By Mitch Gurney
December 15, 2011
Polls show Gingrich is leading in US polls over his rivals but his lead is fading in Iowa polls ahead of the primary there on January 3rd. The national polls show Gingrich with 40% among likely Republican voters, far ahead of Romney. In Iowa, polls show him with 22%, slightly ahead of Ron Paul at 21%.
Why …? Are these people actually listening and more importantly understanding what he supports?
During the December 10th debates in Iowa he stated the following:
What I suggested was kids ought to be allowed to work part-time in school, particularly in the poorest neighborhoods, both because they could use the money.
If you take one-half of the New York janitors who are unionized and paid more than the teachers, an entry-level janitor gets paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. You take half of those janitors, you could give virtually– you could give lots of poor kids a work experience in the cafeteria and the school library and– and front office, and a lot of different things. I’ll stand by the idea, young people ought to learn how to work.
Hello? What the F… Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? This county has been bleeding middle class jobs profusely for over 30 years and this dude endorses more of the same?
Perhaps my comprehension skills are weak but what I interpret is essentially he’s endorsing driving down American wages. He is subtly bashing unions. He thinks janitors earn too much so let’s cut half their jobs and in turn give lots of poor kid’s part time jobs. Granted poor kids need jobs too but so do those he recommends replacing with cheaper labor. What if that person is a single parent trying to support a family. What does he propose for them? Creating more minimum wage jobs by driving down wages as he proposes does not produce living wage jobs that grow an economy.
Factcheck.org says he got the facts wrong about “entry-level janitors earning twice as much as entry level teachers in New York.” For starters, according to Factcheck.org, there’s no such job titled ‘janitor’ but there are ‘custodian engineers’ which are supervisory positions. The closest thing to what he describes as an ‘entry level janitor is an ‘entry level cleaner’ and someone in that position earns substantially less than an entry level teacher. Entry level ‘custodian engineers’ earn $56k their first year with annual increases of 10% up to $81k. Entry level teachers with a BA degree earn a little more than $45k, and it’s about $51k for someone with a Master’s Degree. He has made the statement several times according to Factcheck.org
Gingrich is a member of the Capital Hill Gang that’s ruled over Washington for years. As a Former Speaker of the House he was first elected in 1979 serving until he resigned 1999. His history is laden with scandal. He served in the House during the crucial years that American multinational companies lobbied Congress to change policies that enabled them to outsource their manufacturing to China and elsewhere in pursuit of cheaper labor and production cost.
U.S companies have been outsourcing jobs and transferring their manufacturing abroad since the late1970’s. Today we have a massive mind boggling trade deficit and a massive collapse in jobs. According to a recent study of BLS data over 56,000 factories have shut down since 2001 alone. Currently there are an estimated 27 million people unemployed in the U.S. In contrast to BLS U-3 jobs reporting of 8.6% unemployed, Shadow Stats estimates that over 20% of the work force is now unemployed.
This is the same guy who recently stated; “the government should occasionally allow a terror attack in order to remind the American people there is still a war on terror and officially designated terrorists.”
Yet remarkably according to the polls among the nation’s likely Republican voters 40% support this dude. The only one speaking any intelligence among these stooges is Ron Paul and he trails in the polls…
Heaven help us…I see dumb people.
Mitch Gurney
