GOP won’t help unemployment

Rick Tope, Las Vegas

Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 | 2 a.m.

During the 2010 election, Republican congressional candidates promised that if they were elected they would “get America working again” and promote legislation to create jobs. And how did they follow through after the election? Not one of them introduced any legislation that would create a job.

Not only that, but Republicans have blocked several jobs bills that have been introduced by the president.

Americans should not be surprised by this development. It is not in the best interest of Republicans to create jobs because they get the majority of their campaign contributions from wealthy business owners. High unemployment figures ensure business owners a pool of cheap labor. If the government starts creating jobs through public works projects, then fewer workers will be available and businesses will need to pay higher wages to attract workers.

Wealthy people have an additional reason for encouraging high unemployment: inflation. Inflation generally increases as more workers find jobs. One of the greatest fears of wealthy individuals is high inflation, because it will make their piles of money worth less in the future.

Thus the wealthy business owner wants to keep unemployment high in order to preserve wealth as well as providing cheap labor. Yet there is even one more reason to keep unemployment high: It will make President Barack Obama look bad and help get a Republican elected to the presidency in 2012, so conservatives can advance their agenda of suppressing the working class.

Considering all this, if people think they can reduce the high unemployment situation by putting a Republican in the White House, they would stand a better chance of extinguishing a fire by pouring gasoline on it.