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Jim Hightower: Obama Must Get Going on Jobs
Five days before taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama called on the millions of people who had actively campaigned for him to be the engine for real change in America: “I don’t want them to just sit around and wait for me to do something. I want them to be pushing their agendas.”
He asked for it, so let’s shove this agenda into his line of vision: jobs. Middle-class jobs. Jobs with a future. Jobs doing useful work that contributes to U.S. progress and the common good. Lots and lots of those jobs.
Obama has talked often about the need for more jobs. But he’s put little presidential heft into creating them, instead focusing most on extending unemployment benefits to assuage some of the pain of being jobless.
Incredibly, he tried for a while to rationalize his “banker-first” Wall Street bailout as a jobs stimulus! The argument went like this: Rescuing failed bankers might induce them to make loans to corporations, which then might increase corporate production, which then might cause corporate executives to hire some Americans (unless, of course, they used the capital to expand operations in China). That’s a lot of “mights,” and, as we’ve seen, the money mostly remains in the tight clutches of the bailed-out bankers, producing little “trickle-down” benefit.
Meanwhile, the nation’s official unemployment rate is soaring to 10 percent and beyond. That’s not a statistic — it’s 15 million struggling people. Plus their families. Their numbers nearly double when we add in part-time workers who need and want full-time jobs, as well as other underemployed and discouraged workers.
Meet Debbie Kransky, a striver from America’s great middle class who’s now struggling. Living in Milwaukee, this intelligent and hardworking 51-year-old was offed by a medical firm in February and has been jobless since, despite being constantly on the hunt. Her unemployment benefits have run out, and her small life savings have been depleted. “I’ve got October rent,” she told a New York Times reporter. “After that, I don’t know. I’ve never lived month to month my entire life. I’m just so scared, I can’t even put it in words.”
Not only are there millions of Debbies out here, but there are many more millions who feel they’re next. They know that there are already six “officially unemployed” people (not counting those part-timers) for every job opening that becomes available in our country today.
Yet, they now hear economists, pundits and politicians from both parties cheerfully chirping that the recession is “over.” Obama himself, when asked about the oxymoron of a “jobless recovery,” responded with this breezy insight: “As you know, jobs tend to be a lagging indicator; they come last.”
Excuse me? Jobs are not an “indicator.” They are the substance of a healthy economy, the sustainer of families, the lifeblood of our middle-class society.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he faced deep and spreading national insecurity, made jobs first — not last. So should Obama. America has plenty of work that needs doing, work that would strengthen our country for the long haul. It’s time for him to launch a long-term, nationwide revitalization effort to rebuild and expand our essential infrastructure (from bridges to water systems) and to create the framework for a green economy — everything from rapid expansion of renewable energy systems to building high-speed networks that link our population corridors.
As he began his campaign, Obama declared: “I am running because of what Dr. King called ‘the fierce urgency of now.’ I am running because I believe there’s such a thing as being too late.”
Yes, there is. So get moving! Grab the urgency of this moment, and turn people’s rising anxiety into a new can-do sense of confidence by putting Americans to work. Instead of investing in Wall Street elites, invest in “percolate-up” economics based on ordinary people working to renew and reinvigorate our country at the grassroots level. Now would not be too soon to start.
— Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.
Comments
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» on 10.14.09 @ 07:22 AM
What has he done without putting our childrens financial future at stake..
Big government is bad for ANY country—
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» on 10.14.09 @ 10:46 AM
You don’t get it. Don’t hold your breath. Obama and government can only temporarily create jobs, until the money to pay people is gone. Private companies create jobs and until Obama stops demonizing, punishing and natonalizing them, the unemployment rate will continue to climb until everyone is dependent on government, which is exactly what he wants.
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» on 10.14.09 @ 10:48 AM
Yeah like the entire country is only going to be working at “green” government jobs.
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» on 10.14.09 @ 03:01 PM
Hey, ‘hey Jim’, hold your horses. You’re not making as much sense as you think. 1)You’re right about govt making only temporary jobs, but that’s just as true for the private sector. Economies change, job markets dry up, people have to change careers. Ever been to Flint, Michigan? Nobody gets a lifetime guarantee of a job. 2) Exactly what private companies is Obama demonizing, punishing, or nationalizing? Name one industry that Obama has nationalized. Make sure you know what that means before you claim it’s happening. He’s made a strong case for a serious uptick in regulating the health insurance industry, but that’s none of what you say. Furthermore, and this is just my, and several tens of millions of other Americans’ opinion, if our congress has any testicular fortitude it will throw a big rope around the health insurance industry because they are totally running away with the stagecoach! They EXPLOIT your health issues and PROFIT from them. They don’t provide health care!! They force you to gamble on how much health care you will need, and they will pull the rug out from under you if they can, when you need them the most.
Right now, private industry regulates the government in so many ways. Why can’t people see that? People dislike Obama so much they’ll do any old stupid thing just for spite. You actually think Cigna or Aetna is better at providing health care? They are FOR PROFIT industries, and their bottom line is the ONLY thing they give a rat’s ___ about. They’ve lobbied our greedy politicians into giving them the ability to establish blatant monopolies all around the country. Competition? Choice? Who are you kidding? Ironically, there will be no free market in health care until we have at the very least a public option available (single payer would be even better). THEN you’ll see health insurance companies competing, because they’ll have to to survive. Right now they’ve got the govt by the short hairs and are on easy street, while we go bankrupt over medical costs, or worse. You know how many Americans die every year because of lack of health care, or under-coverage? Look it up here and read the whole article, dammit. You need to learn something.
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» on 10.14.09 @ 06:57 PM
Thats the change we need—out with the silly tax and spend your money liberals—Blue line fools—union puppets—
Overtaxed taxpayer
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