My Neighbor Susan

Susan lives in the house right behind us. There's no alley, so we share a back fence that separates our  yards. She's lived there since we moved to this house, almost twenty years ago. In the time we've been neighbors Susan has had some big changes in her life. She got a divorce some time ago just as her two kids were in their late teens. Both kids (a boy and a girl) are grown up now and living on their own. Susan's daughter had a baby last December, making her a pretty happy grandma. Susan worked for a local rural Fire District. She managed the office and conducted the business of the Fire District. Last January Susan lost her job after being there for over twenty years.

Susan goes to the same gym we do, and we talk with her through the back fence, so we've kept up with her situation over the last few months. Last week she and I had a conversation through the fence that couldn't be more timely, given some of the items in the news that week. Susan has been out of work for over six months now. I asked how things were going for her and she nearly cried as she was explaining how hard this period of time has been for her. She is the perfect example of all the unemployment woes we've heard about since this terrible recession began four years ago. Susan said she's has sent out over a hundred resume's and applications and hasn't even had a single call for an interview. She doesn't understand why nothing is happening. She talked about the frustration of knowing she has skills, and how she was successful for so many years in her last job-yet she is getting no response. She began to explain how she has fallen into depression from time to time because she's starting to feel the hopelessness. Then she began to categorize herself into the one of the hardest hit demographics of this dismal unemployment picture. Susan is over the age of 50, and has now become one of the long-term unemployed. And as I tried to be empathetic and encouraging- I knew she was right. She is the perfect picture of a  long-time, valued employee who is out of work now, and in a group that has very few prospects.

This conversation took place in the same week The President was crucified by Republicans for saying "the private sector is doing fine." That comment sent Mr. Romney into hyper-drive claiming that the President is just "out of touch". Imagine that- Mr. Romney calling anybody out of touch. I believe the President was didn't state his point very artfully. But, we all know what he meant. The private sector has been steadily adding jobs while the public sector has been losing jobs- so the net job gain doesn't look very good. Yet to counter the President, Mr. Romney went right out and said we don't need more public sectors jobs.This brings me back to my neighbor Susan. Her job was a public sector job. She worked for a Fire District. But if you'll note where the public sector has been so damaged and under attack, you'll quickly see it's the Republican controlled states are where the most damage has been done to the public sector. Teachers, police, and firefighters are the groups under attack and vilified.

Somehow the basic economics of this situation can get lost in the political (and mostly inaccurate) rhetoric being thrown around. I think most of us are expected to look at this economic crisis and just assume that cutting everything our taxes pay for is the automatic solution. That's the Republican solution. The fact is that massive cuts in the public sector have the opposite effect. Take Susan again; she can no longer be the kind of consumer she once was. She wasn't stashing her income in a Swiss bank account (like a certain Presidential wannabe). Her (tax supported) wages got spent in stores, in restaurants, in movie theatres, in home improvement centers and on all the other consumer goods that actually drive this economy. Some economists estimate that government expenditures turn over three times in our economy. When there are enough Susan(s) without a job the local store lays off clerks, the restaurants get rid of a chef and a waiter and a hostess. The movie theater may lay off a worker, or the golf course and the Home Depot lets some staff go. Then those people stop being consumers too. The cycle only gets worse. Not only is Susan not spending wages- she is now taking government benefits instead of paying taxes.The Republicans need to realize that Susan isn't our enemy- that the people who teach our kids, and protect us and our property aren't the bad guys. The public sector provides services we need and they are a vital part of our economy. They are more valuable to our economic health as employed people, than they are as some politician's trophy on the wall- in spite of the fact that it takes tax dollars to pay for public sector employees.

I remember being in my high school history class and having Mr. Volz discuss how automation was effecting the economy (circa 1970). He was explaining that when machines replace people, those machines don't stop at the store on the way home, or go out for a beer on the weekends, or buy houses. He made the point very effectively that our economy is driven by spending wages. I think the analogy holds true today. But instead of automation- it is the war on the public sector employee that threatens our economy. We've been convinced since the time of Reagan that everything government does is bad and a waste of tax dollars. We've been convinced that the remedy is to always cut taxes and reduce the evil of government at every opportunity. We've elected people to govern us who don't even like government- and because they hate government, they run it so poorly that they are the self-fulfilling prophets of bad government. They generally leave a mess behind then turn around and say: "I told you so." That's kind of where we're at now. The economic truth of our time is that economic growth doesn't come from giving the rich more money, hoping their crumbs will  fall off the table to the rest of us (i.e. trickle down from "job creators"). It comes from strong broad-based consumption of goods and services by a strong middle class. Both private and public sector jobs are needed to sustain growth.

The pundits all say that the coming election will hinge on how the unemployment rates are looking in October and November. They say people will just look around and cast their vote on how the economy feels at that time. If the unemployment rate is the same or higher than now, President Obama loses. But we need to look deeper and ask why things are the way they are. I won't just look at the number on the front page- I'll look over my back fence too. If I see that my neighbor Susan is still the victim of short sighted economic theories that have never worked, because the public sector has been so unfairly vilified- then I will vote accordingly, and it won't be for Mr. Romney. I hoping every voter will look a little deeper and look across your back fence to see the real picture for people you know and see everyday. Some of them are probably public sector employees or folks who  do business with the public sector. They are a vital part of the economy too. Let's not throw them under the bus because it is easy for politicians to cast blame their way.

Thanks for looking in.