By Bruce Bialosky
Monday, June 06, 2011
I’ve been active in national politics since Ronald Reagan’s great victory in 1980, and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen the TV pundits display the level of insanity and stupidity that we see today. Regrettably, this sentiment applies to the press on both sides of the political aisle.
Four years ago, everyone was complaining about the ridiculous length of the Presidential campaigns, each of which seemed to start the morning after the 2006 mid-term elections. The media – with justification – was comparing it to the far shorter campaigns seen in other major democracies. By the time October 2008 rolled around, even a political junkie was praying for the finale of this seemingly unending ordeal. “Dear God,” I muttered every morning, “please bring this endless election to a merciful culmination.“
This time, the principal candidates rationally decided to shorten their campaigns, but they can’t win for losing. Ignoring their own complaints in 2007, the pundits relentlessly speculated about the delays and questioned the conviction of the candidates. Fox News, quoting “Republican sources,” reported that Mitt Romney was debating when he would announce his candidacy. This was right after Romney held a series of well-publicized meetings with potential fundraisers in which he presented a schedule of his activities leading up to his formal entry into the campaign. I posted a comment on Bret Baier’s Facebook page telling him he needs some new “Republican sources,” because the ones being used are way out of touch.
Then there is the insanity centered on which Republicans are running. Sure, I’d love to see Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio or Chris Christie in the race, but all three have said that they won’t be running this time. One of them should be the Vice-Presidential nominee which will definitely electrify the base.
There are at least three candidates – Governors Pawlenty, Huntsman, and Romney – who can win. America may not know who they are now, but they certainly will by next March. By early June, 2012 the nominee will have sufficient name-recognition and stature to take on an incumbent President. As long as none of the aforementioned went to the Schwarzenegger School of Family Relations, each has an excellent shot at defeating Obama on November 6, 2012.
The Democratic pundits have started to argue that none of these potential Republicans candidates has foreign relations experience. It’s not as if the Senator from Illinois had any in 2008, unless you consider his time in Indonesia as a toddler. In addition, I think it’s fair to say that Obama hasn’t really done such a boffo job – after all, the world is in a chaotic state and he hasn’t done a thing to solve any of the problems. Other than killing Bin Laden -- while admirable -- he has absolutely no other foreign policy accomplishments. There isn’t a single foreign leader with whom he has developed a strong relationship. He is too aloof and impersonal, and all of them know that Obama never met a promise that he couldn’t break.
There is the one issue that really counts – the economy – and Obama has a record that only Jimmy Carter would envy. Here are the salient points:
1) The housing market is and will continue to be in shambles. Obama’s policies have done nothing to solve the problem, and most analysts feel that they’ve only made it worse.
2) Employment is stagnant and his policies have done nothing other than discourage job-creation. No one believes that the unemployment rate will be below 8%, and that on its own could be deadly.
3) Most people are very concerned about the ridiculous budget deficits, and almost everyone understands that they are unsustainable. In fact, everyone gets it except for Obama and his cohorts in Congress. Even if the Republicans force spending cuts down his throat, the deficit will still be over a trillion dollars.
4) The continuing deficit, along with a reckless fiscal policy, has caused the resurgence of inflation. Rapidly-rising gas and food prices are eating up the average paycheck for those who still have a job. There is no remedy in sight, even as this President keeps spending at unaffordable levels and prints fake money to pay for it.
5) The Youth Vote will continue to stray from Obama as two more years of college and high school graduates enter a bleak jobs market. They may have thought he was cool in 2008, but money talks and some had higher aspirations than being baristas.
Finally, the Republican candidate will have to compete against a President who, according to the pundits, will have a billion dollars to spend on his reelection. Let’s see him raise it. Frankly, I don’t believe he can. I keep on reading about industries that have pulled away from Obama. Four years ago, he was (to many people) a ray of hope, but now he has his dismal track record to defend. Wall Street donated profusely to Obama in 2008, but they have been blind-sided by him and are pulling back. Jews have repeatedly been slapped in the face, and, even though some clueless liberals will help him raise money, that pipeline is going to be significantly diminished. His only hope to raise a billion dollars is if George Soros and Peter Lewis (Progressive Insurance) write him very, very large checks.
I am a betting man and I am betting that virtually any Republican – except a loon like Ron Paul – can send Obama back to Chicago in November 2012. America will have endured four years of this disastrous experiment, and we will have a new President.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Tennessee Trumps Wisconsin: Kills Teacher Collective Bargaining
By Kyle Olson
Monday, June 06, 2011
To fix public schools, you have to control public schools.
And there’s little control when teachers unions, with their self-serving agendas, question every cost-cutting proposal and reform on the table.
That’s why so many state governments have taken swift action to limit the power of organized labor in public schools. Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Idaho and Michigan were the first, and Tennessee added itself to the list on Wednesday.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam affixed his signature on House Bill 130 and Senate Bill 113, ending collective bargaining and giving local school boards the full authority to operate their districts in the manner they choose.
That doesn't mean the unions are shut out of the discussion. The new laws create a process called “collaborative conferencing,” where the school board, administrators and union officials will be forced to sit and discuss many of the normal issues, including salary, insurance, grievance procedures and working conditions.
If the two sides agree on any number of issues, they can sign binding “memorandums of understanding,” that will serve the same purpose as collective bargaining agreements. But any issues that are left unsettled will be the sole domain of the school board, with no appellate procedure available to the unions.
School boards will also have the option of not entering into any sort of agreement with the union. In that case they would have full authority to deal with all issues in an arbitrary manner.
Nobody elected the unions
Tennessee lawmakers were careful to leave a few key items off the discussion table, including personnel and staffing decisions, how to use grant money, the evaluation process for employees and whether or not payroll deductions can be made for political purposes.
That means the end of the road for the treasured union concept of seniority, particularly when it’s applied at layoff time.
Basically, lawmakers allowed the unions to keep their bark, but wisely took away their bite. And if school boards get tired of the barking, they will be allowed to close the windows, pull the shutters and go about their business.
Democrats in the legislature, outnumbered in both chambers, have been fuming about the legislation.
“This bill does nothing except take away every part of professional negotiation, every single part,” House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh told knoxnews.com. “Don’t be fooled.”
Actually, we’re not fooled at all. And we kind of like the unique process created by collaborative conferencing.
