There are two reasons why this is happening. There are two reasons, for example, why Atlas Van Lines can’t find anyone to drive its trucks in Louisville, and why Dallas can only afford to give job training to 43 out of the 23,500 people who have lost their jobs in the last 10 weeks.
The first reason is that conservatives are assholes and they refuse to do anything to help anyone if it costs any taxpayers any money.
The second reason is that conservatives bankrupted this country by slashing taxes on rich people, committing us to over a decade of war in Asia, enacting massive (and poorly designed) new federal programs and entitlements, and failing to regulate Wall Street.
And, no, increasing education spending, creating a drug benefit under Medicare, and liberating Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein didn’t cost the taxpayers any money because conservatives borrowed every dime they spent to do those things. And then they told us that we had to make the middle class foot the bill for it and the poor to take the brunt of the cost of balancing the budget hole they created.
But, you know, there’s a third reason why, for example, “[f]ederal money for the primary training program for dislocated workers is 18 percent lower in today’s dollars than it was in 2006, even though there are six million more people looking for work now.” That’s because conservatives are doing anything they can to prevent President Obama from improving the economy, and that includes refusing to help people find work.
If you want to know why 16-year-old Aubrey Sandifer has to walk 20 minutes in the rain to school, ask conservatives. If you want to know why “Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away,” ask conservatives.
Ask the conservatives on the Supreme Court about this:
With an anticipated bank account of more than $200 million, officials at American Crossroads said they would probably begin their campaign [against the president] this month. But they said they would focus the bulk of the first phase from May through July, which they believe is a critical period for making an impression on voters, before summer vacations and the party conventions take place.
Steven J. Law, the group’s leader, said the ads would address the challenge of unseating a president who polls show is viewed favorably even though many people disapprove of his handling of the economy. Basically, Mr. Law said, “how to dislodge voters from him.”
Set aside the war on women, or gays, or blacks, or Latinos, the middle class. Just focus on the most basic stuff. All across this country people are suffering for the simple reason that conservatives already have too much power.
The idea that they might gain more power should be a complete non-starter for everyone but the most selfish people in the highest tax brackets.
Hate to rain on your parade, but many Democrats were complicit in a lot of what you mention.
And you’re complicit because you pay taxes and are demanding more taxes. Many leftists oppose increasing taxation because they believe that tax money will not go to fill these holes, but to more war.
It’s arguable that we’re all complicit when you do that. And you know what? It’s why we lose.
Boo is absolutely right, Calvin. He said conservatives, not republicans. Many powerful dems hold some conservative ideas, and its these bad ideas that led to the mess we’re in. Here’s hoping voters out there in the heartland have learned a few things about these ideas in these past few years, and can ignore the right wing Koch-brother funded smoke and mirror show thats about to be unleashed over the next few months.
You are just exhausting.
There is no third party. You are not a special snowflake, and nobody will ever turn to you for leadership. Grow up.
Actually, that one seems a little inexplicable regardless of what is going on in Washington. The economy can’t find enough truckers anymore? That just seems screwy, and more complicated than a blurb in a Times article can satisfactorily explain.
This is populist demagoguing. The country is in no way bankrupted. Sadly, we’re still in one of the more favorable fiscal situations among developed world nations.
We might be in one of the better fiscal situations, but conservatives are saying we are broke and must pursue austerity. That is being bankrupt, from a fiscal perspective.
As for truckers, that’s a little confusing too. Why Louisville alone? But it is true that to get a commercial license to drive big rigs now costs several thousand dollars to to a driving school.
Don’t be foolish. With a $4000 barrier to entry, you have trouble believing that it’s hard to find truckers?
And you don’t think that the huge deficits we’re running aren’t crippling our ability to spend federal dollars on job training?
Wake up and smell the Tea Party.
People have been getting CDLs for decades now, pre-recession and pre-runaway education cost inflation. It’s not a new or foreign requirement. I don’t doubt that new licenses are going down year-over-year, and that government and industry need to do a much better job of compensating for that, but it could be a case of Atlas building a labor model designed around feeding off the federal funded pipeline and expecting to churn through seasonal workers, rather than offering more competitive wages for experienced drivers and CDL holders.
I think that if deficits were previously low, it’d be a political liability to raise them. I think that if deficits were zero or we were somehow previously running a surplus, it’d be politically dangerous to deficit finance instead.
I don’t think it’s a relative framework, governed by numbers and budgets. I think it’s an absolute problem. One party doesn’t believe in spending on individual welfare. They believe in spending on corporate welfare, primarily through the tax code. The people can go fuck themselves. Regardless of the true fiscal situation.
they can’t find enough drivers because there are not enough people who are able to afford to pay the upfront cost of obtaining a driving license. This is because there is no longer any financial assistance available. Can they fix the problem by lowering the cost? Sure. But that might introduce a safety issue. Can they attract more drivers by offering better pay? Perhaps, but it still remains that there is a substantial barrier to entry caused by the initial investment required. Atlas may have to create their own loan program.
Well, the .1% wants to turn us into Mexico where they have it pretty well except for the ongoing kidnapping and murder of their kids. i.e. for the 99.9% no jobs at all, at all unless we walk to Canada. No schools, no police force and the .1% spending whatever on car elevators (and personal security to no avail – because there is no police force – hoping to keep their kids from being kidnapped and murdered)
20 minutes? In the rain? At 16?
This is hardship?
Actually, yes. People pay property taxes, federal taxes, and in some cases state and local taxes for public education, and that is supposed to include transport to and from school.
In the communities I grew up in and currently, people who live within a mile and a half of the school are not on a bus route. There are lots of towns and cities which students take transit to school.
Twenty minutes is not a hardship.
Law? Regulation? Who says it’s mandatory? Especially when gas prices are draining school budgets.
and what else is draining school budgets? it is not just the price of gas. Let Texas put in a budget line item for oats and carriages.
Administrative salaries and testing costs are draining school budgets on the cost side as well. But the biggest drains are on the revenue side; school districts are being stuck with federal, state, and local budget cuts and have no taxing authority of their own. Check out what Rahm Emmanuel is doing to the Chicago Public Schools.