Letters to the President: #804 'The steady march on jobs'
Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent
Reporter's Note: The latest jobs report came out late in the week and should have been at least a tiny ray of light for the president in a rather gloomy spring; much as my daily letters are. Ha!
Dear Mr. President,
You must have been happy, at least in a relative sense, to see the latest jobs report.
Although 8.8 percent unemployment is nothing to brag about, it did manage to stay under 9 percent, and that’s something. Mind you, simultaneously it seems as if people who lose their jobs are spending longer periods of time on the unemployment line, so…
Every time one of these reports appears, I watch your economic advisers on TV explaining why it’s promising news, and then I watch others come on to say maybe not so much. Frankly, I’m not always sure what to make of all their arguments. All I really know is that we’d be better off if a lot more Americans had jobs, and until that happens you’re going to have economic critics nipping at your heels.
And to be honest, I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of movement on that front anytime soon. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect I won’t be. It seems as if we still have so many deep seated issues that remain unresolved in the economy and they are undermining any progress we are trying to make; Congress keeps arguing the budget to death, state governments are barely keeping the lights on, gas costs are running up the prices at the pump and on thousands of products, and oh, btw, the housing crisis continues unabated.
I know that it’s no fun for you to hear all of this. If you had a magic lamp, I have no doubt you’d spend at least one wish on fixing all of that. (The other two wishes? Well, I guess you’d use one to bring peace to the world, and the other to get a redo on your disastrous Final Four bracket picks. Ha!)
Anyway, like I said at the top, you have some reason to be at least a little encouraged by the jobs report, or at least not further discouraged. The road back to a solid economy, as you yourself said, is a very long one. And every day that we move forward, even if only a little, is better than moving backward.
Hope your weekend is going well. Call if you can.
Regards,
Tom
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Post by: Tom Foreman Filed under: Letters to the President • Opinion • President Barack Obama |
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Jobs? What kind of jobs does this administration invest in? The #1 manufacturer of heavy earthmoving and mining equipment is given a hefty defense contract. In exchange for that, the company refuses to negotiate fairly with its employees and continues to take away their benefits and send their retirees letters explaining two ways the company can take away their pensions. It used to be that the government did NOT award defense contracts to companies who treated their employees in this manner. If the newest defense contract was given to keep good jobs in the US, think again. This company has now announced moving into China and Brazil. So, President Obama, for those of us who worked for and supported you, what does it mean when your administration talks about investing in jobs? Are there any guidelines to which a company must adhere in order to receive government support? Please tell us what that means and please stop spending our tax money on companies that announce monumental profits while stealing hard won benefits and pensions from loyal employees and their families and sending jobs out of the US.
Republicans hoped the President would fail which means you fail and Republicans have proven they are willing to take everything away from the middle class as a method of using people for their political gains. They don't want you to have a job, they want the President to fail.
10million people out of work. The only way to get these people back to work is to keep recreating the manufacturing sector. This Country was built on manufacturing. Manufacturing is the engine to all other sectors.