There are certainly thousands of great teachers in Tennessee, and they’re the soldiers on the front lines. School boards would be stupid to ignore their input when making major decisions.
On the other hand, it was necessary to take away veto power from the teachers unions, due to their stubborn opposition to money-saving contract concessions and education reform efforts.
School boards are elected by the public to run public schools. Nobody elected the unions.
Monday, June 06, 2011
To fix public schools, you have to control public schools.
And there’s little control when teachers unions, with their self-serving agendas, question every cost-cutting proposal and reform on the table.
That’s why so many state governments have taken swift action to limit the power of organized labor in public schools. Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Idaho and Michigan were the first, and Tennessee added itself to the list on Wednesday.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam affixed his signature on House Bill 130 and Senate Bill 113, ending collective bargaining and giving local school boards the full authority to operate their districts in the manner they choose.
That doesn't mean the unions are shut out of the discussion. The new laws create a process called “collaborative conferencing,” where the school board, administrators and union officials will be forced to sit and discuss many of the normal issues, including salary, insurance, grievance procedures and working conditions.
If the two sides agree on any number of issues, they can sign binding “memorandums of understanding,” that will serve the same purpose as collective bargaining agreements. But any issues that are left unsettled will be the sole domain of the school board, with no appellate procedure available to the unions.
School boards will also have the option of not entering into any sort of agreement with the union. In that case they would have full authority to deal with all issues in an arbitrary manner.
Nobody elected the unions
Tennessee lawmakers were careful to leave a few key items off the discussion table, including personnel and staffing decisions, how to use grant money, the evaluation process for employees and whether or not payroll deductions can be made for political purposes.
That means the end of the road for the treasured union concept of seniority, particularly when it’s applied at layoff time.
Basically, lawmakers allowed the unions to keep their bark, but wisely took away their bite. And if school boards get tired of the barking, they will be allowed to close the windows, pull the shutters and go about their business.
Democrats in the legislature, outnumbered in both chambers, have been fuming about the legislation.
“This bill does nothing except take away every part of professional negotiation, every single part,” House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh told knoxnews.com. “Don’t be fooled.”
Actually, we’re not fooled at all. And we kind of like the unique process created by collaborative conferencing.
There are certainly thousands of great teachers in Tennessee, and they’re the soldiers on the front lines. School boards would be stupid to ignore their input when making major decisions.
On the other hand, it was necessary to take away veto power from the teachers unions, due to their stubborn opposition to money-saving contract concessions and education reform efforts.
School boards are elected by the public to run public schools. Nobody elected the unions.
Palin the Undefeated
A new documentary film illuminates her achievements, and possibly her future.
Jim Geraghty
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The Undefeated is the story of Sarah Palin’s life in politics, refracted through the prism of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey.”
The documentary film’s closing image is Palin at an April 17 Tea Party rally in Wisconsin, declaring, “President Obama, game on!” The film is tentatively scheduled to have its first releases in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, all key primary states. Obviously, a Palin presidential campaign is official only when word comes from Palin herself. But this stirring, surprisingly artistic, and narrative-driven film will seem strangely incomplete without one.
Shortly after the 2010 midterms, Rebecca Mansour and Tim Crawford of SarahPAC approached Stephen Bannon, creator of the documentary Fire in the Heartland, about doing a 30-minute short about Palin. He replied that the proposed concept and format didn’t interest him, but that he did have his own vision for a full-length documentary film, one he was willing to finance himself. His only request for Palin’s PAC was help in getting access to some key figures from the early days of her career in Alaska. Palin herself had no editorial control of the film, and in fact first watched a cut only two weeks ago. Last week, on Greta Van Susteren’s show, Palin declared she was “blown away” by the film.
Before the screening, Bannon mentioned that I and other political reporters were about to watch the “X-rated version,” as opposed to a “XXX-rated version” that he envisions being released on DVD someday. Within the first four minutes, the reason for that cryptic remark was clear, and the X rating is well deserved: The worst sneers, insults, and furious denunciations from Palin’s enemies are presented in their original language, sans any bleeps. (A version in theaters is likely to bleep out the worst ones.) The F word and the C word make multiple appearances. What’s remarkable is that the acidic comments from comedians such as David Letterman, Joan Rivers, Rosie O’Donnell, and Tracey Morgan aren’t really jokes. There’s no punch line per se; calling Palin “slutty” or a “whore,” or offering some other (usually sexual) insult, apparently is supposed to be the punch line.
“I believe you have to grab the audience in the beginning,” Bannon says. Perhaps he’s understated his grab.
The Undefeated skips through most of Palin’s early life with a series of family photos and home movies. Using Palin’s voice from the audiobook version of Going Rogue, Bannon begins his narrative with the Exxon Valdez disaster, and we note that in the late 1980s, Palin was a mom-to-be working on her husband’s commercial-fishing vessel, witnessing the carnage of unemployment, foreclosures, alcoholism, divorces, and suicides unleashed by the catastrophe and its aftermath. It is as difficult to picture young Palin as a future national political leader as to imagine an awkward, biracial teen in Punahou School in Honolulu the late 1970s winning the presidency.
By far, the most eye-opening part of the film — and no doubt, most useful to the presidential hopes of Palin — is the second act, detailing Palin’s time as Alaska’s governor. Oil companies are the relentless villain of Alaskan politics; in retrospect it seems bizarre that the woman most hated by modern liberals spent so much of her career fighting tooth and nail with oil-company executives. During this whole stretch, there isn’t a partisan note. Alaskan politics is painted as a rigged game benefiting the politically powerful and influential with the citizenry getting the short end of the stick, time and again — until Palin appears on the scene.
“I’ve had people tell me it’s too long, you’ve got to shorten it and dumb it down, but I believe that if you expect more of your audience, they’ll rise to the material,” Bannon says. “It’s like a Harvard Business School case study. I would put her accomplishments in those most important 18 months up against the most productive 18 months of any other governor of the 20th century or 21st century. And even though I never mention it in the film, in the middle of all that, she had a baby.”
Bannon’s style is characterized by rapid editing; he notes that the film includes three times as many images and cuts as would a comparable PBS documentary. His illustrative choices are comical (while an Alaskan official discusses intense legal fights with the oil companies, we see two men in suits, one concealing a knife behind his back, the other a gun), vivid (war footage), and sometimes unnerving (when talking about how the Left sought to drive Palin out of public life, we see sand being shoveled on a corpse).
