Koch's Comments: No time for partisanship

President Obama says his economic stimulus package will create or save 3-4 million jobs over the next two years. I hope he's right and the goal is achieved. We have already lost 3.6 million jobs in the current depression. Yes, Virginia, I call it a depression and not a recession because of the market crash, the jobs and homes lost, and the enormous fear that the economic climate has engendered.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, our country ultimately had a 15 percent unemployment rate. In some areas it was as high as 25 percent. Today unemployment is at 7.6 percent. In addition to saving jobs and returning people to the payrolls who have been laid off, there are millions of young men and women graduating from high school and college each year who will be looking to enter the workforce. 

A worldwide depression and soaring unemployment currently exist. In a page one New York Times article this past Sunday, Nelson D. Schwartz wrote, "Worldwide job losses from the recession that started in the United States in December 2007 could hit a staggering 50 million by the end of 2009, according to the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency. The slowdown has already claimed 3.6 million American jobs."

Rising unemployment and falling asset values have affected most American families. Home prices -- the largest asset for most families -- have declined appreciably in value. Millions of Americans have also suffered substantial losses in their 401K retirement plans, stock holdings and in some cases pensions. 

One has to wonder why Americans are so quiet and accepting of their pain. In other countries, as the Times reported on February 15, "High unemployment rates, especially among young workers, have led to protests in countries as varied as Latvia, Chile, Greece, Bulgaria and Iceland and contributed to strikes in Britain and France." There were also demonstrations in Vladivostok, Russia's major port on the Pacific Ocean.

When the Great Depression took hold worldwide, we saw the rise of Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy and a military regime in Japan. Russia had already installed its dictators: Lenin in 1917 and Stalin in 1924. We were fortunate to have elected Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. His leadership kept us from going down the same road to totalitarianism. Dictator wannabees in the US sought and received support during his first three terms: Father Charles Coughlin and Louisiana Governor Huey Long, to name two. Even a national hero like Charles Lindbergh threatened to run, and flirted with Hitler, while pro-Nazi bundists marched in American streets.

So why has America been free of street rallies, marches and violence with respect to the economic meltdown? I don't have the qualifications or the background of an economist, sociologist or psychiatrist to make that judgment. Nevertheless, I believe we are currently going through a period of slow anger. Like a volcano, this anger first rumbles and then could explode.  

The stimulus package wisely addresses such immediate problems as extending and increasing the amount of unemployment insurance, but not by much, and extending healthcare coverage to those laid off. Hopefully further prompt legislation promised by President Obama will address the rising home foreclosure rate and will impose some kind of moratorium on foreclosures and empower courts to change mortgage terms, where appropriate, so that many who cannot afford to purchase their homes will be allowed to remain in them as rent-paying tenants. 

The public was appalled to hear the story of a middle-aged woman who at a meeting addressed by President Obama in Fort Myers, Florida, told him that she was living in a pickup truck with her son and using the lavatory facilities of park bathrooms. Her plight was addressed by the wife of a Florida state representative who turned over to the needy family for an unspecified, rent-free period of time a vacant home that she owns. This anecdotal response cannot suffice because there are probably thousands, if not soon to be tens of thousands, of similarly situated families.

The President has correctly stated that he will be judged politically and by the voters by how he handles this country's economic crisis. He is right, but there is more at stake than whether or not he is reelected in November 2012. America's fate and possibly the fate of the world may hang in the balance. Immediate governmental actions must be taken to stem the crisis before large numbers of Americans take to the streets out of fear and frustration and are beguiled by demagogues who will promise anything and everything.

Those, like the Republicans in both houses of Congress, who are hoping to be rewarded in the 2010 general election for opposing President Obama's efforts, are not serving their country well. If Obama succeeds at reviving the economy, the Democrats will be strengthened at the polls, resulting in Barack Obama being reelected for a second term. On the other hand, if Obama fails, Republicans could see the rise of a new party born of despair that would change the very economic system that has made America great and endanger our civil liberties.

This is not the time for partisanship. It is the time for statesmanship.