Callander: Stand up for the unemployed

Our usually calm governor is outraged with the actions of the Virginia House of Delegates in rejecting $125 million in federal stimulus money intended to extend unemployment benefits. It seems the federal government would send more money if Virginia agreed to modernize its unemployment system.

Modernize? “No,” said the set-in-their way conservatives who control our House. No wonder Gov. Tim Kaine is mad. Only four states extend unemployment benefits to fewer unemployed workers than Virginia. We should be embarrassed.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear House Republicans proclaim, “Let them fend for themselves. This isn’t a socialist country!” or “I don¹t feel their pain. The recession hasn’t touched me.”

Gov. Kaine wondered how the legislators could look unemployed Virginians in the eye considering the personal crisis they are experiencing. Let’s ask that question to our Stafford representative to the Virginia House of Delegates, Bill Howell, the powerful Speaker of the House. Can Mr. Howell look people in the eye who after being hard-working, valued employees have suddenly lost their livelihood?

What if they have already exhausted their unemployment benefits because they had worked in an industry that has been wiped out by the recession and there are no jobs for which they are qualified?

Is the Speaker of the House too busy with his estate law practice, helping folks who have wealth?

Perhaps it boils down to an ability to empathize, a positive quality in an elected representative, by the way.

Can Del. Howell feel the pain of those who have lost their jobs and did not have emergency living expense money and are getting hit up with outrageous credit card interest rates and fees or are among the hundreds who have lost their homes to foreclosure?

Is he siding with consumers or with big business and banks?

We see the impact the shaky economy has had on small businesses and in turn on employees. Examples include a couple of good gathering places that have just closed, North Stafford’s King Street Blues and Fredericksburg’s Frederick’s Restaurant, with its refreshing, smoke-free music venue, The Loft.

The employees of these restaurants were not likely high-wage earners. Many were part-time, and could have benefited from the federal stimulus money that our House of Delegates rejected. With Virginia’s unemployment fund almost bankrupt, Gov. Kaine has reason for concern.

Unemployment insurance benefits, though, are not a cure-all. Just a portion of one’s wages are paid from an employers’ fund. Still, that partial pay might retain a place to live or keep the electric on or make a car payment.

While members of the House of Delegates may fret over the idea of part time employees and those in job retraining programs receiving unemployment benefits, local communities like Stafford are left shouldering the burden.

Every time someone is displaced from a job a whole chain of events occurs.

County resources may become exhausted. Local charities may need to step in to assist with food or rent. All of our housing values drop when houses don’t sell or are lost to foreclosure. Loss of health insurance may send the unemployed to costly, overcrowded emergency rooms rather than to a family doctor’s practice. Crime rates and associated costs go up because people in desperate times do desperate things.

Our legislators in Richmond need to get their heads out of the sand and recognize the seriousness of the economic downturn that is causing havoc for real people and real families. So thinks a new group, “Stand UP for Virginia,” which has been knocking on Stafford doors and doors around the state seeking signatures on a petition aimed at Stafford’s own Del. Howell and others who need a wake up call.

In knocking on doors in Stafford, perhaps “Stand UP for Virginia” will come across a candidate willing to run against Speaker Howell in the November election. It’s an insult to our democracy that every two years when the House of Delegates seat is up, the Republican incumbent gets no serious opposition.

Surely there must be an unemployed resident who could fill some empty hours running a grassroots, on-a-dime campaign. The wind would be at his or her back.

Alane Callander is a south Stafford resident active in many local causes. Reach her at info@staffordcountysun.com.