The best way to reduce the growing federal deficit is to [1] create 10 million jobs now—the number of jobs needed to close our jobs deficit—not to cut vital programs such as [2] Social Security and [3] Medicare, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.

President Obama yesterday signed an executive order creating an 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to propose ways to reduce the growing national debt. Click [4] here to read the executive order.

Trumka cited data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that most of the deficit over the next 10 years will come from the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the rich, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, spiraling [5] health care costs and the recession.

The main driver of the recent increases in deficit projections is worsening economic conditions—in short, the present deficit crisis is largely a symptom of the jobs crisis.

Solving the jobs crisis and the deficit will require large amounts of public investment in the short term, which should be paid for in future years by taxing Wall Street, Trumka said. Read the full statement [6] here.

Also, it is critical that the newly appointed commission not focus on cutting entitlements, Trumka said. The problem with perennial proposals for entitlement commissions and deficit commissions is that they are too often premised on the mistaken assumption that short-term stimulus and entitlement spending are the root causes of burgeoning budget deficits. But that is not the case, he said.

Social Security is fundamentally sound and does not contribute meaningfully to our long-term deficit. With the decline of defined-benefit pensions, the sudden loss of retirement savings for millions and the dramatic increase in economic uncertainty, strengthening Social Security’s core guarantee of retiring with dignity is now more important than ever.

Problems with Medicare financing are a symptom of the larger problem of rising health care costs and can be solved by comprehensive health care reform, not benefit cuts, he added.

Commissions have been, and can be, serious and useful mechanisms to grapple with difficult problems. But the true test of this commission’s success will be whether it helps fix our budget deficits by attacking the jobs deficit, or whether it makes our budget problems worse by sacrificing jobs and urgently needed long-term public investment.

It was a loud and clear message that our elected leaders-and our labor movement-must do more for working people, do it fast and do it smarter.

An AFL-CIO poll taken Tuesday night shows without doubt:

Voters are fed up that elected leaders have done too little to help working families.

They said Democrats have NOT overreached on jobs, the economy and health care-they have underreached.

Voters have seen too much help for Wall Street and not nearly enough help for Main Street.

Unless Democrats demonstrate that fixing the economy is their overriding priority, and begin to create more jobs for working Americans NOW, we’re going to see more results this November like the Massachusetts election.

For the union movement and activists, the message was also clear: It’s not time to leave it to any political party to take care of us once we put them in office. It’s time to organize and mobilize as never before to make every elected or aspiring leader PROVE he or she will create the jobs we need in an economy we need with the health care we need.

I am not discouraged by Tuesday’s election results. Actually, I’m energized and I want you to be, too. Working America is demanding major change NOW-not timid, go-slow, partial solutions.

I know we are the people who can mobilize a massive army to force elected leaders to deliver.

Let’s do it-starting NOW.

P.S. I’m sending this same message in a YouTube video. Please take a look and share it with other fighters for working families.

In solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO