Job Interview Questions

We’ve been told it’s a new year — a new decade in fact — and things are different now.

Although they spent last year grappling with the problems considered top priority, like cap and trade and getting the healthcare bill through, congress has now decided its time to refocus on what really is the number one issue. With the unemployment rate sitting at above 10 percent, Congress has decided it is time to completely focus their attention on the very pressing issue of jobs — their own.

I find it amusing that when it looks to members of Congress that they could actually become one of those unpleasant statistics standing in line at the unemployment office — figuratively speaking of course — this issue suddenly moves to the top of the list.

Last year during the cap and trade bill negotiations House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even managed to convince people the bill was really as much about jobs as it was about green energy — really. I find it difficult to equate that with the fact that the bill has $4.2 billion written into it to compensate for the jobs that will be lost once it’s implemented. This $4.2 billion, to be spread out from 2011 to 2019, allows $1,500 per person for job-search assistance for people expected to be put out of work because of it. It also gives them an unemployment check for up to three years while they look for a new job or get retrained in another field. In fact, experts say when implemented, the bill is likely to cause a 0.5 percent drop in jobs in the first 10 years — and that’s over and above the unemployment rate we’re already dealing with