Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

 What is the number-one concern for Americans this coming mid-term election year?

It’s not body counts in Iraq.

It’s not nukes in Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea.

It’s not even underwear at the airport.

It’s jobs at home.

And politicians up for re-election in 2010 better pay attention.

That’s according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

He is exactly correct.

The federal spending package passed last year was just enough to keep Wall Street from collapsing.

Still, Main Street needs relief after the $8 trillion housing bubble burst during the last days of the Bush administration.

And no politician can really count on running for or against health care reform and its individual mandates for coverage since it won’t take effect for four years.

But without solid, good-paying jobs today, how can we afford health care tomorrow?

The future for workers looking for employment looks grim.

To Reich, there are five likelihoods, all of which point to unemployment will rise above 10 percent next fall.

You can almost rule out both a “double-dip recession” and a “strong recovery,” and forget about a “stalled” or a “solid” recovery.

We’re in a “jobless recovery” with pundits and politicos fudging numbers with the aim at covering up the fact that the workweek hours have shrunk with workers just putting in more off hours for free.

Thus, no new jobs would have been created.

This perception of job creation will be key, he explained in “What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010.”

“If it looks like jobs are coming back, they may forgive a high absolute level of unemployment — even one as high as 10 percent,” he wrote. “But if it looks like jobs aren’t coming back, that we may be stuck with a high level of joblessness for years, voters will take out even more of their anxieties on Democrats next November.”

But with Republicans promising to cut spending and the deficit, we’re pretty much stuck.

That said, can Republicans mount a comeback?

GOP chairman Michael Steele thinks not.

Judging by its lack of cash flow, the Republican National Committee is also stuck with the weak economy and poor political capital.

This — the largest Republican support group  in the nation — has only $8.7 million in the bank.

And it faces 37 governor races, 12 huge Senate contests, not to mention runs in the House and, of course, the coming redistricting fight!

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), in contrast, has $13 million debt-free now.

And it’ll need every penny in its defense of the Wall Street bailouts.

They took our jobs!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLni3wbndls)

— Nathan Diebenow