Misreading job wishes

I cannot allow a statement by our congresswoman in a Sept. 10 Business section article on President Obama’s jobs plan to go unchallenged. The article stated, “Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said her constituents told her they want less government involvement in the economic recovery.”

If this is true, then she’s not listening very carefully.

The comments I hear involve disappearing jobs, with all the financial and emotional uncertainty that entails. And I know the damage that unemployment can do to families; I’ve experienced it twice myself in the past decade.

Creating living-wage jobs must be our representative’s top priority. To exclude government spending from the range of solutions is to fight unemployment with one hand tied behind our back.

The president’s plan would create jobs – 9,600 of them in our state’s hard-hit education and construction industries – without adding to the deficit. Isn’t that the congresswoman’s goal as well?

I urge Rep. McMorris Rodgers to support all parts of the president’s jobs plan. And please remember you represent all of us in the 5th District – not just the people who already agree with you.

John Carter

Spokane