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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Jeb Bush's comments about American workers are completely divorced from reality
So, does Jeb Bush want Americans to work 47% more hours? What would his pal Mitt do? We're just wondering....
Matthew Pulver at Salon very astutely analyzes Jeb's most unfortunate comments about American workers.
Its possible that you can forgive Jeb Bush for not knowing about regular people, when in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader on Wednesday, he demonstrated a complete lack of appreciation for how hard Americans work and for how little. Perhaps you can also forgive him for not recognizing that, in fact, Americans work more than their counterparts in other industrialized countries, that we get less vacation time, less maternity leave, and retire later than most anyone else, and that that trend is only intensifying. Hes from a family of millionaires, after all, whose parents were the millionaire children of yet other millionaires before them. Its an unfortunate reality that the elite who enjoy that sort of privilege simply dont have the means to understand the lives of those above whom they reside in luxury.
.....
But what shouldnt be forgiven is when someone like Jeb Bush, entirely ignorant of how the rest of us live, seeks to tell us what were doing wrong; when he blames us, indicts us and thereby makes demands. And whats most egregious is when its in the service of his fellow elites, when telling us to work even harder and longer is precisely what fills the pockets of his wealthy friends and supporters. It shifts the blame from the banks and the job off-shorers onto everyone else, and then presents the solution as something that hurts us more and pads the profits of those very same culprits.
We have to be a lot more productive, said Bush to the Union Leaders editorial board on Wednesday, somehow unaware of how U.S. worker productivity has risen some 80 percent since the 1970s, or that were actually the most productive workforce in the world, yet with little in the way of commensurate wage and salary increases since the time his father joined President Reagan in the White House in 1980.
(P)eople need to work longer hours, Bush proposed. Thats the only way were going to get out of this rut.
Oh, is it, Jeb? I seem to remember a Wall Street crisis in the last year of your brothers tenure, and millions of people losing their jobs because of it, but I dont remember any sort of productivity crisis or laziness crisis on our end. I saw a crisis of financial capitalism in which the capitalists wrecked the ship and we lost our jobs. We didnt abandon them. Weve been taking care of our end of the bargain, us workers. Its your lot thats dropping the ball.
.....
You can take it out of context all you want, he began. No, we have all the context we need, Mr. Bush. You have a multimillion-dollar vacation estate built by your great-grandfather. Your campaign donors are a whos who of corporate elites. A career spent with some of the biggest banks in the world and your own private equity firm has people comparing you to Mitt Romney. And now youre telling us that were the problem. Please proceed, Governor.
.....
But what shouldnt be forgiven is when someone like Jeb Bush, entirely ignorant of how the rest of us live, seeks to tell us what were doing wrong; when he blames us, indicts us and thereby makes demands. And whats most egregious is when its in the service of his fellow elites, when telling us to work even harder and longer is precisely what fills the pockets of his wealthy friends and supporters. It shifts the blame from the banks and the job off-shorers onto everyone else, and then presents the solution as something that hurts us more and pads the profits of those very same culprits.
We have to be a lot more productive, said Bush to the Union Leaders editorial board on Wednesday, somehow unaware of how U.S. worker productivity has risen some 80 percent since the 1970s, or that were actually the most productive workforce in the world, yet with little in the way of commensurate wage and salary increases since the time his father joined President Reagan in the White House in 1980.
(P)eople need to work longer hours, Bush proposed. Thats the only way were going to get out of this rut.
Oh, is it, Jeb? I seem to remember a Wall Street crisis in the last year of your brothers tenure, and millions of people losing their jobs because of it, but I dont remember any sort of productivity crisis or laziness crisis on our end. I saw a crisis of financial capitalism in which the capitalists wrecked the ship and we lost our jobs. We didnt abandon them. Weve been taking care of our end of the bargain, us workers. Its your lot thats dropping the ball.
.....
You can take it out of context all you want, he began. No, we have all the context we need, Mr. Bush. You have a multimillion-dollar vacation estate built by your great-grandfather. Your campaign donors are a whos who of corporate elites. A career spent with some of the biggest banks in the world and your own private equity firm has people comparing you to Mitt Romney. And now youre telling us that were the problem. Please proceed, Governor.
This will be one of many of Jeb Bush's 47% moments.
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