Before the screening, Bannon had jokingly called the film “a John Ford Western about Sarah Palin.” Asked about the comparison afterward, he cringed and emphasized that he didn’t want to compare himself to the legendary director. But he did acknowledge that “in John Ford’s movies, Monument Valley is playing West Texas. In this film, Alaska is a character.” He emphasizes the unique culture of the state with a combination of historical footage, sweeping helicopter shots cruising through breathtaking vistas, and a lengthy focus on how living in the dramatic environment shapes Alaska’s people.
Once the film catches up to where most of America met Palin — when she joined John McCain on the campaign trail — it loses a bit of its narrative punch. For those who have followed the news, the story of the convention speech, the dramatic surge her selection provided to the McCain campaign, and the financial meltdown are familiar territory. Palin’s decision to resign is given a better explanation and justification here than in her actual resignation speech.
Tammy Bruce, Mark Levin, and Andrew Breitbart are featured heavily in this section, and with no disrespect intended to any of them, Palin’s story is more powerfully told through the voices of Alaskans obscure to most Americans than through the semi-familiar voices of conservative pundits. This is not to say this section doesn’t pack its punches, one of which is a particularly impassioned prosecutorial indictment of the Republican party establishment. (Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, along with House leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor, might want to step out for popcorn at this point.) Breitbart in particular gets a memorable denunciation of “eunuchs” on the cultural right in Washington and New York City. There’s some extraneous commentary, but Levin does astutely note that the Palin campaign rallies in autumn 2008 can easily be seen as embryonic Tea Party rallies, and the film ably contends that Palin’s values and approach to governing experienced a vivid national vindication in the historic Republican wins in the 2010 midterms. This appears to be why Bannon picked the title The Undefeated, already being mocked by the familiar chorus. One of the last comments from Breitbart is, “Thank God Sarah Palin refused to accept the premise of her own destruction.”
Bannon notes that the film implicitly contrasts two images of Palin: First her convention debut, on a bright stage, in perfectly polished form (her choice to dress in off-white looks almost symbolic in retrospect), and then her appearance on a rainy, gray day in Wisconsin in spring 2011, politically bruised but unyielding, much farther along in her life’s journey and much more tested by hardships, setbacks, and the difficult climb confronted by any great protagonist. Add one more countenance to The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Jim Geraghty
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The Undefeated is the story of Sarah Palin’s life in politics, refracted through the prism of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey.”
The documentary film’s closing image is Palin at an April 17 Tea Party rally in Wisconsin, declaring, “President Obama, game on!” The film is tentatively scheduled to have its first releases in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, all key primary states. Obviously, a Palin presidential campaign is official only when word comes from Palin herself. But this stirring, surprisingly artistic, and narrative-driven film will seem strangely incomplete without one.
Shortly after the 2010 midterms, Rebecca Mansour and Tim Crawford of SarahPAC approached Stephen Bannon, creator of the documentary Fire in the Heartland, about doing a 30-minute short about Palin. He replied that the proposed concept and format didn’t interest him, but that he did have his own vision for a full-length documentary film, one he was willing to finance himself. His only request for Palin’s PAC was help in getting access to some key figures from the early days of her career in Alaska. Palin herself had no editorial control of the film, and in fact first watched a cut only two weeks ago. Last week, on Greta Van Susteren’s show, Palin declared she was “blown away” by the film.
Before the screening, Bannon mentioned that I and other political reporters were about to watch the “X-rated version,” as opposed to a “XXX-rated version” that he envisions being released on DVD someday. Within the first four minutes, the reason for that cryptic remark was clear, and the X rating is well deserved: The worst sneers, insults, and furious denunciations from Palin’s enemies are presented in their original language, sans any bleeps. (A version in theaters is likely to bleep out the worst ones.) The F word and the C word make multiple appearances. What’s remarkable is that the acidic comments from comedians such as David Letterman, Joan Rivers, Rosie O’Donnell, and Tracey Morgan aren’t really jokes. There’s no punch line per se; calling Palin “slutty” or a “whore,” or offering some other (usually sexual) insult, apparently is supposed to be the punch line.
“I believe you have to grab the audience in the beginning,” Bannon says. Perhaps he’s understated his grab.
The Undefeated skips through most of Palin’s early life with a series of family photos and home movies. Using Palin’s voice from the audiobook version of Going Rogue, Bannon begins his narrative with the Exxon Valdez disaster, and we note that in the late 1980s, Palin was a mom-to-be working on her husband’s commercial-fishing vessel, witnessing the carnage of unemployment, foreclosures, alcoholism, divorces, and suicides unleashed by the catastrophe and its aftermath. It is as difficult to picture young Palin as a future national political leader as to imagine an awkward, biracial teen in Punahou School in Honolulu the late 1970s winning the presidency.
By far, the most eye-opening part of the film — and no doubt, most useful to the presidential hopes of Palin — is the second act, detailing Palin’s time as Alaska’s governor. Oil companies are the relentless villain of Alaskan politics; in retrospect it seems bizarre that the woman most hated by modern liberals spent so much of her career fighting tooth and nail with oil-company executives. During this whole stretch, there isn’t a partisan note. Alaskan politics is painted as a rigged game benefiting the politically powerful and influential with the citizenry getting the short end of the stick, time and again — until Palin appears on the scene.
“I’ve had people tell me it’s too long, you’ve got to shorten it and dumb it down, but I believe that if you expect more of your audience, they’ll rise to the material,” Bannon says. “It’s like a Harvard Business School case study. I would put her accomplishments in those most important 18 months up against the most productive 18 months of any other governor of the 20th century or 21st century. And even though I never mention it in the film, in the middle of all that, she had a baby.”
Bannon’s style is characterized by rapid editing; he notes that the film includes three times as many images and cuts as would a comparable PBS documentary. His illustrative choices are comical (while an Alaskan official discusses intense legal fights with the oil companies, we see two men in suits, one concealing a knife behind his back, the other a gun), vivid (war footage), and sometimes unnerving (when talking about how the Left sought to drive Palin out of public life, we see sand being shoveled on a corpse).
Before the screening, Bannon had jokingly called the film “a John Ford Western about Sarah Palin.” Asked about the comparison afterward, he cringed and emphasized that he didn’t want to compare himself to the legendary director. But he did acknowledge that “in John Ford’s movies, Monument Valley is playing West Texas. In this film, Alaska is a character.” He emphasizes the unique culture of the state with a combination of historical footage, sweeping helicopter shots cruising through breathtaking vistas, and a lengthy focus on how living in the dramatic environment shapes Alaska’s people.
