It doesn’t matter how you cut it, the bad times we are in are getting worse. It is easy to listen to the propaganda coming from Washington and being parroted by the news media. After all, everybody likes good news. But the truth is too often ignored. The hard facts are we have increased unemployment, lack of business investment, and a collapsing economy. Investors Business Daily (IBD), in an article of August 6, sums it up. To quote, “As the ‘recovery summer’ turns into a nightmare, one thing has become painfully clear: This is the most economically incompetent administration since the Great Depression.”
Obama administration spokeswoman, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, reported that the economy had turned around because of Obama’s "strong and immediate action". The only problem, she said, was Republicans who refuse to support a $26 billion bailout for state and local governments and their pampered unions. Shortly thereafter Solis resigned and went back to teaching. Why? One can only suspect that the truth became too much for her to bear.
According to IBD, America has lost 4.1 million jobs since Obama took office and 7.7 million since the recession began in December 2007. So most of the jobs lost have been under this administration.
Doing more arithmetic, since the start of 2010 we've averaged 93,000 new jobs a month. That's below the 120,000 we need just to soak up new job-market entrants. At this rate, it will take nearly seven years just to get back to 2007's number of jobs.
The country is in a depression. Unemployment is increasing. New jobs are not even coming close to the number of young people seeking employment, with 27,000 more new applicants a month entering the job market than there are new jobs available. Add to that Friday's jobs report indicated that unemployment in July was unchanged at 9.5%, but a net 131,000 jobs were lost on top of 97,000 more than first accounted for in May and June. And because of new tax laws, businesses are not making investments as they normally would.
Don't believe it? Listen to what key U.S. business groups said Friday after July's disastrous jobs data were released.
"The current rate of employment is too slow to replace the more than 8 million jobs lost in the recession — not in the next year or two, perhaps even not in the next five years," said Bart Van Ark, chief economist of the Conference Board.
"Policies that have increased taxes, increased regulation and increased uncertainty have clearly not been a prescription for returning America to work," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the Chamber of Commerce. That about sums it up.
New Philadelphia is deeply affected by the state of the United States economy. Without jobs, taxes collected by the City are lower. Without business expansion, jobs will not increase. Business expansion, including the New Philadelphia area, is close to nil.
While the City Administration and City Council have no control over the federal economy, they do have control over how City funds are appropriated and spent. It doesn’t matter if you talk of trillions of dollars spent by the Democratic controlled Congress and the Obama administration, the out of work family, of the City of New Philadelphia, the problem is the same. If you don’t have the money to pay the bills, you’re going to be in trouble.
New Philadelphia is close to financial disaster. City revenues are down with no relief in sight. But expenditures are on the increase. In three months employee contracts will be reopened with money as the major issue. But with both the City Council and Administration, money management seems to be at the bottom of the priority list. Planning for the financial future of the city is non-existent. The major concern of the Council President appears to be creating a solution to solve the complaints of Administrative personnel about salaries and benefits. The Mayor, at the same time, is contemplating the hiring of a Human Resources Director, a position which on the average pays $80,000 a year not including benefits.
The City of New Philadelphia should have as its first priority the future of the City. It is time that efforts to cut back on expenses. It will take hard work on the part of the Administration, City Council, and city employees, to produce a viable financial plan which will carry New Philadelphia through the next eight to ten years of financial difficulties. Continuing as we are, without an economic plan, without sacrifice on the part of city employees equal to the sacrifice being made by the New Philadelphia citizen in these poor economic times, New Philadelphia will face the choice of reduced services due to layoffs of city employees, increased taxes, or both, and a devastated economy as people leave the city to seek employment elsewhere.
Mr. Mayor, Council Members, appointed Administrative personnel, face the facts. We are in trouble and it is your responsibility to solve our economic problems. Empty promises, pandering to city employees, decisions based on party and other affiliations, passing legislation without appropriate research into cost, should no longer be acceptable. By accepting the positions you actively pursued you also accepted the responsibility to put the City and its residents above your personal ambitions. Now is the time for you to accept that responsibility.
(Excerpts for this article came from, and with permission, of the Investors Business Daily editorial The Propaganda Of Incompetents.)
No comments:
Post a Comment