The body count from the tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri Sunday is still rising, but that certainly doesn't mean that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor would miss a single beat before seizing yet another opportunity to hold a gun to the head of the American people to further his own agenda. Cantor announced Monday that Congress would not approve any emergency spending to help these people unless that money is first offset by spending reductions elsewhere.
This would be understandable if Cantor were simply a hidebound deficit hawk whose main priority was doing everything in his power to reduce our debt, but that's just not the case. In the last several months alone, he and fellow Republicans fought hammer and tong to preserve budget busting tax cuts for the richest Americans and billions of dollars in corporate welfare for the largest oil corporations, even though these companies are the most profitable in the history of the world. Cantor's actions have little to do with responsible leadership on deficit reduction and a great deal to do with his allegiance to the richest and most powerful people in the country, at the expense of average Americans whom he and other conservatives fraudulently claim to care about and represent.
If there's one fixed star in the modern Republican constellation, it's the mandate to fight for the greedy over the needy at every turn and at any cost. They're far more concerned with doing everything they can to increase the dominance of the economic elite over everyone else than they are with doing anything to help the overwhelming majority of Americans in any way shape or form. Their claims of being concerned about fiscal discipline ring laughably hollow because they exercise their righteous indignation so selectively and improperly. You can't be taken seriously as a fiscal watchdog if you don't object to someone blowing a gargantuan hole in the budget with the purchase of a new limousine, but you sound a deafening alarm if his chauffeur spends $20 on a new seat cover.
In the end, no thanks to Rep. Cantor, our country did what it always does, and the people of Joplin will get the aid they so desperately need. Nevertheless, as a proud Missourian by choice though by birth, I'm offended, and I see no reason to let Mr. Cantor off the hook even a little bit. When these poor people were down, Cantor couldn't resist the opportunity to swoop in and kick them as they lay prostrate and defenseless, just because he could exploit the suffering of these middle class Americans for his own purposes.
The most shameful and odious of Congressman Cantor's actions came after the aid money was approved. He actually had the nerve to tweet, "Our hearts are w/ victims of #Joplin tragedy. House #GOP ready to help & has found offsets for emergency $$$." I say to Eric Cantor let's get something straight right now. This solution wasn't found because of your efforts as the victims' friend; it was found despite your efforts as their enemy. You used human misery as a pawn in your game and now you want to bask in the glory of what some decent and compassionate legislators did for these people. Don't you dare tell me that your heart goes out to the victims. In this context, I see no evidence that you even have a heart.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Respect Are-County Speak English
Like many of my blog entries, this one was inspired by something on my friend Joe's Facebook page. He posted a picture of a sign that reads, "Respect Are-Country Speak English." It's hard not to smile at the magnificent irony of essentially shouting, "Get outta here if yous can't talk good English." This particular image aside, I want to discuss the staunch English-only and anti-immigration crowds.
I don't really care about the sign in question. Many people pronounce "are" and "our" the same way, and even those who know how to properly use the correct word will occasionally type "your" instead of "you're" or "here" rather than "hear." This can and does happen to the best of us. Granted, that kind of careless mistake is less likely when making a protest sign, but I'll give this person the benefit of the doubt that the error is the equivalent of a typo and it doesn't necessarily impugn his or her intellect or education. Of course, I can't begin to explain the hyphen, but let's be generous here too. I'm not interested in the sign itself, but I want to discuss the sentiment it represents.
For a few reasons, I'm bothered by those who throw a fit when Spanish is spoken in this country. The arrogance of expecting the world to speak our language while not bothering to learn anyone else's is bad enough, but wearing one's ignorance as a badge of honor by somehow taking pride in the inability to speak more than one language is worse. It's like bragging, "Hey, look at me! I'm too stupid to do long division but Daddy left me enough money that I could hire people to do my math."
Even though I'm not fluent in any foreign language, I've had little trouble when traveling abroad, and I'm grateful for the consideration I've received when I'm a guest in another country. As an American, I've also benefited mightily from how low the bar has been set. Any effort to speak the native language is seen as an extraordinary gesture on my part and tends to be met with tremendous goodwill. I was talking to an Interpol officer in a Lyon Metro station and he said my French was very good even though it clearly wasn't. He wasn't being sarcastic; he was being kind and encouraging me. We should extend the same courtesy.
