Vote For Perry, Lose Your Job

The Houston Chronicle has an interesting statistic that drew my attention today. The “U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released job statistics for the first quarter of 2011, showing that Texas had 210,704 more jobs in March 2011 than in March 2010 — from 9.9 million to 10.1 million jobs.”

This is in seeming confirmation of Rick Perry’s oft-uttered brag that he is a job creator and that as President of the United States, he will put America back to work. But then delving into the data a little bit deeper, they uncovered a startling fact: That of the ten Texas counties that experienced the highest numbers of net job lob losses, nine of them went for Rick Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial election against Bill White.

White got a majority of the votes from Fannin County, which suffered the fewest job losses in that group of 10.

So what do you do with this blip in the mythology of “the Texas Miracle?” Don’t know. All I know I I wouldn’t want to live in a county that went for Rick Perry because statistically that’s not such a great thing.

And yes, Fort Bend County went for Rick Perry, too.

Why Rescheduling Obama’s Jobs Speech Was a Good Idea

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post makes a very good point in his blog post today on why it was actually a good thing to reschedule the Presidents speech on jobs before the House and Senate next week. His first point is the best one.

From the Washington Post:

“If Obama had doubled down on the Sept. 7 date, the coverage leading up to the speech would have focused heavily — if not exclusively — on the process (why the White House had done it, etc.) of the speech rather than the policy of it. Process battles, while beloved by reporters, are rarely a good thing for politicians and policy-makers.”

Heck yes. The message of promoting the creation of jobs would have been drowned out by the rightwing press who would have beaten their drums loudly. It would have been much worse than the present gloating that they seem to be affecting over how the Republicans made the President of the United States move his speech.

And I have one more reason why I am glad that he moved his speech to Thursday. I want to watch the Republican debate. I want to see Rick Perry on the stage trying to look presidential, but coming off like a country bumpkin. He wouldn’t debate Bill White in 2010 simply because both he and his handlers knew that to do so would only serve to increase Bill White’s numbers.

So yeah, given the choice between seeing my president speak before Congress, and seeing Rick Perry implode on national TV, well, it really is a no-brainer.

So Be It

Republicans must be dancing in the street.

Republicans were swept into office in 2010 with two promises, repealing “Obamacare” and restoring jobs to unemployed Americans.

So how are they doing?

Well, on one happy note, Republicans in the lower House voted to repeal the law that the Democratic House and Senate passed last year to put affordable health care out of the reach of millions of Americans . . .again.

That is, they voted to restore the old broken system that drives some Americans to bankruptcy, and other Americans to their early graves.

Not bad, not bad. All except for the fact that the same bill hasn’t a gnat’s chance in a hailstorm of passing in the Senate let alone getting a signature from my President.

And now we see that they have rolled up their sleeves to attack the number two item on their agenda: getting Americans back to work.

Oh, except if you work for the federal government. If you work for the federal government then you face a dim future indeed, courtesy of John Boehner and the Republican majority in the House. As a matter of fact, according to this story, you might as well just pack it in and get some of those unemployment insurance applications ready to fill out. Stick a fork in you, you are done.

John Boehner says so. As a matter of fact, he is quoted as saying that if federal workers are going to be out of a job, then “So be it.”

From the Washington Post:

“House Speaker John Boehner expressed little sympathy Tuesday for federal workers who lose their jobs as the result of Republican budget cutting.”

“‘In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,’ Mr. Boehner told reporters Tuesday morning during a press conference in the lobby of the Republican National Committee, according to various news outlets. ‘If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. We’re broke.’”

Nice, huh?

And then I had to wonder where the Speaker got his facts from, from the prize in his box of Cracker Jacks? 200,000 jobs?

Figures lie and liars figure.

According to the federal government’s central clearing office for federal workers, the Office of Personnel Management, the HR Department in other words, that’s just not so.

“According to Office of Personnel Management statistics, 82,692 full-time federal workers left the federal government in fiscal 2009 and agencies added 142,687 new hires, for a net gain of 59,995 jobs.”

