And continuing another trend begun yesterday of jointly commenting on 2 related articles, these really interest me and are very related. It carries forward with the theme of wealth equality, which I think will be one of the central 2016 election issues. President Obama earned a little respect from me with this one. While it seems that all politicians love to trumpet about themselves whenever given the opportunity and only admit wrong doing when caught on video, this one is a bit different. It seems that the President is making a personal apology to the people who are continuing to struggle out there. There are so many of them that they cannot be ignored and to his credit he is not trying to do so. He is also making a very personal appeal to the Senate to continue the unemployment benefits that were ended at the end of the year. Fortunately for these poor people without jobs, they vote (in theory) and midterm elections are approaching. These politicians are also hearing from their struggling constituents, so neither party wants to appear callous and uncaring. So the timing could be right for this issue. Here is where we get the related story. You see as Obama was giving this speech in Washington, the Senate was there too and agreed to take up the issue again. What is now on the table is a 3 month extension that will cost $6.4 billion. It has sadly become a highly political issue that both parties are using for their own purposes. I understand that but it really misses the human element here. It is really simple math. The economy is doing better because companies (and people) tightened their belts and cut back in many areas, especially in the amounts of workers. They did so to survive and in doing so became more efficient. So it ends up that there are many more people out there than there are jobs. The real question here is what will be done long term. This discussion is about a 3 month band aid and there is nothing here about ways to create jobs for these people so they can get off unemployment. That is what the politicians need to be focusing on and I am sure they are. They just need to spend a lot more time and resources on it. I don’t mean to make all this sound easy because it certainly is not. But it is a problem that is getting worse and must be dealt with in some fashion, the sooner the better. As always, I remain hopeful.
Vote in Senate Starts Talks on Extending Unemployment Benefits
Orin Rosenfeld
9858 Glades Rd., Suite 209
Boca Raton, FL 33434 Phone: 561-756-1665
Fax: 561-470-0707
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