COMMENTARY | Headhunter-in-chief Barack Obama definitely drove down the unemployment rate in Texas this week after he sent the resume of an unemployed worker to friends of his in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Maybe this is a second career for the president as he sits through the last year of this term.
With a do-nothing Congress and complete election-year gridlock on any major legislation, the president may find plenty of time to hunt down jobs for unemployed Americans like he did for Jennifer Wedel's husband. The Associated Press said the president spoke with to Wedel during an online town hall meeting and asked her to fax her husband's resume to him so he could help the man find work. Not exactly the job I'd want the president doing all day, but it was good he could call in a political favor and get the man a job.
There are millions of other Americans looking for work these days; can the president help them out too? He has hundreds of thousands of donors to his campaign, maybe some of them are looking to hire too. Maybe a federal website could be created to allow Americans to submit their resume and the president can make phone calls on their behalf too. We could target the program for long-term unemployed in the beginning and expand it as the president makes successful calls.
Vice President Joe Biden probably knows some people who are hiring too. Maybe we could divide the country in half and each could work a section. Now that I think about it, members of Congress know people too. That adds another 535 people who could make phone calls.
It's a great idea actually. All we need is for Congress to appropriate several billion dollars to establish a new agency. Obama could then appoint a director to lead the agency that would stall during the Senate confirmation process. But, the Senate will take a break this summer, so Obama can issue a recess appointment then. It should only take the agency about two years to get up and running, so by 2014 they could be making phone calls and getting hundreds of Americans new jobs.
As preposterous as that idea sounds, it is something government would consider doing. I'm glad Wedel's husband got some help from the president. Hopefully, it will make their economic future a bit brighter. New claims for unemployment dropped again last week, so the economy is making some headway -- just not fast enough. Now we just need the president to do the same thing for the millions of other unemployed Americans.
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