But mark my words you 59,995 workers, even if you are not 200,000 strong, John Boehner has it out for you. And you and your families can just kiss his orange butt. Because if you are going to get the axe on his watch, so be it.

And next time, try and vote for the party that cares about whether or not you have a job, OK?

News Item

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has just announced that one cost-cutting measure that will be implemented in order to balance the state budget is to cut 8,000 state employees from the payroll.

Look for more of the same as the Republican-dominated state government will stop at nothing to balance the budget without increasing taxes and fees.

What do you call 8,000 newly unemployed state employees?

Only the beginning.

I Say Potato, You Say Obamacare

Did you ever expect that the Party of No would change their tune after a virtual sweep in the House elections last year? I sure didn’t, and man was I barking up the wrong tree.

The Party of No, the G No P, has changed its tune.

In late 2009 all we were about was the passage of some form of Healthcare Reform bill. It got done over the loud objections of a party that is so intertwined with the health insurance industry that you can’t tell whose appendage is whose. And all they wanted to do, they said at the time, was to concentrate on getting more Americans back to work.

Democrats, they said, were out of touch with Americans who were increasingly alarmed at their preoccupation with not-so-radical changes in healthcare in the face of what mattered most to them: getting their jobs back.

Democrats were out of touch.

So, as my congressman, Pete Olson is fond of saying, the people voted and gave his party the car keys back.

So now, as Barack Obama’s administration sets itself back aright, back on the tracks, so to speak, to get Americans back to work, did the GOP change it’s tune? You bet they did.

Their first order of business is to repeal healthcare reform. Getting Americans back to work can go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks as far as they are concerned. It’s all about Obamacare.

Funny how that works. Funnier still is that while the Republicans are looking like the two-faced spinmeisters that they are, the American people have yet to catch them on it.

Dare I say it? Has America become so distracted that they can’t remember beyond a couple of months what the Republicans claim is the important burning issue of the day?

Has America become collectively a victim of Attention Deficit Disorder?

Tax Cut Compromise: Sell-Out or Shrewd Politics?

President Obama was on the tube a few minutes ago announcing some of the aspects of the bipartisan deal that was struck today with the Republicans in the Senate. At stake was a renewal of unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans whose unemployment insurance was about to run out right at Christmas, and whether the rich and super-rich could continue to take home a few more hundred thousand dollars per year in tax breaks, all financed by loans made to us by the Chinese.

And the result: Bob Cratchit will have a goose and plum pudding for his family again this year, and Tiny Tim gets to hobble on his withered leg for another 13 months, and Ebeneezer Scrooge gets to sock his sovereigns in his mattress for another 2 years.

Charles Dickens had no idea of how bad it could get, did he?

Some say that Barack Obama sold out to the rich. Obama himself says he doesn’t like that part of the deal but had to deal with a congress that was going to hold starvation over the heads of millions of Americans if their rich friends didn’t get their lucre.

Others say that Barack Obama has given Republicans an edge in that should employment pick up in the coming months, Republicans will take credit, saying that it was the tax cuts to the rich that spurred the hiring.

On the other hand, if hiring doesn’t upsurge, Republicans lose the argument, don’t they? Well, they do if the long-term political memory of American voters lasts longer than 6 weeks, which it never does.

Truth to tell, it is my suspicion that the game is rigged. I have often wondered why banks are sitting on a trillion dollars without investing it, stimulating growth and jobs. I have wondered if they have withheld funds intentionally in order to keep growth in employment depressed. I wonder now whether they will open the flood gates now that this deal is struck, giving Republicans a victory whether they deserve it or not.

Still and all, there is a shrewdness to what Obama did, selling out or not. Republicans now do not have a dog in the hunt of the blame game on how Obama’s policies are destroying the economy, unless, of course, they cook up something else. They are also now responsible for the addition of hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt because of this rich/super-rich tax break.

