Governor Rick Perry the Secessionist ought to take notice. Federal stimulus funding will provide thousands of Houston's teenagers and unemployed young adults with summer jobs. This is obviously wonderful news in a market in which jobs, especially part-time and summer jobs, are hard to find.
This program is an outreach initiative that will provide jobs for at risk youth who may have dropped out of school. Students and young adults will be assigned to various city projects in Houston and Harris County. They will work under the guidance of mentors and role models. In a nutshell, the hope is that unemployed young folks will have the opportunity to develop solid working skills, learn about team building, responsibility, the rewards of hard work and the long term value of higher education.
Sounds like a potential a win-win for Houston's at-risk youth, right?
Nope. Not according to the Goposaur.
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So, what is the Republican problem with this initiative?
More than 4,500 youths ages 14 to 24 will be eligible for minimum-wage jobs if they meet federal requirements relating to income or other life circumstances.
Although the specific job availabilities have not yet been spelled out in many areas, the city of Houston announced Wednesday that it will hire as many as 670 workers through the program to clean up parks, assist librarians, evangelize for conservation, document historic cemeteries and spread out in nearly all aspects of city government.
It seems to me that this would be a far more productive and useful way for teens to spend a summer, especially when one considers the alternatives. What do teenagers usually do in the summer when they do not have jobs or go to summer camps? Many would lay around the house all day watching TV and playing video games. Most parents would be at work and a lot of the kids are unsupervised for hours on end. In high crime neighborhoods the last thing kids need is to be at home alone in an unstructured environment with no one in charge.
According to Houston Mayor Bill White the federal/city program offers an opportunity to learn a trade at an entry-level.
"One thing I learned from mowing lawns, because that's the only job I could get, was that I didn't want to mow lawns for a living," he said at Wednesday's City Council meeting. "A lot of us learn from entry-level jobs. ... This is an opportunity, not an entitlement. If we approach it this way, we will really be good mentors for these young people."
The federal stimulus package provides $1.2 billion for the 2009 Summer Jobs for Youth Program, a beefed up version of a federal municipal jobs program that has not been fully funded in recent years. About $14 million of that will go to the 13-county region that includes Houston and Harris County to provide a total of 4,500 jobs.
That would be 4,500 kids working instead of staying at home doing nothing, wasting their intelligence and squandering opportunities to make a difference by doing something constructive and potentially meaningful.
But naysayers and opponents of the youth initiative program view it differently.
For them it's all about the government and handouts. Sadly these folks fail to understand that their hero George W. Bush ginned up the biggest handout program in recent history with his generous tax cuts to 1-2% of income earners, no bid contracts to federal looters like Halliburton and by turning a blind eye to unpaid royalties in big oil and energy. And of course we all know about the Republican mantra of "deregulate, baby deregulate" that enabled the masters of the universe on Wall St. to loot and empty our nation's banks. Let's not forget about tax loop holes and off shore tax havens for the corporate sector and very wealthy Americans, either.
That is the stuff that really defines handouts and entitlement as far as I am concerned.
Check out the comments below from the misinformed and misled.
"federal requirements relating to income or other life circumstances" In other words, minorities.
HELLO...This is stimulus money paying for this, money created out of thin air to pay for the lowest skilled jobs in GOVERNMENT. And the excuse being used is to teach them a good work ethic, by working in GOVERNMENT, the most inefficient and least accountable arena to make a wage?
If that damn young demographic voting block (18-24) wants to serve this dope head prez, they should VOLUNTEER..these are not "value added" jobs that deserve a salary that I am paying!
They will probably also provide daycare for the ones with kids. We already pay for their daycare when they go to school.
So if you are young and poor (illegal or anchor baby) you get to get a job that will pay no bills probably, maybe buy your video games and partying supplies, but a person who has lost their job and needs to pay their bills will just still be screwed. What a great idea!!!! Nut cases we have in office.
These are invented jobs, what we used to call "busy work", something you do so it looks like you are doing something. There are a lot of minimum wage jobs out there that the kids are "too good" to do, but these worthless jobs that teach them how to "look busy" while they do nothing are OK. Yep, some more gub'ment workers in training. At our expense, of course.
If the guvmint be handin' out money, den I 'spect we should be takin' it. Jes mo money fo Houston 'comony. Jes git yo ass up out of dat bed and shows up, dats all dere es, ain't nuffin' to it.
You qualify for these jobs if you meet income requirements or "habla espanol". The maximum income allowed for a family of four is about $22,000. And these jobs have been available for years. The funding had been reduced in recent years due to lack of participation. The Work Source tries & tries to employ low income youth, but to no avail. I think if a youth wants a summer gig, let them have it. The anchor babies DON'T WANT TO WORK! They've learned to work the system and the endless stream of goodies JUST FOR THEM. Another slap to middle-class America!
I imagine these are the folks who listen to Rush 5 days a week, 3 hours a day and watch FOX "News." These listeners and viewers are the victims of the masters of hate and deception.
If folks are worked into such a tizzy over a federal/city work program for economically disadvantaged youth, I can just imagine the fight that lies ahead with health care reform. This one will be a real humdinger. It will get down, dirty, nasty and ugly. Those who would benefit from health care reform the most will be misled into believing it is harmful and evil - like God forbid "socialized medicine."
During the ugly process, however, because we are now acutely aware of the self-serving players, the political deception and the powerful force of lobbying groups, the masks will be gradually torn from the faces of all disingenuous deceivers. Liberal TV and radio hosts in concert with bloggers in the Netroots will be the ones pulling off the masks. We'll rip until all are off.
So, what's that problem with single payer health care?
Dr. Flowers reveals who did get a seat at the table.
In that moment, it all became so clear. We could write letters, phone staffers, and fax until the machines fell apart, but we would never get our seat at the table.
The senators understand that most people want a national health system and that an improved Medicare for All would include everybody and provide better health care at a lower cost. These facts mean nothing to most of them because they respond to only one standard tool of advocacy: money, and lots of it.
The people seated at the table represented the corporate interests: private health insurers and big business and those who support their agenda. The people whose voices were heard all represented organizations which pay huge sums of money to political campaigns. These interests profit greatly from the current health care industry and do not want changes that will hurt their large, personal pocketbooks.
The fat cats. It is always the fat cats and their deep pockets that drive agendas. It is well past the time to put an end to this undemocratic and un-America practice.
Check out the dirty filthy hippies who protested the absence of single payer representation at the Senate hearing on health care reform.
