Principle Meets Unemployment
As you read this article at least 40 people will lose their job. 40 people like you and me are having the conversation with their wife or husband. The spouse probably knew it already by the look in their spouse’s eyes. After the conversation come the questions. After the questions, mom or dad has to explain to a son or daughter why they won’t be able to live in their house anymore and why they won’t be able to go to the same school anymore. As you read this article at least 45 people will be so disillusioned they will decide to put down the highlighter and not to open the want ads. They will have run out of energy to look for a job. They have already given up on staying in their house. They looked at the costs of COBRA and decided the only option was to try not to be sick. Yesterday, these people were just like you and me. They weren’t lazy. Some were the best worker on the line. Many were accountants, engineers and plumbers who were only a few years from retirement. But, a minute ago, that all changed for ten of them.
The ten who will lose their job as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Republican. Representative John Boehner (R-OH) is their leader. Today on Meet The Press he summed up his answer to those ten people who lost their job.
He seems to sound like the jobs of those ten people will just be a sacrifice on the alter free markets and conservative politics. Then Boehner goes on to throw the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb on his website by telling people the stimulus package will fund contraceptives and abortion. Those ten people who voted for him may literally lose their house while he horse trades on “principle”. Those unemployed Republicans might save their house by finding a job in a rubber factory. Can’t he just walk down the hall and ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get that stuff out of the bill? Maybe, Boehner’s goal is to get the stimulus package he wants or just kill the bill altogether.
The ten people who lose their jobs as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Democrat. Their leader is of course President Obama. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) however was responsible for the abortion and contraception loopholes. She told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week that she had, “No apologies,” for putting those controversial loopholes in the bill. What the ten people who will lose their jobs while you read this paragraph need is a job. They could care less about controversial add-ons to a bill.
As you read this concluding paragraph, the rest of the forty people will lose their job. While the United States House of Representatives is interested in something else, their constituents are losing a job every four seconds. There is really no question among both conservative and liberal economist. They tell us a stimulus package is our last resort. Republican leaders seem to secretly think a stimulus package is not really needed. I wonder how many jobs lost per second would constitute a need for stimulus for Republicans. House Democratic leaders seem intent on sabotaging the legislation because they can. I wonder when Pelosi will actually be the bipartisan her President wants her to be.