LePage’s Cure for High Unemployment: Get a Job

I read a story in the Huffington Post. It said that at the Maine
GOP convention, Gov. Paul LePage (R) received an enthusiastic
standing ovation from his fellow Republicans for saying that all
able-bodied out-of-work Americans need to “get off the couch”
and go find employment.

He wanted the state legislature to pass structural changes to
welfare, saying, “Maine’s welfare program is cannibalizing the
rest of state government. To all you able-bodied people out there:
Get off the couch and get yourself a Job.”

“I understand welfare because I lived it,” he added. “I
understand the difference between a want and a need. The Republican
Party promised to bring welfare change. We must deliver on this
promise.”

LePage has been pushing for these reforms for months, which the
Democrats have argued, define Welfare Reform to broadly. They
include things like disability, Maine Care, which is Medicaid, as
Welfare”

Mike Tipping, communications director for the Maine People’s
Alliance, said LePage’s comments were “downright offensive to
Maine people searching for work in a difficult economy, especially
considering his embarrassing record of failing to invest in programs
that create jobs and cutting assistance for the unemployed while at
the same time giving massive new tax breaks to the wealthy.”

I have been getting Telemarketing Calls from the Sheriffs Office,
From Firefighters, and from Veterans, and I donate what I can. I’m
struggling to find work myself. Why am I paying taxes with this not
being taken care of? What is wrong with a country when it can’t take
care of firefighters, Veterans, and Law Enforcement agencies, or the
people, but can continually give tax cuts to millionaires who take
the money out of the country, invest in overseas companies paying
slave wages, and then pretend like they are competing with someone
else by constantly raising prices when they are competing with
themselves?

Some people feel good about people like LePage working is way up,
or whatever he may have done. But that was a different world.
Before, if one had a dream and was willing to do the work, one could
start making money by even selling rags and end up as buying houses,
renting apartments, or whatever was possible. If one worked hard
enough in a factory one could move to a supervisory position. One
could work their way through school and come out of the other side
without debt.

When I was young a person could work for the summer and save
enough to pay tuition for the college year. Nowadays this is
impossible. Costs have been going up and real wages have been frozen
and going down since 1968. Jobs have been exported overseas.  The more profits the companies make the more they can afford to invest in jobs overseas with slave wages or low paying jobs here that are worthless.  There is a major problem here. Saying
“Go out and get a job,” when he is the one in charge of creating
jobs, but thwarting the creation of them at the same time, is not
acceptable.

There is a lot of unnecessary struggling going on now, when it
comes to the economy. The one thing that I can see contributing to
it all is that companies and corporations want people to do the work without paying them.
Now it has gotten so bad that LePage even wants people to work not
only with no pay, but with no job! What a world we live in!

Dr. John Gilmore, D. Min.

Life-Coach, Writer, Workshop Leader

www.nextstepcoaching.4t.co

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