, more pain may lie ahead. "Less bad is not good," he said, "but less bad is better than worse." He concluded by predicting that with continued improvements in the gross domestic product, we could be out of the recession by the last quarter of this year.
We hope he's right.
To view the Vice President's speech in its entirety, log on to http://www.nul.org.
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