As of this morning, there are 9.2 million people out of work in this country. It`s time for President Bush to start seeing their faces.
Literally. Today`s column is a vehicle for helping the president look into the faces of some of the more than 9 million people who are out of work. In a moment or two, we`ll outline the plan for making the president see the faces of joblessness in his country. If you`re unemployed, or if you know someone who is, you may want to take part in this. We`ll explain how.
First, though, some figures. The government announced Friday that the unemployment rate held at 7.3 percent for the month of March, the worst in nearly seven years. The 9.2 million men and women who are out of work represent 2.5 million more unemployed people than when the economic downturn began in the summer of 1990.
The economists who analyzed these latest figures, while expressing disappointment that things aren`t getting any better, spoke in the free-of-pain terms that economists often use. ”We`re not like the Titanic going down in the storm,” one of them said. ”It`s more like our engines have shut down and we`re stranded on the ocean.”
That`s not much of a comfort to a man or a woman who has been looking for work and finding nothing at all available. All of the talk about economic indicators and signs of movement are no help, either, if you`ve got to provide for your family and there are no jobs out there for you, and the newspaper every morning is dotted with more stories about new rounds of layoffs.
President Bush is well aware of all the statistics. And of course he is aware that much human misery goes along with those numbers.
But he needs to see the faces.
Which is where today`s proposal comes in. It`s not my idea-it`s the idea of a 55-year-old woman in De Kalb, a part-time grocery checkout clerk named Dorothy Funfsinn. The economic experts have had their chance to draw attention to the unemployment crisis; now it`s Mrs. Funfsinn`s turn.
”It just seems to me that if the president could look into the faces of the people who are out of work, it might light a fire under him,” she said.
”I see some of those faces every day, and those people are hurting. And I`m just in one little town in the middle of the country.
”It occurred to me that if people who are unemployed would send pictures of themselves to the president, maybe he`d end up seeing some of those faces, and it would inspire him to work even harder to solve this thing. It must get very tiring for him to read all the statistics, but if he saw the faces, it might touch something in him.”
That`s the plan-for men and women who are unemployed to let President Bush see them. At the end of the column we`ll outline how to get the pictures to him. But Mrs. Funfsinn has another important point that needs to be made first.
”I`m really worried that, because this is an election year, people will think that this is an anti-George Bush tactic,” she said. ”That isn`t it at all. I am not a political activist. I voted for George Bush in 1988, and I voted for the Reagan-Bush ticket in 1984 and 1980. This isn`t some idea aimed to harm George Bush the political candidate.
”This is for George Bush the president. One man can`t do everything, but he`s the head of the government, and he`s the one in charge. We all really need his help.”
Mrs. Funfsinn said that if people all over the country who are out of work send the president snapshots of themselves or of their families, he may end up actually seeing some of them. ”Maybe the people who open up the White House mail will take some of the pictures to him,” she said. ”It`s hard to look into someone`s face and not think about the person`s humanity, and about how the person may be hurting.”
Many people don`t write letters, Mrs. Funfsinn said, because they don`t know quite what to say. ”But with a picture, all you would have to do is write your name on the back, and maybe your address, and how long you`ve been out of work. Those are what the president should know.”
This may not work; people who are busy looking for jobs may not have the time or desire to send their pictures to the president, and even if they do, it would be easy for the White House staff either not to let the president know about this, or to downplay the response.
At this point, though, anything is worth a try. For want of a better phrase, Dorothy Funfsinn is calling this idea Operation Employ U.S. If you or anyone you know is out of work and would like to appeal to the president, the address to send a picture is:
President George Bush, Operation Employ U.S., The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500.
