RUSH: Harold Meyerson writing in the Washington Post. Harold Meyerson, huge leftist, I mean radical. Bill Ayers without the bombs kind of leftist. He’s got a piece in the Washington Post: “An Economic Recovery that Leaves Workers Further Behind.” This is a guy that supports Obama, supported Obama, wants Obama to be king. “Many of the reasons are widely known: Rebounding from a financial crisis takes an excruciatingly long time; the huge decline in housing values has reduced AmericansÂ’ purchasing power; large corporations are making do with fewer employees — at least, in this country. But what really sets the current recovery apart from all its predecessors –“
By the way, there isn’t one. But we’ll play along here. “But what really sets the current recovery apart from all its predecessors is this: Almost three years after economic growth resumed –” This guy wants us to believe we’ve been in economic growth for three years! Three years we’ve been in a recovery. There was no recession, I guess. I’m sorry. I can’t help interrupting myself, folks. Let me go back to the beginning here. “But what really sets the current recovery apart from all its predecessors is this: Almost three years after economic growth resumed, the real value of AmericansÂ’ paychecks is stubbornly still shrinking.” So after three years of the Obama “recovery” — ahem — people are getting poorer.
“According to FridayÂ’s Bloomberg Brief, ‘the pace of income gains is well below that of the past two jobless recoveries and real average hourly earnings continue to decline.’ The Bloomberg report cites one reason for this anomaly: Most of the jobs being created are in low-wage sectors. According to Bloomberg, fully 70 percent of all job gains in the past six months were concentrated in restaurants and hotels –” Oh. Oh. Who would wanna work there? Oh, heaven forbid. What a rotten recovery. This is the problem, 70% of the jobs are in restaurants and hotels. Hence, it’s a modern-day hamburger flipper thing, exactly right. In fact, you would almost expect to hear that in the rest of this column. This is a huge leftist complaining Obama’s jobs are nothing but hamburger flipper jobs, except now they’re happening in hotels and restaurants.
Oh, and health care and home health care. That’s where the jobs are. Also retail trade and temporary employment agencies. “These four sectors employ just 29 percent of the countryÂ’s workforce but account for the vast majority of the jobs being created.” And he goes on to lament on page two, only the rich are recovering. Wonder why that is? Traditionally what the Democrats have told us is that the rich are recovering because they’re stealing from the poor. The math on that I’ve never understood, but they keep making the claim. The rich are getting rich by stealing from the poor. And I guess that’s happening now. The rich are stealing from restaurant and hotel workers, because the rich are recovering. “This recovery differs from its predecessors because it is concentrated among the affluent, and almost entirely among the very rich.” You think there might be a reason for that?
And here’s Obama, USA Today: “Tax the Rich to Help Grow the Economy.” Worked in Europe, didn’t it? You know, Europe is really booming. Greece, Spain, Germany, UK, really booming, the way they tax the rich. Obama said, “Let me ask you, what’s the better way to make our economy stronger? Do we give … tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country? Or should we make investments in education and research and health care and our veterans?” I am 61 years old. We have been making “investments” in education my whole life. What do we have to show for it?
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