Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Didn’t read your May 10 letter until today. It was sent via e-mail rather than USPS and went straight to spam. Are you cutting expenses–postage, heavy bond paper and envelopes? I’ll check spam more often from now on. But I wonder if you’re aware what’s going out under your signature. I know you don’t write letters yourself or even sign them–the machine that signs each one exactly the same every time is a dead giveaway–but really, Mr. President, the 9 letters I’ve received so far are fatuous claptrap filled with clichés and political spin. Here’s some examples from that May 10 letter:

“CREATING JOBS AND GROWING OUR ECONOMY: My administration has taken critical steps to accelerate our Nation’s economic growth so that we are producing jobs at a faster pace. … we are working tirelessly to push our recovery forward…”

Really? From what I read, the recovery has been mostly for those who got bailed out; job growth is not keeping pace with job loss; and unemployment is back up to 9%.

“IMPEMENTING TOUGH WALL STREET REFORM”

I won’t bother to quote what follows. Wall Street reform is a joke; real reforms got stripped out of legislation soon as the lobbyists heard about it. Nothing of significance has changed.

“ASSISTING HOMEOWNERS: Access to the American dream continues to be tested by a mortgage crisis that threatens the stability of families, neighbourhoods, and our entire economy.”

True. But those phone numbers to call for help including “your mortgage servicer?” Not likely. Unless forced to, banks won’t help. They make more from penalties and late fees than a renegotiated mortgage. And government programs to help homeowners? By every report, a failure. 872,000 homes are now owned by banks, double the number in 2007; a million more are in the process of foreclosure and another 2–3 million “under water,” expected to go into foreclosure soon. What are the banks doing about it? Slowing down the foreclosure process to prevent their “assets” from losing even more value. In some places housing prices have plunged 75%. No TARP for homeowners!

Mr. President, What about we stop spending $13+ billion a month on wars to kill people and start helping Americans? What about we stop welfare for the rich and the corporations (agribusiness, big oil, multinationals, banks, etc.) and invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure? What about we stop taking from the poor to give to the rich and start closing the gap between rich and poor? Or is that too much to ask?