I understand and agree that those who want to live here permanently should learn English, but let's not be so disingenuous as to paint this debate in terms of tough love designed to help Spanish speakers assimilate. This issue is being driven by those who would pound the table and bellow, "This is my house and you'll live by my rules!" No one is being required to learn Spanish; the only issue before us is whether or not we accept the fact that millions of hard working Americans do speak that language. Considering that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory where Spanish is the native language and that it's no accident or coincidence that many of our western states have Spanish names, it seems unreasonable to bear such hostility to that language being used alongside English.
The burning desire for English-only laws and so forth stems from the same place as the anti-immigration mindset - the fear that any change will ruin the character of one's beloved homeland. This is not new. The nativist vs. newcomer battle goes back a very long way. Luckily, at every turn this country of immigrants has ultimately stayed true to its character, and we've been enriched by each successive wave of newcomers. We would not have achieved our national greatness had we listened to the small-minded to whom change is terrifying, particularly when it involves people they perceive as different from themselves.
Now that President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate, I demand to see every right-wing blowhard's earliest report card. My guess is that at least 75% of them failed Sharing in kindergarten.
I don't really care about the sign in question. Many people pronounce "are" and "our" the same way, and even those who know how to properly use the correct word will occasionally type "your" instead of "you're" or "here" rather than "hear." This can and does happen to the best of us. Granted, that kind of careless mistake is less likely when making a protest sign, but I'll give this person the benefit of the doubt that the error is the equivalent of a typo and it doesn't necessarily impugn his or her intellect or education. Of course, I can't begin to explain the hyphen, but let's be generous here too. I'm not interested in the sign itself, but I want to discuss the sentiment it represents.
For a few reasons, I'm bothered by those who throw a fit when Spanish is spoken in this country. The arrogance of expecting the world to speak our language while not bothering to learn anyone else's is bad enough, but wearing one's ignorance as a badge of honor by somehow taking pride in the inability to speak more than one language is worse. It's like bragging, "Hey, look at me! I'm too stupid to do long division but Daddy left me enough money that I could hire people to do my math."
Even though I'm not fluent in any foreign language, I've had little trouble when traveling abroad, and I'm grateful for the consideration I've received when I'm a guest in another country. As an American, I've also benefited mightily from how low the bar has been set. Any effort to speak the native language is seen as an extraordinary gesture on my part and tends to be met with tremendous goodwill. I was talking to an Interpol officer in a Lyon Metro station and he said my French was very good even though it clearly wasn't. He wasn't being sarcastic; he was being kind and encouraging me. We should extend the same courtesy.
I understand and agree that those who want to live here permanently should learn English, but let's not be so disingenuous as to paint this debate in terms of tough love designed to help Spanish speakers assimilate. This issue is being driven by those who would pound the table and bellow, "This is my house and you'll live by my rules!" No one is being required to learn Spanish; the only issue before us is whether or not we accept the fact that millions of hard working Americans do speak that language. Considering that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory where Spanish is the native language and that it's no accident or coincidence that many of our western states have Spanish names, it seems unreasonable to bear such hostility to that language being used alongside English.
The burning desire for English-only laws and so forth stems from the same place as the anti-immigration mindset - the fear that any change will ruin the character of one's beloved homeland. This is not new. The nativist vs. newcomer battle goes back a very long way. Luckily, at every turn this country of immigrants has ultimately stayed true to its character, and we've been enriched by each successive wave of newcomers. We would not have achieved our national greatness had we listened to the small-minded to whom change is terrifying, particularly when it involves people they perceive as different from themselves.
Now that President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate, I demand to see every right-wing blowhard's earliest report card. My guess is that at least 75% of them failed Sharing in kindergarten.
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Long Road Back
The April jobs report came out today and again the news was good. The economy gained 244,000 jobs last month, with the private sector gaining 268,000 jobs and the public sector shedding 24,000. This has been the trend for some time now, with private sector job growth outpacing the overall jobs number because the public sector is shrinking. Although the March and April numbers are still preliminary, we've added 768,000 jobs in the first four months of 2011 and, leaving off January, we've gained 700,000 jobs in the last three months.
Although the unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from last month's rate of 8.8%, this is less important than job growth for reasons that I won't get into here since this is already going to be wonkish enough as it is. I will say, however, that the makeup of the unemployed has shifted, with far more people unemployed for less than five weeks and far fewer unemployed for more that twenty-seven weeks. This too is welcome news.
