personal finances help

(CNN) – Two hard-hitting new ads are heating up the Pennsylvania battle for the late Rep. Jack Murtha's congressional seat.

Republican Tim Burns is facing off against Democrat Mark Critz in a the May 18 special election. The race has stepped up in intensity in recent weeks, with both campaigns as well as national party committees going up with television ads.

The Burns campaign came out Tuesday with a new television commercial that questions the ethics of Critz, a longtime aide to Murtha, a Democrat who represented the district for 18 terms until he passed away earlier this year.

"Mark Critz. A Washington bureaucrat bankrolled by Pelosi. Critz was investigated by the congressional ethics office and Critz was in charge of the finances for a company caught on paying their taxes," says the narrator in the ad.

"The Ethics Committee found that Mr. Murtha did nothing wrong. Tim Burns knows this," Critz told CNN, responding to Burns' ad. "I worked for Parkins, a local small business, because I wanted to try to help my brother-in-law's company turn around its operations so that it could bring jobs to our community. I left because I disagreed with decisions that were being made over the company's future. These misleading personal attacks are Tim Burns' attempt to distract from his own record on job loss and outsourcing."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with a new ad that goes after Burns.

"Millionaire Tim Burns sold his company, sold it to a corporation that used a tax loophole which encourages sending American jobs overseas. Burns got rich even though he knew there may be layoffs in Pittsburgh," says the narrator.

"The new DCCC ad is more false, negative attacks from the Pelosi attack machine in Washington. Tim Burns started TechRx in the basement of his home and grew it to over 400 new jobs," said Burns spokesman Kent Gates. "TechRx was sold to NDCHealth with the goal of expanding operations and increasing employment. NDCHealth was never Tim Burns' company though he did remain for a brief period during the transition of the sale. NDCHealth followed existing laws to maximize revenues for job creation."

Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district, which stretches from Cambria County in west-central Pennsylvania down to the southwestern corner of the state, is considered socially conservative. In the 2004 presidential election, Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, won the district by 2 points. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, narrowly edged out then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in the district in 2008, even though Obama carried the state by 10 percent.

Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg, two well respected non-partisan political handicappers, both rate the race as a toss-up. The winner of next month's special election will have to defend the seat in November.

Updated 5:46 p.m. : Late Tuesday afternoon Cook moved the race to lean Republican.

Follow Paul Steinhauser on Twitter: @psteinhausercnn

Hullabaloo

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

 

Happy Days Are Here Again

by digby

Well, not really. If you're unemployed anyway:

A disturbing new survey from Rutgers University explores the damage in stark terms. Titled “No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment,” it finds that recent economic growth “has done little to reach millions of skilled workers still adrift in the most severe period of prolonged joblessness in decades.”

The details are grim. The survey finds that eight in 10 people who lost jobs in the recession have yet to find new employment. Most of those who have found work have taken pay cuts and/or lost benefits; six in 10 of them say it’s not the job they wanted, but one they took simply to make ends meet.

But it’s toughest for those still out. The share of job-seekers who’ve spent more than seven months looking for work has jumped from 48 percent last August to 70 percent today, Rutgers finds.

Consider the impacts:

- Ninety percent of the unemployed rate their financial situation negatively. Seventy percent are spending money they’d saved for retirement, more than half have borrowed from friends and nearly as many have run up credit card debt.

-Four in 10 have skipped medical care, as many have sold personal possessions to make ends meet, nearly a third are using food stamps and one in five reports using a food pantry. A fifth have had to move their home; as many are bunking with family or friends.

-In personal responses, 70 percent are under stress, 60 percent report depression, half anxiety and 40 percent helplessness and anger. One in 10 has sought professional help with the emotional fallout.

The report, from Rutgers’ John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, puts other data into perspective, including our weekly ABC News Consumer Comfort Index, which despite signs of economic growth – and somewhat less-pessimistic expectations for the future – remains near its record low in 24 years of weekly polling.

In our latest CCI results 91 percent of Americans rated the economy negatively, 76 percent called it a bad time to spend money and 56 percent rated said their own finances were hurting – all signs of the painful impacts of the broad, long-term unemployment explored in the Rutgers study out today.

That makes this an especially good time to tell everyone they need to start sacrificing and suffering. See, the stock market's doing well and everyone who's anyone is fed up with all this whining from people who refuse to get non-existent jobs:

"You can’t go on forever," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, whose panel oversees the benefits program. "I think 99 weeks is sufficient," he said.

"There’s just been no discussion to go beyond that," said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

Yes, 99 weeks would be sufficient --- if the unemployment rate wasn't sky high. What the hell are these people supposed to do? Emigrate?

If you have the stomach to read the Rutgers study, do it. This has long term repercussions on our economy and our culture and none of them are good. The loss of wealth from the housing and stock market crashes two years ago, combined with long term unemployment for a large number of Americans has changed the future expectations of all of us. The ruling class needn't worry, of course. They are quite comfy and can't figure out what the fuss is all about. ("Why don't these lazy unemployed people just put together a decent portfolio, for crying out loud?") But everyone who isn't one of the chosen few, even those who kept their jobs throughout, have been changed by this to one degree or another. Everyone's expectations have ben challenged and some have had their dreams completely derailed.

It's a problem that's going to long outlast the great recession.


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digby 5/04/2010 12:15:00 PM


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