Materials from the Economic Crisis Webcast, Oct. 30

On October 30, 2008 the Coalition on Human Needs sponsored a webcast on the Economic Crisis. This is a helpful tool in understanding the current crisis, as well as responses that put people first. The presentations provide a guide to the kind of recovery package that will be needed as a new Congress and Administration take power in January. The event was co-sponsored by the Public Policy and Community Action offices of the Women’s Division. Don’t worry if you missed it! Below is a link to view the full web-cast, or to access resources for understanding and responding to the crisis, developed by the Coalition on Human Needs.
Resources to help you to better understand and act:

• The full webcast: http://chn.impactlearning.org/c/chn/interface.htm
• The powerpoint slides from the presentations: http://www.chn.org/pdf/2008/EconomicCrisisWebcastSlides.pdf
• The report, Towards Shared Recovery, with recommendations for $90 billion in job creation, nutrition assistance, unemployment benefits, state aid, and many other services effectively targeted to boost the economy while alleviating hardships for low income people. (http://www.chn.org/pdf/2008/sharedrecovery103108.pdf)
• A New York Times op ed by presenter Jared Bernstein and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin demonstrating broad agreement about the need both for short term stimulus and longer term government investment in education, health care, energy, and other building blocks for economic growth. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/opinion/03rubin.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=jared%20bernstein&st=cse&oref=slogin)
• A webpage full of reports, fact sheets, and other sources of information about the economy; we are regularly updating these materials. (http://www.chn.org/issues/economy/index.html)

Congress will be in Washington for a lame duck session the week of November 17.
The nation's need for economic recovery is urgent; Congress should act as quickly as possible.

This election day confirms that people want to be active participants in our democracy. But democracy requires year round action if we are to build an economic recovery that is shared. Please let your elected officials know we need a “bail-out” that responds to the needs of the vast majority of the US public.