If the good news is that we're on the road to recovery, the bad news is that it's an extremely long road. Primarily because our population grows, we need to add more jobs to the workforce just to maintain the status quo. Specifically, we need to add at least 125,000 new jobs every month or 1.5 million every year, and that's a conservative estimate. Many economists use 150,000 a month or 1.8 million new jobs a year and, frankly, this higher number is historically sound. In the 1960s when the population was smaller, we added over 17 million jobs, and in the decades of the '70s, 80s and '90s we added over 18 million jobs in each. Over the forty years from 1960 through 1999, we added an average of about 160,000 jobs a month. Nevertheless, I'll use the 125,000 number. Now, let's look at the facts and do the math.
In the Great Recession we lost millions of jobs, but the periods before it and after it were also marked by anemic job growth, and we mustn't forget the 1.5 million jobs we need to add annually just to keep up. In the last 11 years, from May 2000 through April 2011, we should have added 16.5 million jobs, but over that period we actually lost 632,000 jobs, leaving us with a shortfall of more than 17.1 million jobs that we need to make up, over and above the 1.5 million per year we need to add going forward if we want to get back to where we were 11 years ago when Clinton was president.
If we add 225,000 jobs every month, that would mean 2.7 million a year. The only president to exceed that over his entire presidency was Bill Clinton, although, believe it or not, Jimmy Carter was closest with a rate of over 2.6 million for his whole presidency. I know Sean Hannity likes to say that we lost 10 million jobs under Carter, but once again he's wrong and we gained over 10 million jobs under Carter. LBJ also added well over 2 million jobs a year and Ronald Reagan, although falling short of 2 million a year for his entire tenure, did manage to do so for one of his two terms.
In any event, even if we can add jobs at a rate of 2.7 million a year over a sustained period of time, when you consider that 1.5 million of that is just to tread water, it won't be until September 2025 that we can get back to where things were in May 2000. That's a 25+ year long national nightmare. We need to focus on job creation or we'll condemn an entire generation of Americans to the eroded peace of mind that attends our woeful employment picture. I'm begging everyone to keep their eyes on the ball and ignore those who would use wedge issues to divide us and render us unable to solve our real problems.
Although the unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from last month's rate of 8.8%, this is less important than job growth for reasons that I won't get into here since this is already going to be wonkish enough as it is. I will say, however, that the makeup of the unemployed has shifted, with far more people unemployed for less than five weeks and far fewer unemployed for more that twenty-seven weeks. This too is welcome news.
If the good news is that we're on the road to recovery, the bad news is that it's an extremely long road. Primarily because our population grows, we need to add more jobs to the workforce just to maintain the status quo. Specifically, we need to add at least 125,000 new jobs every month or 1.5 million every year, and that's a conservative estimate. Many economists use 150,000 a month or 1.8 million new jobs a year and, frankly, this higher number is historically sound. In the 1960s when the population was smaller, we added over 17 million jobs, and in the decades of the '70s, 80s and '90s we added over 18 million jobs in each. Over the forty years from 1960 through 1999, we added an average of about 160,000 jobs a month. Nevertheless, I'll use the 125,000 number. Now, let's look at the facts and do the math.
In the Great Recession we lost millions of jobs, but the periods before it and after it were also marked by anemic job growth, and we mustn't forget the 1.5 million jobs we need to add annually just to keep up. In the last 11 years, from May 2000 through April 2011, we should have added 16.5 million jobs, but over that period we actually lost 632,000 jobs, leaving us with a shortfall of more than 17.1 million jobs that we need to make up, over and above the 1.5 million per year we need to add going forward if we want to get back to where we were 11 years ago when Clinton was president.
If we add 225,000 jobs every month, that would mean 2.7 million a year. The only president to exceed that over his entire presidency was Bill Clinton, although, believe it or not, Jimmy Carter was closest with a rate of over 2.6 million for his whole presidency. I know Sean Hannity likes to say that we lost 10 million jobs under Carter, but once again he's wrong and we gained over 10 million jobs under Carter. LBJ also added well over 2 million jobs a year and Ronald Reagan, although falling short of 2 million a year for his entire tenure, did manage to do so for one of his two terms.
In any event, even if we can add jobs at a rate of 2.7 million a year over a sustained period of time, when you consider that 1.5 million of that is just to tread water, it won't be until September 2025 that we can get back to where things were in May 2000. That's a 25+ year long national nightmare. We need to focus on job creation or we'll condemn an entire generation of Americans to the eroded peace of mind that attends our woeful employment picture. I'm begging everyone to keep their eyes on the ball and ignore those who would use wedge issues to divide us and render us unable to solve our real problems.
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