Once the film catches up to where most of America met Palin — when she joined John McCain on the campaign trail — it loses a bit of its narrative punch. For those who have followed the news, the story of the convention speech, the dramatic surge her selection provided to the McCain campaign, and the financial meltdown are familiar territory. Palin’s decision to resign is given a better explanation and justification here than in her actual resignation speech.
Tammy Bruce, Mark Levin, and Andrew Breitbart are featured heavily in this section, and with no disrespect intended to any of them, Palin’s story is more powerfully told through the voices of Alaskans obscure to most Americans than through the semi-familiar voices of conservative pundits. This is not to say this section doesn’t pack its punches, one of which is a particularly impassioned prosecutorial indictment of the Republican party establishment. (Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, along with House leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor, might want to step out for popcorn at this point.) Breitbart in particular gets a memorable denunciation of “eunuchs” on the cultural right in Washington and New York City. There’s some extraneous commentary, but Levin does astutely note that the Palin campaign rallies in autumn 2008 can easily be seen as embryonic Tea Party rallies, and the film ably contends that Palin’s values and approach to governing experienced a vivid national vindication in the historic Republican wins in the 2010 midterms. This appears to be why Bannon picked the title The Undefeated, already being mocked by the familiar chorus. One of the last comments from Breitbart is, “Thank God Sarah Palin refused to accept the premise of her own destruction.”
Bannon notes that the film implicitly contrasts two images of Palin: First her convention debut, on a bright stage, in perfectly polished form (her choice to dress in off-white looks almost symbolic in retrospect), and then her appearance on a rainy, gray day in Wisconsin in spring 2011, politically bruised but unyielding, much farther along in her life’s journey and much more tested by hardships, setbacks, and the difficult climb confronted by any great protagonist. Add one more countenance to The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
America's Long Slide from 9/11 to Crown Beach
By Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, June 05, 2011
On Sept. 11, 2001, when two planes plunged into the World Trade Center, Americans watched in awe as New York firefighters, police and paramedics rushed to the scene at risk to their own lives. Some 343 firefighters and paramedics and 60 police officers paid the ultimate price in their desperate rush to save other lives.
On Memorial Day at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach in California, police officers and firefighters stood by as Raymond Zack, 53, stood in the water, apparently intent on suicide, until he drowned. They would not go into the water after him, they explained, because a 2009 department policy prohibited water rescues in this island community. An unidentified woman finally swam out and brought his body to shore.
If the incident brings to mind any news story, it is the 1964 stabbing death of Kitty Genovese -- made infamous because her New York neighbors heard her screams for 35 minutes as they failed to intervene and save her life. This time, I am sorry to report, some of the unresponsive bystanders were firefighters and cops.
How does America go from 9/11 to Crown Beach?
"This was definitely not Alameda's finest hour," observed Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who will become Alameda's city manager on June 13.
Those trying to make sense of the debacle attribute the incident to budget cuts, a bad policy and the fact that saving Zack's life was a risky proposition. Zack weighed 300 pounds. He was suicidal and therefore unstable. If he had been armed and wanted to take someone with him, then it would have been difficult for any would-be rescuers to get away safely.
There's a saying among firefighters: A dead firefighter never saved anyone's life.
But there were enough public-safety officials on the scene to handle one man. According to news reports, firefighters and police watched Zack for about an hour. Domenick Weaver, president of the city firefighters union, estimated a dozen first responders were present. (I do not have an official count. I called the Alameda mayor's office, as well as the Alameda Fire and Police departments and was routed to the same person, who did not return my calls before deadline.) First responders just stood there, when it was their job to save Zack.
Realtor Rosemary McNally told the Alameda City Council on Tuesday that she could not help but think about Zack, standing in the water as his blood slowly ran cold, "looking at those uniforms looking back at him."
He must have thought, she added, "They're not even trying to help me. Doesn't anyone care about me?"
Weaver noted that a 2009 policy -- revoked this week -- prohibited firefighters from participating in water rescues. The policy was implemented after budget cuts ended water-rescue training. OK, I counter, but surely some first responders had been trained before 2009.
Weaver's answer: Yes, but they lacked the right equipment.
Weaver assured me that firefighters on the scene feel horrible about what happened.
"Every one of our members who was on that scene wishes that the policy would have allowed them to do something at some point," he explained.
Any firefighter who broke with policy could have landed in a world of bureaucratic payback. That's the problem. No government worker in America gets fired for following the rules.
As Russo put it, "We need an approach toward public service that is less rule-bound and more willing to take risk."
Russo also thinks that if a child were drowning, then some of the first responders would not have hesitated to flout the rules. (That's nice, if a bit unsettling. It's not their job to cherry-pick whom they protect.)
Do budget cuts have a role here? Well, cuts did lead to the no-water-rescue policy in 2009 -- not the shrewdest brainstorm for a city on an island. Said Weaver: "I'm not saying it's the public's fault at all. It's the unfortunate byproduct of diminishing resources."
Such comments only lead some taxpayers to feel like victims of extortion -- that if they don't pay more, they can't even count on basic protection.
On Thursday, San Francisco firefighter Vincent Perez gave his life in the line of duty. The spirit of 9/11 does live.
As for the Alameda firefighters and cops who just stood on the shore and didn't get their feet wet while a man drowned, they have to live with that call for the rest of their lives. They can blame policy, cutbacks or the thankless grind of rescuing unstable individuals who likely will never get their act together -- but in the end, they didn't care enough to do the right thing. Surely, they became firefighters because they wanted to be heroes. But somehow, in some sad way, they turned into bureaucrats.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
On Sept. 11, 2001, when two planes plunged into the World Trade Center, Americans watched in awe as New York firefighters, police and paramedics rushed to the scene at risk to their own lives. Some 343 firefighters and paramedics and 60 police officers paid the ultimate price in their desperate rush to save other lives.
On Memorial Day at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach in California, police officers and firefighters stood by as Raymond Zack, 53, stood in the water, apparently intent on suicide, until he drowned. They would not go into the water after him, they explained, because a 2009 department policy prohibited water rescues in this island community. An unidentified woman finally swam out and brought his body to shore.
