Government Needs To Govern

Every Thursday, CNBC stands on ceremony to reveal the Department of Labor’s exciting weekly unemployment report.  If you have witnessed the spectacle once, say a year ago, and you listened to today’s ceremony, you would not see, hear or feel much difference.  After all, baloney is baloney. 

The Labor Department, the Obama Administration, the Congress and the media go through the motions, but none of these groups possess the strength of character, the moral integrity or the conviction to do the right thing and address unemployment from top to bottom until it is fixed.   

For one thing, the politicians are too busy making news and shaping a statistically attractive re-election profile to work on anything constructive, like employment reform.  It is easier and safer to point fingers than sit down and work on solving the country’s biggest problem. 

Even the eloquent and hopeful tones of President Barrack Obama have worn thin under the weight of 14.6 million unemployed workers. The President has become another media puppet, playing Main Street at every chance he gets to repeat his fading chorus for change, which is now spelled F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N.

If you did not have a job; if you were not sure your job would be there come Monday; if you had one or more persons counting on that job, you would find the Thursday media feeding, the President and the Congress of the United States obnoxious, insensitive and arrogant.

Realistically, how could the weekly jobs report improve? 

The government cannot afford the employees it has, especially the ones in the high places.  Businesses are afraid to spend money because they understand that next time, there will be no bailouts and because there are so many costly legislative acts on the table that nobody knows what a new employee might really cost.  Besides, many businesses are profiting better than ever by trimming payrolls.  New entrepreneurs have no access to credit and, at this time, investors are not prone to risk.

The people we have elected to solve these problems appear little more than a disjointed three-ring circus.  The Congress cannot agree with the Senate.  Nobody agrees with the President.  All three circus rings lack leadership. 

The audience sees plenty of smokescreens but no solutions. What this country needs is not Republican or Democratic theater.  We do not need smokescreens.  We need people to sit down at a table in a room filled with accurate statistics and come up with very real solutions. 

That is how this country was born.  It is time to do it again!

Remember, someday our children will be returning from war.  When they come home, they will be jobless.  Is that how we shall treat our veterans?

Facts are Facts 

14.6 million Americans are unemployed.

  • Initial claims for state unemployment fell to 457,000 last week.
  • Figures for the previous week were revised upwards so that 468,000 applied for benefits.
  • Applications for new benefits fell by 11,000 last week.
  • The four-week average decreased to 452,000, down 4,500 from the previous four-week average.
  • In the week ending July 17, 4.57 million people were receiving benefits after an initial week of aid; an increase of 81,000 over the previous week.
  • On July 22, President Obama signed legislation restoring benefits to recipients whose benefits expired June 2. 
  • The legislation extended unemployment to insurance to 99 weeks.
  • In a report from the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, local governments are projected to trim 500,000 workers by the end of 2011.

The Temporary Assistance For Needy Families

The Temporary Assistance For Need Families program was created in 1996 as a part of welfare reform legislation.  The theory was that it was better for the government to issue money to states so that states could put people back to work rather than simply subsidize unemployed workers.

Through this program, states are now applying for and receiving funds to put workers back to work.  The program smacks of the Great Depression but there are new twists that actually make sense.  The government is paying wages for workers who go to work for small businesses.

The New York Times identified a former computer technician who had lost his job.  Through the Put Illinois to Work Program, the out-of-work computer technician now earns $10.00 an hour to work in an art gallery. 

These federal job subsidies were originally financed with $5 billion of stimulus money.  One of the problems confronting long-term unemployed is that the longer workers are away from work, the less qualified they are to return to work. 

Programs like Put Illinois to Work are not only putting workers on the front line but they are helping small businesses as well.  Of course, the fear is that small business will never start hiring their own workers as long as there are government-subsidized workers available.

A research organization entitled the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities reports that 247,000 subsidized workers will be on the job by the end of September.  Typically, the jobs pay between $8.00 and $15.00 and cover blue and white-collar jobs.

A little more than $1 billion has been approved to create subsidized programs in 36 states and the District of Columbia.  Illinois operates the biggest year round program.  Most of the states pay the full wages up to a certain point.  Workers must come from a low-income household with minor children or be under 21 years of age themselves.

States and businesses alike are pushing to extend the program beyond the September cutoff.  The program accomplishes many goals but has also created some complications. If the business where subsidized workers are employed slows down, employers are laying off long-time employees to keep the subsidized workers. 

These details can be resolved.  The point is that someone came up with a plan to help people get back to work.  While it is true that there are Americans who do not really want to work, the fact is that work is part of our culture and part of our individual composition.  Being unemployed for a length of time is a strenuous, negative and expensive experience.

It is time for Washington to step up to the plate or go home and do not come back.  This is why Congressmen and Senators were hired and why their successors will be hired.  Stop pointing fingers and get to work.

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July 29th, 2010 in Forex News

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