Eric Cantor unveils his jobs program
By Leonard Boasberg A 1961 drawing by the great Washington Post cartoonist Herblock showed Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican and retail heir, looking down disdainfully at a poor woman and her children and saying, "If you had any initiative, you'd go out and inherit a department store." I can picture a similar cartoon featuring Rep. Eric Cantor, the current House majority leader.
By Leonard Boasberg
A 1961 drawing by the great Washington Post cartoonist Herblock showed Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican and retail heir, looking down disdainfully at a poor woman and her children and saying, "If you had any initiative, you'd go out and inherit a department store." I can picture a similar cartoon featuring Rep. Eric Cantor, the current House majority leader.
The Virginia Republican is opposed to extending unemployment benefits due to expire in December, even though more than 14 million Americans, representing 9.1 percent of the workforce, are out of work. Unemployment among African Americans is nearly double that, 17 percent at last count.
But Cantor doesn't see unemployment benefits as a priority. "For too long in Washington now," he said recently, "we've been worried about pumping up the stimulus moneys and pumping up unemployment benefits."
What, me worry? Cantor has a job. It pays pretty well, too. As majority leader, he gets $193,400 a year, which ought to be enough to live on even in an expensive city like Washington. Like all members of Congress, he also gets to participate in the federal employees' insurance plan. He enjoys generous allowances for his staff and office expenses, as well as franking privileges, meaning he can send mass mail to his constituents at your expense.
When Cantor leaves Congress, he stands to receive good retirement benefits. He can also become a lobbyist and make 20 times what he's making now.
That's likely to be somewhat better than your pay and benefits - if, in this sagging economy, you're lucky enough to have a job.
Where does Cantor think unemployed Americans could find work? Perhaps they could emigrate to China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico, or another low-wage country to which American corporations have been shipping jobs while they downsize in the United States. Meanwhile, they're sitting on an estimated $2 trillion that they could be investing in the economy.
Why don't they? One major reason is that they're waiting for demand to pick up. Of course, one way to increase demand is to put money in people's pockets. Economists estimate that unemployment benefits generate two dollars in economic growth for every dollar spent.
But Cantor is against that. He says he would agree to extend unemployment benefits only if the federal government cuts spending somewhere else - which would vitiate any growth brought about by extending benefits.
What's Cantor for? Tax cuts. He has warned the House Republican caucus to resist any attempt to raise taxes, including taxes on millionaires and billionaires, even though wealthy Americans are paying lower income-tax rates today than they have since the Coolidge administration. You can see how well that's worked.
The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies last year was $10.8 million, a 23 percent gain from the previous year, according to a study commissioned by the New York Times. But according to Republican dogma, asking them to pay more taxes would destroy their initiative as "jobs-givers."
What about the initiative, not to mention the security and well-being, of the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the jobless, and the children who are being asked to make sacrifices for a fiscal mess they had nothing to do with?
