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With his health care agenda on the back burner in the wake of Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts, President Obama plans to use Wednesday night’s State of the Union address to unveil sweeping employment-reform legislation that would provide a good job to every American regardless of his ability to work, and would prevent companies from declining to employ applicants who suffer pre-existing conditions like laziness, incompetence, or kleptomania.
While critics contend that Brown’s election signals a rejection of centralized government control of the economy and its accompanying loss of liberty, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Americans merely disagree with the administration’s priorities.
“When you’re unemployed,” said Axelrod, “you don’t have time to think about anything else. Americans are telling the president they want him to take the reins of the job market first, before taking over health care. They’re going to hear a plan Wednesday night that takes career decisions out of the hands of greedy corporate fat cats, and guarantees employment regardless of economic conditions.”
The president receives thousands of letters every day from unemployed citizens, Axelrod said.
“Many tell heart-wrenching stories about how their chronic lethargy, lack of skill or proclivity for pocketing office supplies has created a kind of glass ceiling that shuts them out of the working world,” he said. “As a man who got a great job during a lousy economy despite his lack of training or experience, President Obama can offer hope to these folks.”
White House officials met over the weekend with UAW, SEIU and other labor union leaders in an effort to replicate their recipe for maintaining jobs, pay and benefits even during economic downturns.
Axelrod said the union leaders suggested legislation that would “de-couple jobs from balance sheets, freeing up corporations to hire regardless of the inherent instability of capitalism. Given the president’s experience in the free markets, to him that was just plain common sense.”
Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world’s leading family-friendly news satire source.
