Who Cares About Jobs???

Jobs, one might consider them an important and fundamental underpinning of the ability to climb up through the levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs toward self actualization. There are certain necessary tools, attributes, abilities and situational dynamics that are required to be either innate to ones being or part of one’s situation in life before one can attain such lofty philosophical and psychological heights as those pertaining to self actualization. A job certainly counts as one of the things you need at the bottom of the needs ladder when your primary concern is leaving the paternal nest and starting a life of your own. As you progress through life and take on more and more responsibility for others such as a mate and possibly even a family the quality and security of your job becomes more and more important. In your later life when the children are raised and there is a tendency to want to reduce the amount of stress in your life and maybe even pursue your definition of self actualization the job or jobs you held will determine if you are financially able to do that. The point of all the foregoing is that everybody cares about jobs; everybody that is except John Boehner and the Republican Party.
Prior to the mid-term election John (cries-a-lot) Boehner’s favorite mantras came in two basic varieties and they were both related to the importance he and his compadre’s on the right attached to the national jobs outlook. One was that every breath President Obama took was a “jobs killing” attack on the American economy. The other was his oft repeated question of the president “Mr. President where are the jobs?” It seem now though that Mr. Boehner has had a sudden change of heart and direction from the one he promised he would take us in. Having become the speaker of the house Mr. Boehner has decided that everything from a woman’s right to reproductive healthcare and deficit reduction is much more urgently important than a jobs program. In fact his current attitude on jobs is that if we lose almost a million jobs this year “so be it” he says. When Mr. Boehner made the so be it quip he was responding to a question relative to only two hundred thousand jobs. Since then it has become painfully obvious that the republicans are the ones who are trying to retard if not destroy job growth in America.
One has to question why the republicans would try to subvert the economic growth we have enjoyed over the last two years as slow and as anemic as it has been. We have turned the corner on job growth, and the president has proposed some public and private sector programs that will if implemented continue that trend and strengthen it over time. Certainly we have the immediate and pressing need to both create jobs and sustain our economic growth. The president’s proposals relative to repairing and replacing aged and crumbling infrastructure, installing high speed rail service, investing in alternative energy and creating new industries that are ecologically sound certainly contribute to that scenario. So again why would the republican’s oppose job creation and tout a spending cuts program that between now and the next election will stall the economic recovery and cost us a million jobs more or less?
As is often the case in politics the answer is in the question. They currently have no one in their stable with the personality, intelligence, track record, charisma or following to challenge President Obama in 2012 if he is successful in turning around the economy and creating jobs even if at a rate lower and slower that we would all like to see. So when you are more beholden to the special interest who finance your existence and pay for your votes than you are to your conscience and the best interest of the people who elected you and you know you are going to lose an election that is held straight up you go to Plan B. Plan B is to subvert the economy as much as is necessary to weaken the president enough that they feel they have shot at defeating him. I don’t want to even consider what they would contemplate for Plan C if B fails them. I am just thankful that the secret service is not squeamish about considering such things.