Suddenly, Obama Addresses Unemployment Concerns

 

 Excuse me if I’m not overcome with joy about President Obama’s trip to Cleveland on Wednesday, where he’ll be speaking  just 3.7 miles away from where I’m writing this.

And pardon me if I’m not overly impressed with the president finally beginning to roll up his sleeves as he did on Labor Day in Milwaukee to say after 21 months in office, his popularity sagging, and his party in danger of losing both houses in Congress two months from now-that he’s finally serious about the economy and the plight of the unemployed.

Thanks for finally waking up to smell the coffee Mr. Obama; we thought you would never get here.

Mr. Obama rolled out his plan for an infusion of $50 billion into the nation’s transportation infrastructure on Labor Day. On Wednesday, he will speak at a community college in a western suburb of Cleveland to announce a $200 billion tax cut, which will allow businesses to write off new investments in plants and equipment from now through the end of 2011.

That’s the good news. The bad news is this proposal will need the approval of a divided Congress, which isn’t likely to vote on this until after the mid-term election during a lame-duck Congress.

Worse still, at least to read economist Robert Reich’s latest blog post, `Obama’s proposed corporate tax cuts won’t generate more jobs because they don’t put any cash in worker’s pockets.’’

So why is the president proposing it? Political football, of course, at least according to Professor Reich’s reasoning. Bill Clinton’s former labor secretary thinks the corporate tax cuts are being used only to embarrass the Republicans by co-opting one of their ideas. If the Republicans oppose it, the White House labels the GOP obstructionists, if it passes; Obama takes ownership of another legislative victory.

A brilliant strategy, but how will this help the 15 million Americans who spent Labor Day without a job?

Mr. Obama devoted eight months of his young administration to health care so that he could claim that he had climbed to the top of the mountain that no one has reached before. Not FDR, not Truman, not LBJ, and certainly not Bill Clinton. It was a historic achievement, expanding health care to 32 million Americans. But at what cost?

After the initial stimulus, which many economists like Paul Krugman thought too puny and not nearly enough to get the job done; why did the Obama administration forget about the economy, forget about the alarming unemployment figures, while he was busy carving out his place in history as the first president to push through near universal health care coverage?

Shouldn’t the thrust of the first eight months have been to get Americans back to work again? Or did the White House forget the unemployed still know how to vote?  Was Obama so obsessed with cementing his place in history, that he forgot those who voted him into office in the first place?

Did the president forget the people like me; an ``Obamacan’’, a registered Republican who voted for Obama in 2008, having been swept away by the idea of how he would change the culture of Washington, making it more open, more transparent and tend to the concerns of Main Street.

What follows are the words Mr. Obama, the candidate, expressed on September 26, 2008 during a presidential debate at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. about the financial crisis.

``And although we've heard a lot about Wall Street, those of you on Main Street I think have been struggling for a while, and you recognize that this could have an impact on all sectors of the economy.

And you're wondering, how's it going to affect me? How's it going to affect my job? How's it going to affect my house? How's it going to affect my retirement savings or my ability to send my children to college?

So we have to move swiftly, and we have to move wisely. And I've put forward a series of proposals that make sure that we protect taxpayers as we engage in this important rescue effort.’’

I’ve been duped before, so it should come as no surprise to me that I’ve been duped again by another candidate with more empty words and broken promises.

Two years into his administration, Obama’s campaign promise of ``Yes We Can!’’ has turned into ``No You Didn’t’’, at least for the unemployed like me, still without a job and still waiting for Obama to move ``swiftly and wisely’’ to patch up the economy.

I’m now a member of the 1.4 million ``99ers’’ you’ve read so much about,  who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment, and still haven’t been able to land a job. I’ve already ripped through my 401 (k) (such as it was). I can’t find a job at Wal-Mart, or my local grocery store; and most  job ads on Craigslist turn out to be  nothing but scams, asking for money  before I can apply for a job.

It was in July, 2008 when I was laid-off; when a executive editor of a newspaper had a security guard escort me out of the building like I was a piece of garbage. I still have nightmares about the last day; I still wake up in the middle of the night in a tizzy, having dreamt about my last day at work or having dreamt of my department head or just having a bizarre dream. Like clockwork, these nightmares usually strike around 3:30 a.m. I wake up in fit of anger, and then walk to the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal.

Do I feel like a complete failure? Yes.  Have I lost all hope I’ll ever find a job again? Yes. Although I still recite special prayers to St Anthony and St Jude before going to bed, just in case miracles do exist.

My predicament is further compounded by a state of guilt, knowing that by all rights, I should be living in a homeless shelter (like so many others) instead of living with a family member.

But even family members, though trying to be encouraging and supportive (bless their hearts) are beginning to shoot me some peculiar gazes, as if I enjoy being out of work.  Which is why I avoid family gatherings like the plague? No one likes feeling like a complete failure in front of their families eyes.

It’s bad enough being greeted with a steady diet of rejection notices, with the same monotonous replies: ``Not hiring at this time’’, ``Will keep you in mind’’, ``Best of luck with your job search’’; but now I’m getting return messages with a tone that suggests I’ve become a pest.  For example, I emailed a newspaper executive recently and asked if he might be able to give me some advice whether my blog profile  was professional enough. The executive returned my email with a message ``Sorry. Can’t help.’’ I felt like I just had a door slammed in my face.

So not only can’t I find a job, but now I can’t seem to even get any professional advice. I guess that’s when you know you’ve become a burden to society and to newspaper executives.

It’s especially hard to keep upbeat when you hear one economist after another predict that we should expect the gloomy unemployment picture to stay about the same for another three to four years with unemployment peaking at 10.1 percent in 2011. And unlike the recession of 1981-1982, this recession is structural, not cyclical meaning many jobs aren’t coming back, such as for news researchers in the newspaper industry. Most news organizations have closed their research departments with instructions to the reporting staff (those still with jobs) to do their own research. Since 2007, there have been 13,500 job losses at U.S. daily newspapers, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

So people like me are pretty much toast: too old to get hired; and too young to retire. Everyone tells me I need to reinvent myself, but I’m not Harry Houdini; I’m not sure what that means.

All I need to do is find out how to stop the world so I can get off.

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on President Obama. He has, after all, spearheaded some significant achievements besides health care. He bailed out the auto industry, which saved thousands of jobs; he pushed through badly needed financial regulatory reform, he drew down the war in Iraq like he promised; and hopes are high that Secretary of State Clinton will broker a Middle East agreement in the coming months ahead.

It’s a shame that it took the fear of Mr. Obama losing his job-before he started getting serious about others who have lost theirs.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]

Comments

[Richard Karpel]

Bill, just read your "Suddenly, Obama" post. Not sure if I agree with your assessment of Obama's performance on the economy, but I found the section about your own unemployment to be quite moving. There but for the grace of God ...

Hang in there.