Obama, The Totally Buff Saviour Of The Unemployed

Tania Khadder was recently laid off from her job as a TV producer, and started the blog unemploymentality.com with her similarly laid off friend John Henion. In this, the second of their guest posts, she tells us about Obama’s latest wheezes to get America back on track.

In a play that would make John Maynard Keynes proud, president-elect Barack Obama is now talking about a minimum $800bn stimulus package to inject life back into our struggling economy. He’s asking that a big chunk of that money go to bolstering unemployment benefits. And his job growth target appears to escalate with each new, increasingly bleak unemployment report.  He now aims to create or save four million jobs – a million more than he promised just two days prior. A huge part of this is to come from a major public works initiative. A man with a – gasp! – logical plan. While the Bush administration poured trillions of dollars into senseless wars, America’s infrastructure continued to crumble.

Yes, after eight years of asinine policy, it’s kind of exciting to look forward to a leader with half a brain. Obama to the rescue… or so we hope. 

Of course, hope alone does not a healthy economy make, and I refuse to buy into the hero worship our president-elect seems to evoke (though it’s kind of hard not to worship a man with such rock hard abs). The new administration must make good on its ever-growing promises – and fast. More than half a million Americans lost their jobs in December. And so far, January is looking just as dire. Even normally recession-proof sectors – like legal services – are suffering. And analysts, as well as fellow Democrats, say that Obama’s newly upgraded $800bn package is still not enough to rescue our economy-in-shambles – at least not in the short term.  

It comes as no surprise then that unemployment offices nationwide are overwhelmed, some of them to the point of total meltdown. And in what seems like a case of the WORST TIMING EVER, California unemployment offices are scheduled to shut down two Fridays a month due to budget cuts. Although, if my own maddening experience with them is any indication, these closures will have very little impact; it really is impossible to imagine a less efficient, more antiquated service. Though they will likely give it a good try, and I will likely eat my words.  

In other bailout news, we still don’t know where the first $350bn of the financial rescue plan went; “there hasn’t been enough oversight. We found out this week in a report that we are not tracking where this money is going”, Obama said over the weekend. Not unlike Iraq war funding, much of the bailout money appears to be unaccounted for. George Bush and his cronies sure have a knack for this sort of thing. Luckily, Obama plans to overhaul TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Programme) for the remaining half of the package – with plans to increase oversight, and to ensure that more of the funds directly reach homeowners and small businesses.  

Here’s hoping.

Posted by Tania Khadder in Other | January 12, 2009 10:20AM |