And that’s what Obama wanted: Ideas to restart the economy and keep it going for workers. He plans to distill them and take them on the road, starting with a Dec. 4 speech in Allentown, Pa. — the day the November jobless figures came out.

Obama “is looking forward to having a broad discussion with, and getting ideas from, a whole host of people in the private sector — people that run fairly large companies, like FedEx, Google; small business owners that...do most of our hiring, financial experts, others that have ideas,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

“I am not interested in taking a wait and see approach,” the president said in concluding remarks.

“The government alone is not going to create and doesn’t have the primary responsibility to create the jobs that will get our economy moving again. That\'s the private sector. The president wants to hear from them on the type of environment that we can have that would allow for that hiring to take place,” Gibbs added.

There was no lack of ideas from union leaders who went to the summit. They included AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Change To Win Chair Anna Burger, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, UFCW President Joe Hansen, Teamsters President James Hoffa, CWA President Larry Cohen, AFT President Randi Weingarten and Economic Policy Institute chief Larry Mishel.

Trumka, Burger and Mishel all proposed taxing Wall Street’s transactions to help for rescuing Main Street, especially since Wall Street got us into this mess. Hoffa campaigned — in the small-group sessions — for rewriting U.S. trade laws to protect workers and jobs, too, and for tougher enforcement. In his closing remarks, the president cited Hoffa by name on trade, but did not agree.

The unionists were among 130-179 participants in the summit. Notably uninvited: The heads of two big Right-Wing business lobbies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. And a crowd of activists, though not unionists, gathered outside the White House gates, brandishing “pink slips” and demanding immediate action to create jobs. Ideas pushed by some attendees at the afternoon-long summit included:

• Trumka. The AFL-CIO chief advocated the federation’s 5-point jobs creation plan and its call for an immediate, second stimulus bill focused just on jobs. That plan includes a 1-year extension and expansion of measures to help the jobless, such as extended unemployment benefits, more food stamps and more COBRA health insurance coverage availability. All expire at the end of this year.

The fed’s plan also includes more money to state and local governments, to prevent layoffs when the first stimulus money they got runs out in the middle of next year, plus creating “direct public service jobs” — in addition to those state and local jobs — doing things like repairing schools. The fed’s plan advocates a 10%-15% targeted jobs tax credit for the net two years and more infrastructure work as well.

• Burger. Burger advocated a “speculators tax” on Wall Street to pay for creating jobs on Main Street. She also had specific job-creation measures in her bag. They included recreation of New Deal public-works programs, along with “someone to take charge, to focus — 24/7 — on job creation until we see results.”

Burger’s other specifics included more infrastructure investment, extending unemployment insurance and an increase in work-sharing, and use of $200 billion or so in unused TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds “to increase credit for small businesses.” Like Trumka, she pushed more money to state and local governments to save 900,000 jobs. But she wants to “target the fastest-growing sectors of human services such as child care, in-home services for the elderly and disabled, and other services our communities need through a public jobs program.”

• Hansen. Hansen, whose 1.3-million-member union represents hundreds of thousands of grocery workers, discussed “the importance of food aid assistance for unemployed Americans as well as increasing lending opportunities to retailers to expand quality food access to underserved communities,” the union said. “For millions of workers in communities across the country, supermarket jobs are stable, quality jobs,” UFCW added.

• Hoffa. In one small-group session after the opening large forum, Hoffa argued strongly for tough enforcement of trade laws. “We’ve had a bad trade policy going back to Clinton going back to Bush basically opening up our markets to closed markets. If this government wants to do something, enforce the trade laws that you have,” the Teamsters leader added.

In his own closing remarks, Obama cited Hoffa, but didn’t agree with him. “Expanding our exports has to be a priority. And this was the major topic when I traveled to Asia several weeks ago. During the session, as I understand it, we heard from Jim Hoffa about the importance of trade strategies that open markets,” the president said.

• Weingarten. “Thanks to the” stimulus law, “more than 300,000 teacher and other school staff positions were saved or created, but they are in jeopardy because of continuing state and local government budget struggles,” Weingarten said in a statement, repeating her words from a small-group session. She told that session that without the stimulus money, “the K-12 system would have collapsed.”

Obama praised another Weingarten idea. “Weingarten…suggested a specific idea: Community schools, especially in rural areas, where parents can get training after hours in the same place where their kids are learning during the day, and I think that\'s a terrific idea worth exploring,” he said.

• Mishel. Saying one-third of the jobless have been unemployed for more than six months, “a level of long-term unemployment not seen since the Great Depression,” Mishel advanced EPI’s $450 billion plan, which closely tracks that of the AFL-CIO. He’d pay for it with a sales tax on stock and other investment transfers. He also estimated the plan would create 4.6 million jobs in two years, even though the U.S. needs creation of 11 million jobs in that time to “return to the pre-recession unemployment rate.”

The stock transfer sales tax is not only a revenue-raiser to pay for jobs, but a measure of justice, Mishel added. “The financial sector not only threw us into a worldwide recession, it has also helped drive up the deficit. So, it seems appropriate to have their activities finance our recovery,” Mishel declared.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.

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