If the incident brings to mind any news story, it is the 1964 stabbing death of Kitty Genovese -- made infamous because her New York neighbors heard her screams for 35 minutes as they failed to intervene and save her life. This time, I am sorry to report, some of the unresponsive bystanders were firefighters and cops.
How does America go from 9/11 to Crown Beach?
"This was definitely not Alameda's finest hour," observed Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who will become Alameda's city manager on June 13.
Those trying to make sense of the debacle attribute the incident to budget cuts, a bad policy and the fact that saving Zack's life was a risky proposition. Zack weighed 300 pounds. He was suicidal and therefore unstable. If he had been armed and wanted to take someone with him, then it would have been difficult for any would-be rescuers to get away safely.
There's a saying among firefighters: A dead firefighter never saved anyone's life.
But there were enough public-safety officials on the scene to handle one man. According to news reports, firefighters and police watched Zack for about an hour. Domenick Weaver, president of the city firefighters union, estimated a dozen first responders were present. (I do not have an official count. I called the Alameda mayor's office, as well as the Alameda Fire and Police departments and was routed to the same person, who did not return my calls before deadline.) First responders just stood there, when it was their job to save Zack.
Realtor Rosemary McNally told the Alameda City Council on Tuesday that she could not help but think about Zack, standing in the water as his blood slowly ran cold, "looking at those uniforms looking back at him."
He must have thought, she added, "They're not even trying to help me. Doesn't anyone care about me?"
Weaver noted that a 2009 policy -- revoked this week -- prohibited firefighters from participating in water rescues. The policy was implemented after budget cuts ended water-rescue training. OK, I counter, but surely some first responders had been trained before 2009.
Weaver's answer: Yes, but they lacked the right equipment.
Weaver assured me that firefighters on the scene feel horrible about what happened.
"Every one of our members who was on that scene wishes that the policy would have allowed them to do something at some point," he explained.
Any firefighter who broke with policy could have landed in a world of bureaucratic payback. That's the problem. No government worker in America gets fired for following the rules.
As Russo put it, "We need an approach toward public service that is less rule-bound and more willing to take risk."
Russo also thinks that if a child were drowning, then some of the first responders would not have hesitated to flout the rules. (That's nice, if a bit unsettling. It's not their job to cherry-pick whom they protect.)
Do budget cuts have a role here? Well, cuts did lead to the no-water-rescue policy in 2009 -- not the shrewdest brainstorm for a city on an island. Said Weaver: "I'm not saying it's the public's fault at all. It's the unfortunate byproduct of diminishing resources."
Such comments only lead some taxpayers to feel like victims of extortion -- that if they don't pay more, they can't even count on basic protection.
On Thursday, San Francisco firefighter Vincent Perez gave his life in the line of duty. The spirit of 9/11 does live.
As for the Alameda firefighters and cops who just stood on the shore and didn't get their feet wet while a man drowned, they have to live with that call for the rest of their lives. They can blame policy, cutbacks or the thankless grind of rescuing unstable individuals who likely will never get their act together -- but in the end, they didn't care enough to do the right thing. Surely, they became firefighters because they wanted to be heroes. But somehow, in some sad way, they turned into bureaucrats.
Message From California: “American Citizens Need Not Apply”
By Austin Hill
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The United States is ordered by a “government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
But in modern-day California, it’s not so obvious any longer which “people” the government is allegedly serving.
Let’s go back to September of 2010. In the midst of the Golden State’s contest for a new Governor, a woman named Nicky Diaz Santillan held a press conference in Los Angeles – along with her famous Attorney Gloria Allred – and announced that she was suing Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman.
Santillan, we were to learn, had been a live-in housekeeper for the Whitman family between 2000 and 2009. After she was fired from that position she decided to do what Californians often do, and she sued her former employer for “emotional and financial abuse.”
Ms. Santillan happened also to be an illegal alien -a fact she revealed at her press conference -and had stolen an American citizen’s Social Security number so as to falsify documents and to portray herself as a citizen, when she was seeking employment with Whitman.
It was quite a spectacle, that strange September day in California. Seated behind the microphones and in front of the cameras of the American media, flanked by an American Attorney who had accessed the American judicial system to sue an American citizen named Meg Whitman, sat an illegal alien named Nicky Diaz Santillan.
Nobody dared to ask questions about the fact that Ms. Santillan’s presence in California was a violation of federal law. And nobody said a word about her admission to the crime of identity theft. It was all about the alleged “abuse” done to her by the American Meg Whitman.
In fact, California’s top law enforcement agent at that time – Attorney General Jerry Brown – had nothing to say about illegal immigration and identity theft either. Brown was the Democrat nominee for Governor, and he was polling behind Whitman. So rather than address the apparent crimes and confessions, Brown instead joined the chorus of critics claiming that Whitman had been “insensitive” for ending Ms. Santillan’s employment.
Shortly after that press conference, Brown began to poll ahead of Whitman. On Election Day in November, Brown trounced Whitman by nearly fourteen percentage points.
In California, trying to uphold the law with illegal aliens can be a very costly thing. Yet the political benefits of allowing illegal aliens to live above the “government of the people” can be enormous.
After the election, California was rocked by another bizarre event. At Fresno State University, one of California’s largest tax-payer funded schools, the campus newspaper revealed that their student body president Pedro Ramirez was an illegal alien.
Whether Ramirez was “outed,” or he “arranged to be outed,” is not quite clear. But after the news broke, Ramirez set out on a well orchestrated series of international media interviews (he rapidly became the “guest of choice” at “CNN En Espanol”) and a speaking tour to promote the federal “Dream Act” amnesty legislation. He flew up and down the state of California, and even paid a visit to Washington, D.C. to “lobby Congress” on behalf of illegal immigrants.
Ramirez’ presence in California was a violation of federal law, yes. But once again, California government officials didn’t dare ask the obvious questions: How does he pass through security check points at airports? Does he have an American passport? Does he have a California Driver’s License? How did he obtain these documents? Was identity theft involved?
It’s a “government of the people,” sure. But what does this mean any longer in California?
Not only does California ignore definitions of “crime” and “punishment” in cases involving illegal aliens, it is now about to legislate preferential treatment for illegal aliens which, de facto, will put U.S. citizens at a disadvtange. With a budget deficit of somewhere between $10 and $15 billion – a deficit that is expected to swell to about $25 billion by the middle of 2012 – California is cutting back on funding for everything from highway maintenance to K-12 education.