The main problem is perception. It always is. American political opinion based on long-term memory always works against those with thoughtful arguments and discourse based on the facts. And it is always easily swayed by those who shriek the loudest with their own manufactured facts because they don’t actually rely on long-term memory.

So what was the point of this?

I forgot.

Unemployment Relief is On the Way

At 2:13 PM EDT yesterday the House voted on HR 4213, the Unemployment Compensation act of 2010, or rather on the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment of HR 4213, and it finally passed by a roll call vote of 272 Yeas to 152 Nays.

That is, the Feds voted to extend unemployment insurance benefits through 2010 to the hundreds of thousands of families who have had trouble finding jobs in these very troubling times.

31 Republicans rediscovered their human souls and jumped across their party line to vote with the Democratic majority, and 10 Democrats shamefully voted with 149 Republicans against unemployed American families.

My congressman, Pete Olson of TX-22, despite the show he made the other day of having huge concerns about businesses laying off their employees as deepwater oil rigs stand at idle – whether or not there is an officially declared deepwater drilling moratorium – my congressman voted No.

Voted No against the thousands of southeast Texas families that have a hard time trying to find a way back to the workplace.

Voted No against Americans when they themselves are not at fault for being unemployed. That fault, lying with his own Republican Party that unleashed Wall Street, an act that eventually brought the American economy to its knees(if not the entire world’s economy).

Pete Olson and those 148 other Republicans, and yes, those 10 Democrats, should be ashamed of themselves.

Shame to those who, for the first time in history, threatened to withhold real relief from suffering families.

Shame, shame, shame.

Kyl: Unfunded Tax Cuts for the Rich is Sound Economics

Did you hear? If we allow the Bush Tax Cuts for the super-rich to continue, something that no decent Republican wants to pay for, that’s a good thing. However, if we extend unemployment benefits for the middle class, something that is also unfunded, well that’s bad. Evil. Socialism. Promoting laziness.

That’s what Arizona Senator John Kyl told Fox News yesterday. And covered at HuffingtonPost. Here is what Kyl, in all earnestness, truly believes:

“You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes. Surely congress has the authority, and it would be right, to – if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy – not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the increased spending and that’s what Republicans object to, but you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”

Now that makes sense, right? In giving tax breaks to the richest among us, we should never pay for that through other taxes. But if we are to increase spending, by say, extending unemployment to the middle class, well that must be paid for.

That is, it’s OK to add to the deficit if it benefits the rich, but not so OK to add to the deficit if it helps the middle class.

And why is this twisted logic so true? Well, it seems if you give tax breaks to the rich, they will hire the middle class, and that spurs the economy.

On the other hand, if the middle class, whose consumption of goods and services is the basis upon which our economy depends, has no money to spend, then that doesn’t affect the economy at all.

That’s a logical leap that only borrow and spend Republicans can get behind. Saying that an unfunded $30 billion for the unemployed is bad, but an unfunded debt service cost of $678 billion for tax cuts for the rich over 10 years is good simply boggles the mind.

Pete Olson Goes to Richmond

Now I have it on good authority, because I read about it here, that CD-22 congressman Pete Olson will soon be making his way to the county seat of the largest and most populous county that lies within the Texas 22nd Congressional District, the district that he represents.

He wants to hold a town hall meeting at the McDowell Jury Assembly Building at 212 Houston St, in Richmond [map]. The meeting will be on a Tuesday evening, July 12th starting at dinner time, 6:30 PM and going until 8 PM.

Yeah, dinner time. On a work day. I am wondering if they want to limit the audience to those who make it to the early bird special at Luby’s. For the rest of us who dine watching the sun set, and want to attend, I don’t know if they’ll let you in with a bucket of KFC under your arm but if they do, just remember not to leave the chicken bones on the floor.

If you go, be sure to go armed with some questions. I hear he will ask for questions. Just make sure that if you want your question asked, you ask it with your own voice. Sneaky Pete is well known for having his staffers collect index cards from the audience – he requires that his constituents write their questions down so his staffers can filter them. Nice, huh? Can you say Banana Republic?

