At the rate of 20,000 Americans a day. They swipe that plastic card at the local grocery store, dragging home those food essentials that keep America going. They may drive or walk or take the local bus back home, past the “closed” signs, foreclosed homes, boarded up shops, and signs of neighborhood decay accelerated and punctuated by the economic collapse enveloping them. Plastic? Most of us use credit cards for so many of our purchases. What’s so surprising about these 36 million folks – almost one in every eight of us? Those aren’t credit cards; they’re the new and improved delivery mechanism for that ubiquitous symbol of the welfare state: food stamps.
Republicans are honing in on a stimulus package that didn’t seem to have much of an effect on jobs creation and retention, and after months of governmental reports – most recently from the Federal Reserve – that the jobless rate, particularly in those states that were hardest hit, is unlikely to improve to 2007 numbers for five or six years, the Democrats are just beginning to wake up as well. Let any politician believe that a successful foreign policy and a clear (actually, very muddy) march to a military victory will overcome a decimated and hopeless economy on the home front, let them note that there are major Congressional elections coming next year and a Presidential election in 2012. Creating jobs requires lead time, and our elected representatives are rapidly running out of that.
Yeah, we would like the Taliban and al Qaeda operatives to leave Afghanistan, and Sunday’s announcement by the Iranian government “to build 10 industrial scale uranium enrichment facilities, a dramatic expansion of the program in defiance of U.N. demands it halt enrichment efforts.” Washington Post (November 29th) doesn’t make any of us feel any better or safer, but in the end, “it’s the economy, stupid!” Except for the “fat cat” stock market, there are few signs that the “recession” is remotely over. A few decent holiday sales (but not particularly great) cannot reverse the overall picture.
According to the New York Times (November 29th), there are 239 counties in the United States where 25% or more of the residents receive the benefits of food stamps. The discrete plastic cards coupled with the shared experience of the recession have all but taken the stigma out of these contributors to “nutritional aid.” But these folks are hit particularly hard by these trying times: “Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.” The Times.
The grassroots working Americans seem to have been largely ignored in the litany of TARP and stimulus money promulgated by the government. That lovely mortgage reduction program, aimed at stemming the tide of traditional mortgages (versus the subprime kind) falling into foreclosure hell? “Last month, an oversight panel created by Congress reported that fewer than 2,000 of the 500,000 loan modifications then in progress had become permanent under Making Home Affordable. When the Treasury releases new numbers next month, it is expected to report a disappointingly small number of permanent loan modifications, with estimates in the tens of thousands out of the more than 650,000 borrowers now in the program…. More unsatisfactory data is likely to intensify pressures on the Obama administration to mount a more muscular effort to stem foreclosures beyond the Treasury’s campaign this week. Populist anger has been fanned by a growing perception that the Treasury has lavished generous bailouts on Wall Street institutions while neglecting ordinary homeowners — this, in the midst of double-digit unemployment, which is daily sending more households into delinquency.” The Times (Nov. 28th)
We supported the biggest financial institutions, gave them access to cheap fed funds, and watched as they feasted in risk-taking and reaped the rewards of their investments, leaving mortgages at massive foreclosure rates, credit to America’s small and mid-sized businesses further evaporated and unemployment continuing to rise… unemployment spurred by those very same big financial institutions clamoring for costs savings (producing more layoffs) so that the profit margins on those investments could soar. Somehow in all of this, the little guy was overlooked. Tax cuts? Great if you have sufficient income (or any income) where such cuts matter, but they only matter to those with higher incomes. Okay Congress, Republicans who say no to almost everything and Democrats who prefer infighting to problem-solving, what’re you going to do for everybody else?
I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.
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