But – alas! – the California legislature has nonetheless found money in the coffers to fund special college and university grants intended specifically for illegal alien students (Americans need not apply). It’s called the “California DREAM Act,” and it’s sailing quite smoothly through the legislature right now.
In the 21st Century, it’s difficult to imagine that tax-payer funded college scholarship programs designated for “citizens and legal residents only” would be met with favor anywhere in America. But in modern-day California – a state that will probably be asking for an “Obama bailout” in the near future - tax-payer funds set aside “for illegal aliens only” is quite acceptable.
Yes, it’s true - the United States is ordered by a “government of the people, by the people, for the people…” But in our 31st state, it’s a government that is “for” just about anyone – except the American Citizen.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The United States is ordered by a “government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
But in modern-day California, it’s not so obvious any longer which “people” the government is allegedly serving.
Let’s go back to September of 2010. In the midst of the Golden State’s contest for a new Governor, a woman named Nicky Diaz Santillan held a press conference in Los Angeles – along with her famous Attorney Gloria Allred – and announced that she was suing Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman.
Santillan, we were to learn, had been a live-in housekeeper for the Whitman family between 2000 and 2009. After she was fired from that position she decided to do what Californians often do, and she sued her former employer for “emotional and financial abuse.”
Ms. Santillan happened also to be an illegal alien -a fact she revealed at her press conference -and had stolen an American citizen’s Social Security number so as to falsify documents and to portray herself as a citizen, when she was seeking employment with Whitman.
It was quite a spectacle, that strange September day in California. Seated behind the microphones and in front of the cameras of the American media, flanked by an American Attorney who had accessed the American judicial system to sue an American citizen named Meg Whitman, sat an illegal alien named Nicky Diaz Santillan.
Nobody dared to ask questions about the fact that Ms. Santillan’s presence in California was a violation of federal law. And nobody said a word about her admission to the crime of identity theft. It was all about the alleged “abuse” done to her by the American Meg Whitman.
In fact, California’s top law enforcement agent at that time – Attorney General Jerry Brown – had nothing to say about illegal immigration and identity theft either. Brown was the Democrat nominee for Governor, and he was polling behind Whitman. So rather than address the apparent crimes and confessions, Brown instead joined the chorus of critics claiming that Whitman had been “insensitive” for ending Ms. Santillan’s employment.
Shortly after that press conference, Brown began to poll ahead of Whitman. On Election Day in November, Brown trounced Whitman by nearly fourteen percentage points.
In California, trying to uphold the law with illegal aliens can be a very costly thing. Yet the political benefits of allowing illegal aliens to live above the “government of the people” can be enormous.
After the election, California was rocked by another bizarre event. At Fresno State University, one of California’s largest tax-payer funded schools, the campus newspaper revealed that their student body president Pedro Ramirez was an illegal alien.
Whether Ramirez was “outed,” or he “arranged to be outed,” is not quite clear. But after the news broke, Ramirez set out on a well orchestrated series of international media interviews (he rapidly became the “guest of choice” at “CNN En Espanol”) and a speaking tour to promote the federal “Dream Act” amnesty legislation. He flew up and down the state of California, and even paid a visit to Washington, D.C. to “lobby Congress” on behalf of illegal immigrants.
Ramirez’ presence in California was a violation of federal law, yes. But once again, California government officials didn’t dare ask the obvious questions: How does he pass through security check points at airports? Does he have an American passport? Does he have a California Driver’s License? How did he obtain these documents? Was identity theft involved?
It’s a “government of the people,” sure. But what does this mean any longer in California?
Not only does California ignore definitions of “crime” and “punishment” in cases involving illegal aliens, it is now about to legislate preferential treatment for illegal aliens which, de facto, will put U.S. citizens at a disadvtange. With a budget deficit of somewhere between $10 and $15 billion – a deficit that is expected to swell to about $25 billion by the middle of 2012 – California is cutting back on funding for everything from highway maintenance to K-12 education.
But – alas! – the California legislature has nonetheless found money in the coffers to fund special college and university grants intended specifically for illegal alien students (Americans need not apply). It’s called the “California DREAM Act,” and it’s sailing quite smoothly through the legislature right now.
In the 21st Century, it’s difficult to imagine that tax-payer funded college scholarship programs designated for “citizens and legal residents only” would be met with favor anywhere in America. But in modern-day California – a state that will probably be asking for an “Obama bailout” in the near future - tax-payer funds set aside “for illegal aliens only” is quite acceptable.
Yes, it’s true - the United States is ordered by a “government of the people, by the people, for the people…” But in our 31st state, it’s a government that is “for” just about anyone – except the American Citizen.
Portrait of a Failed American City
By Salena Zito
Sunday, June 05, 2011
SALAMANCA, N.Y. – In a valley that curves along the Allegheny River is a tract of land built on opportunity, greed, and the bureaucratic nightmare of being one city in two nations.
According to state and local authorities, Salamanca is the only U.S. city located on an Indian reservation.
Toward the end of the 19th century, it was a flourishing railroad town of laborers, families and industrious entrepreneurs, all striving for the American dream.
It was named for a Spanish aristocrat who was convinced by Erie Railroad speculators (with an introduction from an American president) to invest in a rail line to prevent Pennsylvania firms from dominating the raw-materials market.
The only thing standing in the way was Seneca Indian land which, it turned out, could be technically bought through leasing.
A precarious relationship began.
The land the railroads wanted to lease – basically a swamp – was then of little use to the Native American inhabitants, so striking an agreement was relatively easy to accomplish.
With the building of the rail line came laborers. With laborers came families. With families came homes and daily necessities such as doctors, lumberyards, barbers, grocers, feed stores. Thus, the city was built.
Three Acts of Congress in 1875, 1890 and 1990 created a landlord-tenant relationship between the Seneca Nation and Salamanca’s homeowners and businesses.
The homeowners and businesses occupied their properties in accordance with a 99-year lease originally granted by the Seneca Nation in 1892. It expired on Feb. 19, 1991 – and the mutual distrust that had plagued the city since the first railroad was surveyed came to a very public boil.
For reasons ranging from rejecting pricier leases to demanding control over the land, 15 property “owners” eventually were evicted by the Seneca Nation.
