Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why aren’t the powers that be tackling the jobs crisis?

Washington is the only city in America where housing values are going up. That may help explain why the political class is so divorced from the nation’s agonies. Sure, the entire nation celebrated the dispatch of Osama bin Laden, but when it comes to the economy, the Beltway is a world unto itself.

Two years from the official beginning of the “recovery,” America continues to suffer a deep and punishing jobs crisis. One in six Americans of working age is unemployed or underemployed. College students, laden with record levels of debt, are graduating into the worst jobs market since the Great Depression. Long-term unemployment is at unprecedented levels. At current rates of job growth, we won’t return to pre-recession employment levels until 2016. And the jobs that are being created — largely in the service industry — tend to have lower pay and benefits than the jobs that were lost.

Republicans won big in 2010 elections with now-House Speaker John Boehner bellowing coast to coast, “Where are the jobs?” But since coming to Washington, the Tea Party-dominated House has focused on everything but jobs — moving to repeal health-care reform, cripple financial reform, assail the Environmental Protection Agency, defund Planned Parenthood and NPR, and enact savage cuts in domestic spending.

Perhaps the reason is that the party is bereft of ideas on how to create jobs. Last week, Senate Republicans chose freshman Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to roll out a seven-point “Senate Republican Jobs Plan.” Portman, the Office of Management and Budget director under George W. Bush, was a curious choice, since he contributed to the administration that ran up record deficits, and produced zero job growth and declining incomes while driving the economy off the cliff.

MORE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why_arent_the_powers_that_be_tackling_the_jobs_crisis/2011/05/09/AFacMYhG_singlePage.html

In order to make the gold standard practicable, a great deal of wealth would have to be devalued or destroyed. It's occurred to me to wonder if that's what's underway.

Except they were convinced that President Obama wants to bankrupt the nation to usher in a new global currency and leadership. I had heard the North American Union conspiracies before, but a global union was much more biblical. One currency, numbers tatooed on our necks, APOCALYPSE!!!

I just don't think there is enough foresight in D.C. for this type of conspiracy. They see $$$$$$ flowing in from special interest groups, they don't want to lose the jobs they have, so they continue to target legislation that benefits those who pay, to hell with those who can't.

at least at the moment, because they are bought and paid for by the corporate state. However, people who are able to see past the bottom line may be pulling strings. It's a long shot, but I don't believe in coincidences of this type. Yeah, I'm a cynic.

extreme RW ideology of corporate/wealth welfare, income tax and income inequity, and perpetual wars/global hegemony. Nothing much else means diddle-dy-squat. :patriot:

An job-recovery would help re-elect Obama, and Dems with him ...

can't have that now can we.............

If you don't have a job, there's obviously something defective about YOU, and they don't have to lift a finger for your moral failings....

:sarcasm: just in case

and won't be until the guillotines are put back in use.

They don't give a rat's ass about those who don't.