Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally let the fat-cat out of the bag yesterday, confirming what’s been apparent for some time:
Democrats, led by President Obama, aren’t interested in more jobs for all Americans. They just want more government jobs.
“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine,” the Nevada Democrat said on the Senate floor in support of a $35 billion bill aimed at shoring up jobs for teachers and first-responders.
This will come as a surprise to those wondering about that persistent 9-plus percent unemployment rate.
But wait, there’s more. “It’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers — and that’s what this legislation is all about,” said Reid.
In fact, the wealth-consuming public sector — heavily shielded by the first Obama “stimulus” — has fared quite well compared to the wealth-producing private sector. Only lately have the public unions begun to feel the recession’s bite — and Reid & Co. are having none of it.
Opportunistic to the core, the unions have attached themselves like barnacles to the Occupier movement.
The point? To co-opt the movement and push for tax hikes meant to support the lush public-union way of life — while sucking job-creating investment capital out of the economy.
And the Occupiers haven’t a clue.
“We’re here, we’re unclear, get used to it,” read a sign held by a protester, who doubtless meant the slogan as wry humor, though it ratified an essential fact: Public policy ain’t the protesters’ long suit.
A New York magazine survey reveals that 68 percent of the anti-Wall Street warriors don’t even know what the letters SEC mean (that would be Securities and Exchange Commission, which only regulates the financial markets).
And a scant one in 10 of the tax-the-rich activists could identify the top marginal tax rate for America’s despised “1 Percent.”
No wonder, then, that they’ve fallen prey to the unionists — chanting in dutiful support of lush government jobs of the sort they’re unlikely ever to enjoy themselves.
Ironically, just yesterday it was reported that Washington, DC, is now the wealthiest US metro area — thanks in large part to its concentration of federal employees, whose average yearly compensation tops $126,000.
All of this, again, denies business and industry — the real job creators — access to much-needed capital.
The Occupiers started out as the big dogs. Now they’re just a wagging tail.
But it looks like they’re still having fun.