Today, shabbiness blankets what could be a quaint town bounded by a river, a New York state park and a national forest. Garish “Nation-owned” cigarette outlets and gas stations produce a city drawn by Norman Rockwell but touched-up by Jackson Pollock.
“I had a professor who once said, ‘Simple way to understand the importance of private property: Have you ever washed a rental car?’ ” says political science professor Lara Brown. Salamanca, she says, “strikes precisely at the issue. When you don't own, most people don't care.”
The discount-cigarette shops attract bargain-seeking smokers from several states. The shops’ cheaper prices are due to the state never collecting sales taxes on reservation lands – until now.
The other economic chaos here surrounds the Seneca Nation’s casino, which juts out of the hemlock- and hickory-covered mountains just off Interstate 86.
Since August, when a battle heated up between the Seneca Nation and the state over collecting cigarette sales taxes, the Senecas began withholding billions of dollars in casino slots revenue from state and local governments.
Says Leslie Logan, the Seneca Nation’s foreign relations director: “We are withholding the money because the state broke their own promises of gambling exclusivity.” She points to slots operations in Hamburg and Batavia, N.Y., and the state’s Finger Lakes region.
Yet the sad story of Salamanca and the Seneca Nation really is the result of failed policies at a number of levels, on both sides, over many decades.
For two centuries, federal policy towards Native Americans has been riddled with inconsistencies, reversals and countless broken treaties, all resulting in bitter lawsuits and the alienation of all involved.
The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, created "to assist and protect" Indians, long has been known for mismanagement, corruption and creating dependency among Indians, according to U.S. history professor Jeff Brauer.
“It is this unfortunate history that besieges the citizens of Salamanca and the Seneca Nation, said Brauer. “They are now paying for the past mistakes and incompetence of the federal government.”
Their plight is compounded by the all-too-familiar pattern of many towns and cities in the Northeast: Over several decades, the Rust Belt’s state and local governments have failed to enact job-sustaining tax policies and, more important, have failed to invest in the infrastructure needed to compete with other regions of the country.
The result, in Salamanca as elsewhere, is sweeping, perhaps irreversible, economic and social devastation.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
SALAMANCA, N.Y. – In a valley that curves along the Allegheny River is a tract of land built on opportunity, greed, and the bureaucratic nightmare of being one city in two nations.
According to state and local authorities, Salamanca is the only U.S. city located on an Indian reservation.
Toward the end of the 19th century, it was a flourishing railroad town of laborers, families and industrious entrepreneurs, all striving for the American dream.
It was named for a Spanish aristocrat who was convinced by Erie Railroad speculators (with an introduction from an American president) to invest in a rail line to prevent Pennsylvania firms from dominating the raw-materials market.
The only thing standing in the way was Seneca Indian land which, it turned out, could be technically bought through leasing.
A precarious relationship began.
The land the railroads wanted to lease – basically a swamp – was then of little use to the Native American inhabitants, so striking an agreement was relatively easy to accomplish.
With the building of the rail line came laborers. With laborers came families. With families came homes and daily necessities such as doctors, lumberyards, barbers, grocers, feed stores. Thus, the city was built.
Three Acts of Congress in 1875, 1890 and 1990 created a landlord-tenant relationship between the Seneca Nation and Salamanca’s homeowners and businesses.
The homeowners and businesses occupied their properties in accordance with a 99-year lease originally granted by the Seneca Nation in 1892. It expired on Feb. 19, 1991 – and the mutual distrust that had plagued the city since the first railroad was surveyed came to a very public boil.
For reasons ranging from rejecting pricier leases to demanding control over the land, 15 property “owners” eventually were evicted by the Seneca Nation.
Today, shabbiness blankets what could be a quaint town bounded by a river, a New York state park and a national forest. Garish “Nation-owned” cigarette outlets and gas stations produce a city drawn by Norman Rockwell but touched-up by Jackson Pollock.
“I had a professor who once said, ‘Simple way to understand the importance of private property: Have you ever washed a rental car?’ ” says political science professor Lara Brown. Salamanca, she says, “strikes precisely at the issue. When you don't own, most people don't care.”
The discount-cigarette shops attract bargain-seeking smokers from several states. The shops’ cheaper prices are due to the state never collecting sales taxes on reservation lands – until now.
The other economic chaos here surrounds the Seneca Nation’s casino, which juts out of the hemlock- and hickory-covered mountains just off Interstate 86.
Since August, when a battle heated up between the Seneca Nation and the state over collecting cigarette sales taxes, the Senecas began withholding billions of dollars in casino slots revenue from state and local governments.
Says Leslie Logan, the Seneca Nation’s foreign relations director: “We are withholding the money because the state broke their own promises of gambling exclusivity.” She points to slots operations in Hamburg and Batavia, N.Y., and the state’s Finger Lakes region.
Yet the sad story of Salamanca and the Seneca Nation really is the result of failed policies at a number of levels, on both sides, over many decades.
For two centuries, federal policy towards Native Americans has been riddled with inconsistencies, reversals and countless broken treaties, all resulting in bitter lawsuits and the alienation of all involved.
The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, created "to assist and protect" Indians, long has been known for mismanagement, corruption and creating dependency among Indians, according to U.S. history professor Jeff Brauer.
“It is this unfortunate history that besieges the citizens of Salamanca and the Seneca Nation, said Brauer. “They are now paying for the past mistakes and incompetence of the federal government.”
Their plight is compounded by the all-too-familiar pattern of many towns and cities in the Northeast: Over several decades, the Rust Belt’s state and local governments have failed to enact job-sustaining tax policies and, more important, have failed to invest in the infrastructure needed to compete with other regions of the country.
The result, in Salamanca as elsewhere, is sweeping, perhaps irreversible, economic and social devastation.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Obama’s Jobs Recession
He owns it, and Main Street voters know it.
Larry Kudlow
Friday, June 03, 2011
Political advantage can be fleeting. A couple of months ago, during the winter quarter, job gains looked to be picking up, unemployment was easing lower, and President Obama’s reelection hopes looked more secure. But things sure have changed.
In recent weeks, a whole bunch of new economic stats have been pointing to a sputtering economy — maybe even an inflation-prone, less-than-2-percent-growth recession. Stocks have dropped five straight weeks, as they look toward slower growth, jobs, and profits out to year end. And Friday’s jobs report didn’t buck these trends.
