Rant #2,465: Ups and Downs

I have to say it flat out: I am not a Mitt Romney fan, but he has seemed to be one of the few legislators in Washington who seems to have a full bead on the current unemployment crisis, and yes, it is a crisis at this point in time, what with millions upon millions of people out of work.

The Republican Senator from Utah, along with fellow Republican Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Martha McSally (Ariz.), introduced legislation on Wednesday that would extend the currently expired extra $600 in benefits that those without work were getting until the end of the year.

During this period of extended benefits, legislators in Washington--both Republicans and Democrats--would work toward coming up with a valid unemployment plan to be used in 2021, which would incentivize businesses to hire new workers, and also gives states time to update their own respective unemployment systems, something that needs to be done across the board.

It would also give these legislators time to prepare for 2021, which is sure to dwarf 2020 as the worst year for unemployment in this country since the Great Depression.

Prior to Romney's legislation, the Democrats and Republicans have both been dickering around with various proposals, including lessening the extra unemployment money and keeping the extra unemployment money intact seemingly without an expiration date.

Those plans were both right and wrong, but even Romney's plan does not hit on the what should be the main thrust of any legislation, which is getting people back to work.

Personally, I think the only way to get people back to work and for unemployment levels to return to where they were before the coronavirus hit us all is to create something of a Job Corps, where the government literally creates jobs and puts people back to work.

We need a Jobs Corps now, because quite frankly, most of the jobs that have been lost are not coming back. Even those on furlough for months might not get their jobs back, the ones that have been waiting on for months, so you have a situation where there really is nowhere for most of the unemployed to turn.

We as a country have had similar situations in the past, where the government put people to work, and I think we might have to do something like this again, because until this eoronavirus is fully eradicated, we are going to have businesses continue to close up for good, we are going to have even more established companies file for bankruptcy, and we are going to have more and more people out of work, with 2021 looking as dim as a weak pilot light for an employment rebound.

The Romney legislation makes sense because it buys time for everyone--both the government and those without work--to try to do the right thing, and it does have an end point, which I also think is good for both factions.

As far as myself, I have no idea how or if any new legislation is going to impact my standing, but it will impact my son for sure. He has been on furlough for six months now, we have no idea if he has a job to go back to, and he might be one of those people who will directly benefit from an extension.

Right now, he is in a holding pattern, without any idea if he will be or will not be going back to his job, which we have been told still exists.

Me, I hope to have at least a part-time job by the time I go into early retirement, so any future legislation related to unemployment probably is not going to greatly effect me.

Quite frankly, I have other things that I have to deal with that go beyond my continued lack of employment.

My father is doing as well as one could hope for at this juncture, which means he is kind of teetering. He has a long way to go, but we do have hope that he can one day come home and live out his life in familiar spaces.

We are taking it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

He is a fighter, an ex-Marine who is not going away so soon, so we do have some hope.

I really have not mentioned my mother through this, but although she is also frail, she has all her faculties and is managing as best she could.

The constant trips to the hospital are wearing her down, of course, but she is also a fighter, and will never lose hope.

Our family is 100 percent in supporting my father--we are there every day to see him--and maybe it is that support system that is keeping him going.

This is a very difficult time for my family, and I have often said that God works in mysterious ways.

Perhaps I lost my job at precisely the right time to help my parents.

I just don't know.