FCDC Members in The Washington Post
Two FCDC Members’s Letters to the Editor have been published recently in The Washington Post. First, Mount Vernon District Secretary Mary Paden made today’s edition with this piece about Republican’s rejecting unemployment monies:
Unemployed and Outraged in Virginia
As an unemployed Virginian, I am outraged at our House of Delegates’ refusal to extend unemployment benefits [“Assembly Rejects $125 Million for Expanded Jobless Benefits,” Metro, April 9]. Rep. Ken Cuccinelli II (R-Fairfax) had it backward when he said that the “unemployed are being used by this administration to hold a gun to the head of this General Assembly.”
What world does he live in? Maybe not the Virginia where 300,000 workers (6.7 percent) are unemployed. Republicans in the Assembly said they were worried that helping the unemployed now might force a rise in the unemployment tax to Virginia businesses. But according to the U.S. Labor Department, Virginia employers pay an average unemployment tax rate of 0.29 percent. The national average is 0.66 percent; the rates in the District and Maryland are 0.37 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.
I think it is Mr. Cuccinelli and his party-of-no colleagues in the Assembly who are holding a gun to the heads of the unemployed. That may end with the next election, because unemployed people will have all day to vote on Nov. 3.
MARY PADEN
Alexandria
Next, FCDC Vice Chair for Voter Registration and GOTV Chris Ambrose, also from Mt. Vernon, made it in last week.
New Leadership for GM
Republican Sen. Bob Corker’s criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to pressure G. Richard Wagoner Jr. to leave General Motors was out of line [“Hard Line on Auto Aid Puts Bailed-Out Firms on Notice,” front page, March 31].
Mr. Corker called Mr. Wagoner’s resignation a “sideshow” meant “to distract us from the fact that the administration has no progress to announce.” But President Obama is doing exactly what he should be doing: requiring accountability for the taxpayers’ money.
The hands-off approach of the Republicans was largely the cause of this crisis. After its lax oversight allowed the financial system to collapse, the Bush administration stepped in last fall — once all the horses had left the barn. Even then, all President George W. Bush did was throw money at the barn.
Mr. Obama is doing all he can to stabilize the situation he inherited. For the Republicans to criticize him for demanding accountability and sound business plans from industries receiving federal money is beyond the pale. Some cooperation from the Republican side of the aisle is long overdue. The party’s continued partisanship in the middle of the worst economic crisis the United States has faced in nearly a century is appalling.
CHRISTOPHER AMBROSE
Lorton
Keep up the good work!
