my local paper had this editorial...help me with facts and sense...thanks in advance
http://www.thedailylight.com/articles/2010/10/25/opinion/doc4cc5b39406db3965104430.txt‘Jobless economic recovery’
Published: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:58 AM CDT
To the Editor,
Last year, President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid, (or OPR for short) pushed their $787 billion dollar “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” through Congress; they hailed as a “jobs” bill. At that time, the national unemployment rate was 8.6 percent. Since then the original “stimulus” package has grown to $891 billion and the national unemployment rate has grown to 9.6 percent.
Where are the jobs, you ask? The primary employment benefits have been due to stimulus dollars allocated to the governmental or public employment sectors such as teachers, firefighters and police, many of which are represented by unions who have been strong OPR supporters. These dollars have largely been used as lay off avoidance dollars rather than job creation dollars.
The 2009 stimulus was not a traditional “job creation now” or unemployment reduction bill. Over a year later much of the $891 billion still has not even been released. Again why not? Because the 2009 stimulus was the liberal Democrat’s once in a lifetime opportunity to pull out and dust off all the economic, social, environmental and wealth redistribution legislation plans they have been saving since President Jimmy Carter was defeated in his bid for a second term. So the “stimulus” largely became a huge grab bag package of various “venture capital type investments in tiny start ups,” social and environmental programs, health care etc. In addition approved stimulus programs are often extremely complex to administer and thus quite slow to proceed with getting dollars into the economy. Thus the taxpayers have now been saddled with almost a trillion dollars of additional debt plus continued long term high unemployment.
Where as “traditional” stimulus legislation of the past has been much more straight forward and direct in expediting funds immediately into the economy with dollars for hundreds of thousands of infrastructure construction and maintenance jobs. Jobs which also create immediate ripples of employment in industries such as steel, cement, asphalt, sand and gravel, trucking, construction equipment manufacturing and on and on. That was not to be in this monumental 2009 White House and Congressional joint economic fiasco.
Doesn’t this Congress understand you ask? I believe they do. This Liberal Democratic Majority, the party of big government, government control of the economy; government control of health care, etc. seems to think that it’s in their best interest to keep as many potential voters as possible “dependent” on them for housing, food, shelter, health care and such. If you are dependent on them for your family’s welfare you are more likely to vote for them, like it or not. Continued high levels of unemployment certainly do that.
It’s interesting to also note that, just in recent weeks as the Democratic Majority appears to be in trouble in the upcoming election, President Obama is now, over a year later, asking Congress for an additional $50 billion in stimulus dollars for highway, bridge and airport construction that “would create thousands of good paying instant jobs.”(If that does not prove my premise, I don’t know what (other than a Pelosi confession) will.
Meanwhile the White House and Democratic Leaders continue to insist that business is the root cause of the “continued economic uncertainty” because it’s not hiring and spending and expanding. They refuse to acknowledge that our economic uncertainty and continued high unemployment is due to businesses’ continuing inability to determine what either near term or future White House tax policy is going to be, what new taxes and tax changes and other business liabilities or expenses are hidden in the new “Health Care Overhaul,” just passed by Congress. Nor do they acknowledge the present and future economic damage and employment impacts of the six-month suspension of oil all deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
We now know why, prior to the election, candidate Obama along with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid would not say what “change” was going to be. Well, I along with millions of others, believe next week’s elections are going to bring more “change.” But this time it’s going to be Republicans, other Conservatives and independents bringing the “change.” A change of Congressional majorities in this election in preparation for a change in the White House in 2012.
Don Wilson,
Ellis County Republican Chm.
Pct. 111
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