“Anemic” is the adjective being tossed around the media. According to the Labor Department, nonfarm payrolls increased a meager 54,000 in May, while private payrolls gained only 83,000. A week or two ago, Wall Street expected 200,000-plus new jobs. Didn’t happen.
Perhaps the most telling weakness in the jobs report comes from the household survey, which is made up of self-employed workers. Think of mom-and-pop owned stores and small businesses. Think of the Main Street entrepreneurial families who make up the backbone of the economy, and for the matter the country. And they vote, too.
Well, household jobs increased a paltry 105,000 in May, after falling 190,000 in April. The jobless rate is determined by the household survey, and you really need a couple hundred thousand new household jobs a month — at least — to lower unemployment. And you really need about 300,000 household jobs a month to put a little torque behind the Main Street economy. But with the lackluster May report, the unemployment rate edged up to 9.1 percent from last month’s 9 percent and March’s 8.8 percent.
Suddenly President Obama has gone from reelect to big trouble. The economic rug has been pulled out from underneath him.
So what changed in the last couple of months or so? Answer: A nasty oil-, gasoline-, and commodity-price shock. It’s eating away at economic growth and jobs. It’s stalling the economy. And it has cut into consumer real incomes and business profits.
Much of this problem can be traced to the failure of the Federal Reserve’s QE2 pump-priming campaign. QE2 has not produced growth, but it has produced inflation. In fact, the consumer price index over the past four or five months has been running close to 6 percent annually.
And most of that new Fed money has served merely to depreciate the dollar. And most of those cheaper dollars are on deposit at the Federal Reserve, where banks are earning 25 basis points for safety and risk aversion. In other words, the majority of that new money is not circulating throughout the economy. It’s a boneheaded Fed stimulus, and it has done more harm than good.
That said, in a larger sense, the failure to ignite small-business job creation has to be laid at the doorstep of the Obama administration, and the economic policies that threaten higher taxes and regulations virtually across the board. On Thursday this week, the president again promised House Democrats to raise taxes on successful top small-business owners. What a great new idea.
So mom and pop don’t feel like taking a risk in this environment. Higher tax-and-regulatory costs have put these entrepreneurs in survival mode. They’re playing their economic cards so close to the vest, business activity has buttoned up tight.
What you want is for people to take their suit jackets off, roll up their shirt sleeves, and go out there and build. But people are hunkering down, not building.
Bear with me for few more jobs stats.
Since the household-survey employment peak back in November 2007, 6.8 million jobs have been lost. Since the so-called end of the recession in June 2009, 199,000 jobs, on balance, have disappeared. And so far this year, household employment has increased by a total of 573,000, which is about 115,000 a month. That’s only one-third of what’s needed to bring down unemployment significantly.
The bottom line is that there hasn’t really been a jobs recovery. President Obama is going to have to own that. But the question is, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, does the GOP have a pro-growth jobs program that will get Main Street mom and pops to roll up their sleeves once again?
Larry Kudlow
Friday, June 03, 2011
Political advantage can be fleeting. A couple of months ago, during the winter quarter, job gains looked to be picking up, unemployment was easing lower, and President Obama’s reelection hopes looked more secure. But things sure have changed.
In recent weeks, a whole bunch of new economic stats have been pointing to a sputtering economy — maybe even an inflation-prone, less-than-2-percent-growth recession. Stocks have dropped five straight weeks, as they look toward slower growth, jobs, and profits out to year end. And Friday’s jobs report didn’t buck these trends.
“Anemic” is the adjective being tossed around the media. According to the Labor Department, nonfarm payrolls increased a meager 54,000 in May, while private payrolls gained only 83,000. A week or two ago, Wall Street expected 200,000-plus new jobs. Didn’t happen.
Perhaps the most telling weakness in the jobs report comes from the household survey, which is made up of self-employed workers. Think of mom-and-pop owned stores and small businesses. Think of the Main Street entrepreneurial families who make up the backbone of the economy, and for the matter the country. And they vote, too.
Well, household jobs increased a paltry 105,000 in May, after falling 190,000 in April. The jobless rate is determined by the household survey, and you really need a couple hundred thousand new household jobs a month — at least — to lower unemployment. And you really need about 300,000 household jobs a month to put a little torque behind the Main Street economy. But with the lackluster May report, the unemployment rate edged up to 9.1 percent from last month’s 9 percent and March’s 8.8 percent.
Suddenly President Obama has gone from reelect to big trouble. The economic rug has been pulled out from underneath him.
So what changed in the last couple of months or so? Answer: A nasty oil-, gasoline-, and commodity-price shock. It’s eating away at economic growth and jobs. It’s stalling the economy. And it has cut into consumer real incomes and business profits.
Much of this problem can be traced to the failure of the Federal Reserve’s QE2 pump-priming campaign. QE2 has not produced growth, but it has produced inflation. In fact, the consumer price index over the past four or five months has been running close to 6 percent annually.
And most of that new Fed money has served merely to depreciate the dollar. And most of those cheaper dollars are on deposit at the Federal Reserve, where banks are earning 25 basis points for safety and risk aversion. In other words, the majority of that new money is not circulating throughout the economy. It’s a boneheaded Fed stimulus, and it has done more harm than good.
That said, in a larger sense, the failure to ignite small-business job creation has to be laid at the doorstep of the Obama administration, and the economic policies that threaten higher taxes and regulations virtually across the board. On Thursday this week, the president again promised House Democrats to raise taxes on successful top small-business owners. What a great new idea.
So mom and pop don’t feel like taking a risk in this environment. Higher tax-and-regulatory costs have put these entrepreneurs in survival mode. They’re playing their economic cards so close to the vest, business activity has buttoned up tight.
What you want is for people to take their suit jackets off, roll up their shirt sleeves, and go out there and build. But people are hunkering down, not building.
Bear with me for few more jobs stats.
Since the household-survey employment peak back in November 2007, 6.8 million jobs have been lost. Since the so-called end of the recession in June 2009, 199,000 jobs, on balance, have disappeared. And so far this year, household employment has increased by a total of 573,000, which is about 115,000 a month. That’s only one-third of what’s needed to bring down unemployment significantly.
The bottom line is that there hasn’t really been a jobs recovery. President Obama is going to have to own that. But the question is, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, does the GOP have a pro-growth jobs program that will get Main Street mom and pops to roll up their sleeves once again?
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