Anyway, one question I want to hear him answer is why he voted NO on HR 5618, the Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act. This act, passed in the House by a vote of 270 to 153, extends the filing date that families whose breadwinners cannot find work can file for federal unemployment benefits and extends the date of the program until April 2011.

And Pete Olson voted NO. He voted NO while 29 of his Republican colleagues voted YES. They voted yes for Texas families. Pete voted NO.

Clearly, Pete Olson is out of touch with his constituents. Had he looked, he would have seen that his district is hurting. From April 2008 until April 2010 the unemployment rate jumped from a low of 3.7% to the most recently recorded 8.3%. Don’t believe me? It’s here.

That’s more than double the people who were unemployed a mere two years ago.

And it shows in the neighborhoods.

Drive through any neighborhood in Fort Bend County and you see the same thing: a growing forest of “For Sale” signs on front lawns. More go up but none come down.

And then another question that might come up is why Pete Olson voted NO on HR 4173, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The measured passed the Senate (a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes) by 59 to 39, and sent back to the House to be reconciled in conference. That report is what Olson voted against.

Now, it is clear to anyone who hasn’t had his or her head stuck in the sand since September 2008 that it was an unregulated, greedy, and rapacious Wall Street that sold our country’s economy into the sewer, and it is also clear that the bill is nowhere near as tough in re-regulating these people as it could be, but these days you get whatever can pass the Senate and that is what we got.

And Pete Olson voted against it.

Pete Olson voted for his lobbyist friends and acquaintances on Wall Street, and against the people who live in the neighborhoods in Fort Bend County.

Now it’s not like we can do anything about it at the ballot box this year. The Democratic opponent he drew is one taco short of a combination plate, but at the very least he can be made aware of the fact that he is now on the firing line.

Literally.

Olson needs 5 years in Congress to get vested in the congressional benefits package. We can cut him off with one year shy of that in 2012 and it is now time to let him know that is going to happen.

A guy’s gotta make plans, after all.

On Opening Up Medicare: A Solution for Unemployment?

Two separate issues are taking up a lot of time lately in DC. In the Senate the Public Option, a federally funded medical insurance plan that the insurance industry just hates appears to have been switched out for an intriguing plan to expand Medicare coverage for those Americans age 55 and over. Not full blown Medicare, mind you, but a plan to let sub-seniors buy into the plan.

Apparently this idea has legs, maybe because the insurance industry has been dealing with Medicare for 34 years now and this is the devil that they know.

The other thing that seems to be gaining momentum is a renewed undertaking to ease the unemployment situation, a problem that has not responded to federal stimulus like the financial sector has.

So we had an Obama “job summit” that, as reported in the Huffington Post, resulted in “a proposal for a battery of necessary and unsurprising, but probably not sufficient, recommendations.” On top of that we had a house bill proposed that would redirect unspent TARP funds to fund such things as small businesses, teacher salaries and highway construction. A direct infusion of funds to stimulate job creation.

But I wonder if anyone has yet realized that the Medicare for 55 years old people and jobs creation, seemingly two separate efforts, are really something akin to synergy when viewed in combination.

If they haven’t yet, anyone in the over 55 age group will now stop and ask themselves why they continue to work, especially if the only reason for working is to have a decent health insurance benefits package at an affordable cost. And in doing so, how many will conclude that early retirement, once a pipe dream, is now a reality.

Making their job, whatever it is, available to those under 55 who still need to work to live.

I wonder how many will jump at this chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor earlier than planned, simply because their health benefits can be switched to the government (aka Single Payer) plan?

Governor Rick Perry: Egg Meet Face

How is it, I must ask, that Rick Perry is going to come out of this whole unemployment stimulus rejection thing, coupled, obviously with his recent assault on voters’ rights, smelling like anything else but a stink bug?

