Government-Sector Jobs Are Needed Now

The President of the United States took advantage of being just that on Friday Morning. Barack Obama

used the “bully pulpit” as it is referred to in D.C circles to address the fact that Government-sector jobs are needed now. After basically asking German Chancellor Angela Merkel to use her nation's thriving economy to bailout the rest of the continent he then took on that obstructionist faction known as The United States House of Representatives and urged them to pass his American Jobs Acts Bill that he put in front of them last summer.

In explaining the importence of the bill being passed the President had an unfortunate slip of the tongue by referring to private sector job growth as being “fine” when it comes to the jobs picture, and while Fox News and conservative bloggers predictably pounced, What the mainstream media and liberal outlets failed to give enough attention to, (Are you listening MSNBC) is an event that happened literally minutes after the President left the podium.

Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney could not wait to respond to the President's comments. “He (Obama) says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin? The American People did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American People.”

Now I hate playing “Let's compare the gaffes” whether it's with surrogates or the candidates themselves ,but if we are The President's brief mischaracterization of the economy doesn't compare with Romney's verbal smack of public sector workers. Romney might as well had walked into every police station, every firehouse and every classroom with his middle fingers extended, also the notion that helping the American People means turning your back on public sector workers and people with public sector experience is as ridiculous as anything uttered by anyone associated with the GOP game we have seen this political season.

What Romney and the Republicans fail to understand or choose to publicly ignore is if American Corporations are setting on two trillion dollars in cash, but not investing it, and American consumers are not spending their own hard earned cash because they need to put food on their table or pay their bills, The only entity left that can revive the economy is government, and they do it by hiring the dreaded teachers, firefighters and construction workers that the GOP hate so much.

Let's also not forget the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of American Politics right now, House Speaker John Boehner and his second in command House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who when the dissapointing May jobs numbers came out were in front of every television camera possible screaming about how the country is going in the wrong direction, yet they will for the rest of this year not even look at the Jobs Act Bill, because putting into law means helping the economy, and possibly assuring the President's re-election, which if you listen to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not the number one goal for Republicans in Congress.

The great New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman who's alter I worship at when it comes to everything on the economy recently wrote that “If public employment had been allowed to grow the way that it did under George W. Bush, we'd have 1.3 million more government workers and an unemployment rate at 7% or under. The destruction of public sector jobs has also cut along racial lines. The New York Times also recently reported that “tens of thousands of once solidly middle class African-American public-sector workers, police officers, firefighters and bus drivers have been laid off since the recession ended in June of 2009.

Republicans want their cake and the ability to eat it saying on one hand government jobs are an impediment to dealing with the nation's debt crisis, while accusing workers of leaching off of the wealthy by accepting government assistance and unemployment insurance when their jobs are taken away. Despite what Roger Ailes and every Fox News talking point will tell you the conservative solution, austerity is what has Europe in the financial mess they find themselves in, Great Britain who was served up a huge dose of austerity by Prime Minister David Cameron is now experiencing a double dip recession.

Public-sector jobs are needed in this economy and needed now, and Mitt Romney needs to understand that a guy who has car elevators for multiple cars at his multiple mansions, needs construction workers to build roads and bridges to drive those cars on.

I want to know what you think, e-mail me at ebrew79@live.com with your comments or just to find out about previous columns and new ones coming up. Also follow me on twitter @ebrew79. thanks