Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

"Jobs Jobs Jobs" Tom Corbett discovers what makes the Great Recession so bad... and makes it worse

The job numbers that came out this morning are a national disgrace. The feeling is litle like a Phillies home game where they enter the top of the 9th down a run and you think a rally isn't just possible but inevitable -- but then the bullpen gives up a three-spot. It's going to take a miracle to rally here.

Somebody do something!

Shame on everyone -- especially President Obama, who admitted he didn't do enough on early 2009 when he had the political goodwill and possibly the votes for a bigger and more job-creating stimulus, and for now adopting the worst of Herbert Hooverism in response to that initial blunder. Shame on the GOP for pushing policies that will cause a double-dip recession and maybe a depression -- maybe because of stupidity, or maybe because of their cynicism in wanting to defeat Obama. Shame on American citizens, myself included, for not marching on Washington and demanding an FDR-style public works and infrastructure program, since the private sector would rather give its billions in excess cash in obscene raises to CEOs than hire American workers.

Anyway, remember the recent flap with Mitt Romney accusing Obama of making the recession "worse"? Maybe Obama did...although not for the reasons that Romney would give, if he even has a reason other than political ambition. But you know I can guarantee is making the recession worse? Pennsylvania's governor, Tom Corbett.

Ponder the numbers behind the anemic jobs report:

Some of the biggest (although still modest) gains were in professional and technical services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Government at all levels — federal, state and local — shed workers. Most of the local jobs lost were teaching jobs.

Got that, everyone? "Most of the local [government] jobs lost were teaching jobs." Corbett -- elected on the 2010 promise of "jobs, jobs, jobs" -- just finished a legislative session in whiich the biggest accomplishment was passing a budget that cut $1.1 billion for public schools and universities, necessitating exactly the kind of layoffs that caused the national unemployment rate to rise last month. Here in Philadelphia, hundreds of teachers and school staffers are losing their jobs.

I hate to break this to the Tea Party, but when a teacher is employed...that's a job. When he's laid off, the unemployment rate goes up. The only initiative that Republicans have offered so far is a plan to destroy jobs, not create them.

And the bullpen lets in another run.