Tonight is the kickoff of the “Steel on Wheels” tour, featuring MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and Nucor Steel CEO Dan DiMicco, who are leading a “Get America Working” townhall in Seneca Falls, NY – the home of the Suffrage Movement and the inspiration for “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The townhall is designed to start a “Jobs Movement” that tackles what Ratigan labels as the four biggest obstacles to job creation, with which I don’t imagine many here at FDL would disagree:

The theme of the town hall is How to get America Working Again. Over the course of the past 19 months the unemployment rate in this country has lingered about 9%. Proving the idea that Americans need work and currently our government’s main job should be to create these jobs.

  1. Fair Trade Now: We must make trade fair by balancing our trade deficit.
  2. Make Banking Lending to Businesses, Not Gambling or Buying Treasuries: With the consolidation of the banks due to deregulation; banks are not interested in lending to American businesses due to the fact that they will not make a profit.
  3. Control Health Care Costs: Unlike America’s foreign counterparts, US based companies are mandated to pay employee health care, which in turn results in the US having insufficient health care while spending 16% of GDP.
  4. Reform the Tax Code: Use the tax code to promote US investment instead of rewarding overseas investment and aristocracy.

Ratigan authored a post today at HuffPo that delves into the details of the problems preventing job creation.

You can watch the townhall live here starting at 7pm EST. More on the program below.Ratigan is hosting the townhall, which will feature these guests:

DAN DIMICCO
Dan DiMicco currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Nucor Steel, a position he has held since 2006. A metallurgist by trade, Mr. DiMicco has brought his more than 30 years of steel industry experience to Nucor.

Dan DiMicco joined Nucor in 1982 and since then he has held various executive level jobs. Thus, allowing him to gain a deep understanding of Nucor’s unique culture and values.

DUNCAN MOORE
Duncan Moore is an inventor by trade and currently runs the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Rochester. Duncan’s major areas of research are computer-aided design, medical optics and optical instrumentation, which are all extremely popular and important at the University of Rochester.

In addition, he was the associate director of technology policy during the Clinton White House and he currently interacts with scientists who create start-up companies.

ANDREW JENKS
When Andrew was 16, he founded the Hendrick Hudson Film Festival, which has since become one of the biggest high school film festivals in the United States. Currently, Jenks stars in a new docu-series, “The World of Jenks,” which has become the highest rated series premier in MTV history.

“The World of Jenks” captures the filmmaker shadowing a stranger for seven days and living a completely different way of life from his own. He will walk the proverbial mile in someone else’s shoes – whether that someone is a homeless person or a supermodel or anything in between. As a documentary filmmaker, Andrew will explore their lives, interact with their family, hang with their friends and generally see the world from their perspective. He will live with their decisions and question those decisions but ultimately live with the consequences.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND
In 2010 Chrystia Freeland joined Reuters as Global Editor-At-Large, she is responsible for planning and implementing Reuters editorial strategy. Chrystia came to Reuters from the Financial Times, where she was the US managing editor and helped the US Financial Times become the single largest edition.