Obama on the economy

The ranks of the unemployed swelled this last month according the Labor Department as reported by the Wall Street Journal;

The session got off to a sour start following the Labor Department’s release of data showing that the unemployment rate soared 0.4 percentage point to 6.1% in August, the highest since September 2003. The unemployment rate was under 5% as recently as February.

Of course the Obama campaign seized the moment as a fund raising opportunity and sent me this email;

We learned just this morning that unemployment jumped to its highest rate in five years, and our economy lost 605,000 jobs this year alone — at a time when John McCain believes that the fundamentals of our economy are “strong.”

The fundamentals are indeed strong. I didn’t get an email from the Obama campaign when it was announced earlier in the week that durable good orders went up last month – surprising economists. But unemployment is a problem. I’d like the Obama campaign to tell us where the Bush Administration or John McCain have made bad decisions in regards to the economy instead of just blaming them for some nebulous policy that drove us into this.

Anyone remember Republicans mentioning that a minimum wage increase would cause unemployment last year? The only thing the Democrat-controlled Congress passed in their two-year session was a tax on employers. The minimum wage increase triggered many increases in union wages pegged to the minimum wage and that impacted more than a wage increase on unskilled workers.

Congress also refuses to budge on accessing our natural resources like oil…the increase in oil prices impacts businesses (the people who hire other people). They have to pay the higher prices because they need the fuel to operate or the goods that the fuel brings them, so the only place they can save money is to cut labor costs.

So why isn’t the Obama campaign at least giving us a break on domestic oil to improve the unemployment situation? Is this the kind of change we’re in for in an Obama Administration? Is there really no hope? That same email Obama sent me said;

John McCain and the Republicans had all week to make their case — and they didn’t do it.

The whole Republican convention went by without offering a single idea about how to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

What concrete policy does Obama have to correct unemployment – beyond taxing those of us who haven’t lost our jobs?

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Economy, Politics