Senator Voinovich and the Republicans

Senator Voinovich and the Republicans in the House of Representatives have betrayed and abandoned the desperate, desolate, unemployed workers of Ohio. In name of Republican orthodoxy, Voinovich and the House Republicans voted against The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill. That bill will bring billions of dollars of aid to unemployed workers in Ohio and around the nation. It will invigorate the economy and create millions of jobs. It will do all of this in spite of the opposition and heartless philosophy of Voinovich and his fellow Republicans. God forbid that the government of which they are a part should come to the rescue of the forlorn workers of Ohio. The Republicans appear to be willing to let the unemployed people of Ohio hang out there twisting in the wind, jobless, without income, food, shelter, health care, or hope.

I wonder if Senator Voinovich or any of his fellow Republicans in the House have ever been out of a job through no fault of their own. I wonder if they, in their warm comfortable homes, with salaries of $174,000 per year ($193,400 for Rep. Boehner), broad expense allowances, health insurance paid by the government, and generous retirement benefits, have any idea of the suffering of the people who were laid-off by General Motors, DHL, Delphi, and dozens of other companies in Ohio. Can they even remotely understand the anguish and pain now being suffered by the unemployed people of Ohio?

Ohio's statewide unemployment rate hit 7.8 percent in December 2008, the highest level in more than 22 years. Wilmington Ohio stands to lose 8000 jobs as a result of the closing of the DHL transportation hub. Dayton lost 7,800 jobs in 2008 because of layoffs by GM, and others. Ohio lost over 118,000 jobs in 2008. The number of unemployed workers in Ohio in December 2008 was 465,000.

Those Ohio workers did not do shoddy work! They were not negligent, sloppy, lazy, inefficient, or indifferent. They were among the most skilled workers in the world. They worked their hearts out for many years. What did they do wrong? At the very least they are entitled to unemployment compensation. But remarkably, the state ran out of unemployment funds last year and had to begin borrowing federal funds in order to pay unemployment claims. According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, there were 145,151 new unemployment claims for December 2008, by far the highest total in the last three decades.

The stimulus plan which Voinovich and the House Republicans voted against provides more than $60 billion to add 20 extra weeks of unemployment payments and will increase those payments by $25 per week. It will boost the food-stamp programs and provide housing assistance programs and other aid for the hardest-hit Ohioans. It provides $24.7 billion to cover 65% of the cost of health insurance for the unemployed. It allocates $29 billion for highway construction projects, $16 billion for investments in public transit, $11 billion to renovate the nation’s electrical grid, and $54 billion to help the states defray expenses.

The stimulus package was supported by most Republican governors including Charlie Crist of Florida, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jodi Rell of Connecticut, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and Jim Douglas of Vermont. It was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and hundreds top CEOs including the CEOs of IBM, Intel, Motorola, Honeywell, Xerox, Kodak, Corning, and Aetna. It was also supported by the great majority of the nation’s leading economists including Nobel Prize laureates such as George Akerlof of U.C. Berkeley, Robert M. Solow of M.I.T., and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia.

When I saw the 60 Minutes program about the painful loss of jobs in Wilmington Ohio, I was deeply moved. I do not understand how the Republicans could harden their hearts to the sad plight of those good people. The Republicans showed party unity, solidarity, conservative philosophical purity, and lock-step party discipline. What they failed to show was human compassion--and courage.