Hey Candidates, Time to Talk Jobs
Flickr User Heath School Social Studies
This article in The Atlantic has unleashed my angry inner cynic. There’s no use covering our ears and pouting when the obvious verdict is ringing in red and blue heads alike— “ neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney is going to turn things around anytime soon,” because neither candidate has an actual strategy to combat the creeping unemployment rate.
President Obama has his American Jobs Act, but with a $447-billion price tag and national debt hovering around a preposterous $15 trillion, Congress at most will distill the bill to its non-essentials and pass another dud. Republicans will undoubtedly stonewall any other legislation pertaining to hefty government spending. Besides, gigantic stimulus packages are so 2009.
Romney’s infamous 59-point plan sounds promising, but lacks the one key point that would have made it an even 60—uh…job creation. Romney et al. insist that his pervasive economic restructuring would spur job growth. At what rate and with what details, however, no one actually knows, so this non-plan seems about as fit to fix the country as Obama’s doomed proposal.
Meanwhile, both campaigns are having too much fun casting their rivals as incompetent, waffling pariahs to brainstorm some ideas that don’t involve trying to enact expensive programs with Monopoly money or summoning Ronald Reagan.
As a newly anointed voter and someone who will need a legitimate job in the next two years, my ballot’s not going anywhere until someone proves his mettle. The hardy hum of Americans at work is the only remedy for the economy, and he who has the best plan should win the day come November.
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