Stimulating New Jobs: Where's the Leadership?

New York Times columnist Frank Rich got it exactly right when he stated:

"As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all."

Anger did rise, and it's still boiling up. There should be more job-creating stimulus spending now and more focus on the "real" people in the American economy: workers, mid-level and low-level managers, small-business owners and entrepreneurs starting new companies.

Yes, the appalling problems in the upper levels of the American economy must be fixed. At the same time, it is vital to deal with the difficulties, challenges and economic emergencies now facing people below the rank of "Master of the Universe." Specifically, emergency focus now should be given to Main Street and rural America, as well.

Where are the Congressional and White House leaders who can cut through the bailout noise and be stronger--and louder--advocates for the millions of Americans struggling in the heartland? These layoff victims need jobs now and can't find any, and thousands of small businesses who could hire them are unable to get crucial loans.

"Congress and the White House Team Up to Tackle Middle America's Deepening Crisis" -- that should (but won't) be tomorrow's big headline.


-- Si Dunn

A Digital March on Washington

It's time for a digital march on Washington--a million-blog, million-Tweet march--to get Congress and the White House to pay more attention to small business.

Small businesses are responsible for producing about 75 percent of all new jobs in this economically troubled land.

If small business owners could receive just a fraction of the staggering billions of dollars now being shoveled into the bailout shredders, we could create millions of jobs at a time when millions of jobs are needed.

Put economic crooks like Bernard Madoff under the jail. Fire the mega-wealthy executives who flew their companies deep into the ground. And start distributing money to everyone with a small business, no matter how small--with the restriction that it be used to expand operations and hire new employees.

A digital march on Washington. No one needs to organize this or set up a non-profit group or collect membership dues.

Just blog, Tweet, email...make any kind of digital noise you can toward our leaders in Washington. Do it now!

Tell Congress and the White House to quit staring, mouths agape, at AIG and other firms that have done horrendous damage to the national and world economies.

Urge them, implore them, order them (we elected them) to wake up and put some significant new muscle into small business.

It's time to start the recovery from the bottom up. The top, clearly, is just too screwed up.


-- Si Dunn

John McCain to Fight Global Warming by Cutting Earth's Atmosphere

By Si Dunn

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Building on his promise to preserve and extend George W. Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans, Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced today that he will fight global warming by removing 50 percent of the nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere by 2012.

"It's mostly an inert gas, folks. It just floats there, takes up space, and does nothing to contribute to economic growth," McCain declared at an impromptu press conference near the Lone Sailor statue at Washington's Navy Memorial. "So we're gonna suck it straight out of the sky and start creating more room for carbon and other aerial byproducts of a robust, growing economy."

To avoid a nitrogen glut, McCain also announced a plan to encourage automakers to voluntarily retrofit existing SUVs and other gas-guzzling vehicles to run on nitrogen by 2058. "Yeah, the cars will be pretty old by then," McCain conceded. "But if they are kept up on blocks in a decent garage, they can provide affordable transportation and housing for the poor--housing that the federal government won't have to subsidize--fifty years from now. What low-income family wouldn't want the chance to live in a classic Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban or Lincoln Navigator and also drive it around burning almost-free nitrogen?"

A spokesman for the Obama campaign had no immediate comment. But a well-placed Obama consultant hinted that the Democratic contender may now be working on a plan to reduce hot-air emissions inside the Beltway. "He'll say that we deserve a cooler government. And the best way to get it is to reduce Republicans in the House and Senate by 60 percent, or more, by 2012."

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Bush on Climate Change: Better Never Than Late?

By Si Dunn

With barely nine months left in his lame-duck presidency, George W. Bush is set to propose a “new strategy” for reducing greenhouse gases.

Details have not yet leaked out. But some pundits predict Bush will proclaim that making his tax cuts permanent is the only way to save the planet from thermal runaway. Others speculate that he will call upon all environmentalists to “surge.” Or, he may send Condoleezza Rice on a secret mission to meet with dissident Chinese climatologists.

More boldly, however, Bush may order a preemptive nuclear strike on water vapor, which causes more of the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide does. That way, if we can’t have victory in Iraq, maybe we can at least have some serious shock and awe… in the stratosphere.

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Fixing Washington -- Two Modest Proposals

Can Congress and the White House get any more unpopular in 2008? Well, yeah, but their 2007 popularity (or lack of popularity) ratings have been plenty ugly enough. Indeed, they were, as many Texans like to say, downright double-ugly as the year ended.

Modest Proposal #1: To end Washington, D.C.’s “inside the Beltway” fixation on running—and ruining--America, why not move the nation’s capitol to a city near the geographical center of the United States? Yep, Wichita, Kansas, should become the next vortex sutra of American politics. Our leaders should have to rule from the very heart of the heartland. And those poor, left-behind K Street lobbyists? They will just have to buy plane tickets, bus tickets and train tickets if they wish to bring their bags of cash into the new center of influence.

Modest Proposal #2: We can keep electing presidents, vice presidents and governors. But everyone else over the age of 40 should have to register for the political draft and, if selected, be required to serve a four-year term as a U.S. or state senator or representative. There will be no more campaigns and no more cash donations for these offices. All political draftees will attend eight weeks of special boot camp, where they will re-learn American history and appropriate state history. They also will study the contents of key historical documents and learn how to work together as teams willing to honor, protect, defend and serve their states and nation. It will be government of the people, by the people, for the people, in a much truer sense.

Religions (or no religion), handicaps, birthplace, and income levels should be no impediment to holding office, as long as one is a native or naturalized citizen. Someone living on Social Security, Medicare and Republican rip-off drug plans could be drafted and suddenly find themselves drawing a U.S. Senator’s salary, with full benefits.

Anyone claiming to be “too stupid” or “too crooked” to serve will not be allowed to dodge the political draft. America has survived many episodes of these two qualities already, at all levels of government.

Moving the capitol to the heartland and letting America’s “real” people rule will not destroy our nation. Indeed, it couldn’t make us any worse than what we have already become: a dollar-ocracy where everything, including loyalty and patriotism, gets sold to the highest bidder.

These two changes might even help us become the kind of nation we were taught to believe in—and often did believe in—when we were young: America the Beautiful; esteemed leader of the free world; open to all, friend to all; the land of opportunity—not opportunism.

Wichita vortex America!

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