Politics is Personal: The Obama Stimulus Plan and Me
When Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta, spoke at our SIMUN conference years ago, his key note was that politics is personal.
We all find out how big policies affect things and eventually affect us. However, that is easy to ignore. The damage is often slight. However, the economy is so bad now that we are all being affected very personally by the bad decisions of greedy men.
Last week, Microsoft announced huge layoffs which affected a lot of people in the area. Boeing as well. Today, Boeing announced another 10,000 layoffs. It's bad news all around.
With regard to me, I've been living on unemployment comp for most of the past year. It's not for lack of trying. There just aren't a lot of jobs out there.
Today, Congress is debating Obama's stimulus plan. One of the provisions of the plan is additional extensions to the EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation). That's what's saved my ass for the past while. I just started tier 2 of my EUC, which is supposed to be the last one. It ends in 7 weeks. In addition, I want to get financial aid from the unemployment office so I can do worker retraining like getting a certificate or beginning an AA in paralegal studies, criminal justice, something along those lines. Well I can't get additional aid for going to school from the unemployment office if I'm not receiving unemployment at the time.
For me, there's a lot personally riding on this Congressional vote. I've been glued to CNN all day. Politics is personal.
We all find out how big policies affect things and eventually affect us. However, that is easy to ignore. The damage is often slight. However, the economy is so bad now that we are all being affected very personally by the bad decisions of greedy men.
Last week, Microsoft announced huge layoffs which affected a lot of people in the area. Boeing as well. Today, Boeing announced another 10,000 layoffs. It's bad news all around.
With regard to me, I've been living on unemployment comp for most of the past year. It's not for lack of trying. There just aren't a lot of jobs out there.
Today, Congress is debating Obama's stimulus plan. One of the provisions of the plan is additional extensions to the EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation). That's what's saved my ass for the past while. I just started tier 2 of my EUC, which is supposed to be the last one. It ends in 7 weeks. In addition, I want to get financial aid from the unemployment office so I can do worker retraining like getting a certificate or beginning an AA in paralegal studies, criminal justice, something along those lines. Well I can't get additional aid for going to school from the unemployment office if I'm not receiving unemployment at the time.
For me, there's a lot personally riding on this Congressional vote. I've been glued to CNN all day. Politics is personal.