In his statement last March when he refused to accept $550 million in federal stimulus money, funds specifically set aside to enable Texas to help its growing list of unemployed workers, Perry was his typical Texas chauvinist self. From KTVT in a story posted last March 13th:

“If Texas were to accept these funds from Obama, my view is that it would make Texas less competitive than the other states, and it would hurt the prosperity and employment prospects for the citizens of the state of Texas”

Well the State Senate voted to accept the funds, but the bill was stalled in the House because, you know, the Republican love affair with the Voter ID bill that sought to disenfranchise the poor and the elderly.

So any hopes that Perry had that he ultimately would gain these funds anyway, without looking like he was giving in to a proffered Democratic handout were dashed.

And now, because Texas’ “prosperity and employment prospects” failed to materialize in the ensuing months, with Texas jobless ranks swelling from 139,592 to 353,881 within a single year – that’s nearly 600 jobless claims filed per day – Perry now finds that the state’s unemployment coffers are nearly empty.

So yesterday Perry announced that Texas was going to borrow $160 million in a federal - that is, Yankee -interest free loan so the state could continue to provide unemployment checks. And the word is that this borrow and spend behavior is likely to persist for awhile, and Perry could end up asking for as much as $493 million between now and October.

Nice job, Perry.

And how, pray tell, are we to pay the feds back? Well, according to The Chron They are going to issue $2 billion in state bonds. From the Chron:

“The state ultimately is expected to have to take out up to $2 billion in bonds to repay the federal loans and spread the burden of higher taxes on businesses out for four or five years.”

And how much will these bonds cost Texas in interest payments it will make on these bonds? State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin claims it is going to cost Texas an additional $100 million in interest.

That’s $100 million tacked on to $493 million. $593 million total cost to Texas. In short, it is going to cost Texas nearly $600 million to take care of its unemployed this year.

So instead of getting $550 million in a federal bailout, the state will instead spend $600 million in money it doesn’t have.

In short, Rick Perry and his Texas chauvinism cost Texas over a billion dollars.

I wonder what his teabagging base will have to say about that?

Texas Legislature Defunds Texas Governor

When one person turns up his nose at $555 million proffered to the unemployed and underemployed in his state, you know things are going to go bad for him.

First, Governor Perry says “No” to over half a billion dollars meant to alleviate the pain of thousands of Texans who are caught without jobs in a dried-up job market, then the Legislature vows to step up and accept the funding. And yesterday, in a preliminary vote, it looks like the Texas Senate is going to do just that.The twelve Senate Democrats were joined by 10 of their Republican colleagues in passing the measure that would change Texas law to enable the state to accept the federal dollars.

Because when it is a choice between making thousands of lives more comfortable in these uncomfortable times, and making a petty political point, the Legislature opts for the former, and the Governor is usually a chump for the latter.

And in a fit of pique, the Governor again made a laughing stock of himself and 18% of all Texans in his veiled threat to exercise Texas’ unique ability to secede from the Union rather than knuckle under to the pressures from Washington. A unique ability that exists only in the minds of the clueless.

Earlier the governor announced that he will veto any legislation that they pass to enable Texas to claim these funds from the federal government.

This was followed close on with a House vote for a constitutional amendment that would allow legislators to return to a legislative session after it had ended for the purpose of overriding any vetoes a governor makes after the legislative session ends.

Back and forth, back and forth.

And now it appears that the legislature is upping the ante. They are voting to defund the governor’s office. From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The House voted this afternoon to strip almost all of the money out of the budget Gov. Rick Perry uses to pay his staff and operate his office.”

“During debate over the proposed state budget for the next two years, the House voted for an amendment by Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, to move about $4 million from the governor’s office to veterans’ programs.”

“Then the House approved an amendment sponsored by Rep. John Davis, R-Houston, to more than $18 million out of the governor’s office and into mental health crisis services.“

And in one more move, after whittling more and more from the governor’s office in order to fund some really much-needed projects (implying, I guess, that the governor’s office is anything but much-needed), the legislature informed the governor that he could keep his $136 million Enterprise Fund if Texas could get that $555 million from the feds.

See what you can accomplish when bipartisanship rules the day?