Tomorrow the U.S. employment report for May, 2010 will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and while I hope that it will utterly shock and amaze us with much better than expected employment gains, I am resigned to the fact that it will most likely show either an anemic gain in employment or even some losses.
The Obama administration is still reeling from the U.S. employment numbers for April, which after factoring out the jobs created by and for the U.S. Census, showed only a growth of 41,000 jobs in the private sector. Those numbers were already disheartening, but the future numbers are likely to be even bleaker, now that a huge number of cash-strapped state and local governments will be handing out pink slips to teachers who have just finished their school year, not to mention police officers, fire fighters, and municipal workers who work collecting waste and deal with sanitation issues like water and sewer projects. (And this doesn't even include the number of jobs lost along the Gulf Coast thanks to the reckless disaster created by BP.) Combine that with the fact that new claims for unemployment benefits rose sharply within the last month, and it looks as though we will get that double-dip recession which some economists have warned about.
Yet in spite of all the suffering of middle class workers who are losing or have lost their jobs and are struggling to find work just to feed their families and have adequate shelter, let alone a decent living, the Republicans callously voted down a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work for longer than 26 weeks, claiming that the deficit needs to be reduced, and in some cases, claiming that some people would rather receive unemployment benefits than look for a job.
Now this callous, mean-spirited attitude by the GOP senators doesn't surprise me, nor does it surprise any regular readers and contributors of DKos, as we already know that much of the GOP establishment is supportive of big business, Wall Street, and the oil/coal industry and hostile to working families. The fact that the GOP is so openly brazen with their cruel attitude shouldn't surprise any DKos reader either, but it is opening the eyes of the casual person who doesn't have as much time to keep up with the ramblings in the Beltway. What truly is shocking, however, is that the GOP believes they can get away with giving the collective middle finger to the middle class, cozy up with the big businesses who have brought down the economy, despoiled the Gulf Coast, and brought much misery to working people and those who are unemployed, and still expect to win back one or both houses of Congress come November.
Now in a more typical climate, this kind of heartless cruelty by any politician, let alone political party, would spell disaster for those same people in future elections. But unfortunately we live in a toxic political environment, with corrupt politicians looking out only for their own interest, hyper-partisans who want to win at all costs, regardless of the damage they are doing, and a media environment where one's political affiliation is readily determined by which media outlet you get your daily news from. The GOP has already made their stand on the middle class, blocking nearly all of President Obama's attempts to stimulate the economy, pass affordable health care, reigning in the excesses of Wall Street, and dealing with climate change, yet they think that by doing nothing, they deserve to come back into power next year. In a more typical climate, the American people would be out with pitchforks, torches, and guns ready to throw these charlatans out of office, but thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party movement, the people are distracted by false claims of the President being a secret Muslim Nazi who wants to reinstate communism.
I hope that after what has happened this week on Capitol Hill, the American people will see what the GOP truly thinks of them and come to their senses in the ballot box come November. I'd like to believe that even GOP voters, as chronicled in the wonderful diary posted earlier about the unemployment benefits bill being rejected, are seeing the true faces of their representatives and will vote them out of office, but I fear that they will be distracted by the Republican noise machine once again, and they will continue to support the very people who are destroying their lives.