Many--not most but many--who are gainfully employed may think that the millions of us who are unemployed and have been unemployed for two or more years, are slackers who aren't diligently searching. It seems to be a general consensus among the employed whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. Yesterday, I appeared on World News with Charles Gibson, in an excellent Betsy Stark piece about the plight of those of us who are out of work and, it seems, out of luck. Last week, I sent a letter to President Obama imploring him to encourage our lousy Congress critters -- Grayson and a few others nothwithstanding -- to create a jobs program bill that could be implemented beginning in 2010. Today, I'm still mad at both houses of Congress, Jon Kyl and his band of Republican blackhearts, Kyl's snippy aide who answered the phone when I called, and being unemployed for almost two years now despite my best job search efforts.
So . . . Excuse me, while I get my rant on.
As I dialed Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ's DC office to protest his bogus objection, it suddenly occurred to me that the Republicans have been so obstructive and offensive since November 2006, to prevent us from recalling that, from November 1994 to November 2006, they had a firm grip on both houses of Congress.
They wrote NAFTA, which outsourced our jobs, they wrote the bills deregulating banking, finance, insurance, telecommunications, and health care, they reformed broadcast media to allow their corporate buddies--who were lining their pockets--to conglomerate media, and bought and are paying for a majority of the talking heads who espouse their message. When Shrub was in office, it was the Republicans who rubber stamped everything, gave him anything his evil hearted self asked for; not that the Democrats aren't culpable as well in that they went along to get along.
Although the Republicans are essentially responsible for our complete and total economic collapse, we need to be looking side-eyed at the Democrats too, especially since they regained Congressional control in 2006.
We need to ask ourselves these simple questions with this Democratic-lead Congress--how was it so easy for them to pass a law in a matter of a few days for Cash for Clunkers, how was it so easy for them to pass TARP so quickly which has, so far, given big banks and Wall Street $26 trillion? Yet, with an emergency bill extending UI to millions of destitute Americans, they can't within days pass a bill that would only give us a few million to sustain us for a few weeks? How and why is that?
Something is very, very wrong with this picture and we ought to be angry and we ought to be indicting all of them for their masssive failure to appropriate funds to help the millions of real people -- their obviously unworthy constituents -- who are hurting badly with loss of homes, cars, credit, everything.
While they dither about our emergency extension, while the vile Kyl at the command of Republican leaders, plays the party of no/obstructionism game plan, both houses of Congress almost unanimously passed a huge defense bill of over a quarter of a trillion dollars, a $4.6 billion bill giving their staffers raises, bills giving Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan billions to help them, in some cases, rebuild their infrastructures and create jobs--yet they won't even throw us a bone in a timely manner, and stomp-down refused to include a massive jobs program in ARRA because they were worried about the deficit. Consequently, they were careful to keep the ARRA under a trillion dollars although, a few more billion would have helped millions of We the People get back on their feet, thus injecting dollars into the supposedly consumer-led economy, which would have, perhaps, assisted a faster recovery, instead of what looks to be a W-shaped recession.
We the unemployed ought to be mad enough to throw this in their faces everyday from now on. When are we going to rouse ourselves from our stupor and get angry enough to rise up against them? It's mainly their fault we're in this terrible predicament from which there is no end.
As the Neros of the Senate fiddled and frittered while we long-term unemployed continue to wither, some of us without any funds since July, it occurred to me that what the Congress critters need are term limits. It's ridiculous that they get to make a career out of serving corporate entities while holding public office, but the president only gets 8 years and can never run again.
I've come to the conclusion that both houses of Congress ought to have 6 year term limits with no possiblity of running again for the same or any office for at least two years after their terms end. Since the only constituents they work for are the lobby industries anyway, let them get corporate jobs after their terms are up.
Not only that, their pensions and benefits should be incrementally based on their lobbyist buddies' stock prices at the time that they retire. For example, if the Dow is below 10K at the end of their 6-year term, they only get 50% pension, and so on and so forth. But, regardless of the amount of their pensions, they still must pay 50% of their benefits after leaving office. Why are we taking care of them for life because they decided to run for public office not for any altruistic values they may have had, but because it's the cushest job in the world? This makes no sense. Unless you are them.
Each time I've seen President Obama making a speech in the last week or so--at least since last week's unemployment report--he's looked very troubled while always including a line about the millions of jobless Americans, no matter the theme of his speech. He seems the only one who cares but, unless he uses Shrub's signing statements strategy, he can do nothing to force the evil Congress critters' hands. We need to be highly upset with those monsters in Congress on both sides of the aisle. Yes, I said it, they are cruel, inhumane monsters.
It was inhumane of the House to pass HR 3548 only extending benefits to 27 states with unemployment at 8.5% or higher; it was thoughtless and inhumane. It was inhumane and monstrous for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to say on September 23, one day after the House passed HR 3548, that the Senate would pass the bill "very, very quickly" but then to not get to it until October 8, even if they did amend their companion bill, S. 1699, to extend benefits weeks and include all 50 states and Puerto Rico. It is monstrously inhumane that they demonstrate no sense of immediacy and are equivocating over a few million dollars while appropriating billions to continue to make war, improve the quality of life of their staffers, etc.
/rant
Dear President Obama,
I am proud of all that you have accomplished since taking office 8 months ago. However, despite Mr. Bernanke's assertion that we are in recovery mode, the fact that unemployment is getting worse, the fact that there are virtually no employers hiring, especially in my state, California, and in Michigan, Nevada, and 24 other states, indicate otherwise. In a consumer driven economy, how can we be in a recovery when consumers are either unemployed or having their hours cut?
While the banks and Wall Street have recovered nicely and have returned to business as usual, those of us hardest hit -- especially blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics and those too young to retire yet not usually considered for hire in the current market--remain in a deep depression and on the verge of homelessness. We know that labor statistics' jobless numbers are much higher than reported. While it is true that most of the 300+ million Americans eligible for gainful employment have jobs, up to 17% of us who want to be gainfully employed can't find sufficient work as a result of a terribly deficient job market.
We need an unemployment extension passed before the end of 2009 that will support those of us who are long term unemployed until the job market improves. We DESPERATELY need the Senate to get off their duffs and vote on S.1699 expeditiously, like today. You see, my landlord doesn't care that I've been unemployed since 12/07, he doesn't care that my last FED-ED check was received in August, which I used to pay September's rent. In fact, he cares so little that he served me with a 3-day notice last night because I didn't pay my rent by 10/03/09. I don't know how to respond to him because the Senate continues dragging their feet on the bill that was passed in the House on 9/22. Yet, if I can't respond to him within 3 days, he will begin unlawful detainer proceedings against me.
Most important, we need you, along with the Congress, to create a real jobs bill similar to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of the 70s and/or the 1930s WPA of the Depression. We would all much rather be gainfully employed than watching and waiting for the dribbles of meager funds Congress allocates to the jobless at their whim.
We need gainful employment, not the "saving or creating 3-4 million jobs" jargon used in the ARRA. We implore you to take a few hours away from the Health Care Reform war to contemplate the fact that this economy is fast creating an underclass like no other, with tens of millions of people who cannot afford the basics and cannot find jobs because there are so few to be had, while government does nothing to support them.
The fact that many of the unemployed are in their 40s and 50s ought to be sobering and ought to indicate that something drastic and lasting needs to be done. Extending three components of the 2009 ARRA is a good start, but what else will you do?
We need your help NOW--we need you to step in, force the hands of the Senate to pass the UI extension, and enact a massive jobs program to give us some economic relief.
Will you help us?
Sincerely,