Widespread municipal budget problems.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

After months of modest gains, the U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs during June. That’s the worst jobs-related news this year. Without serious action soon, the struggling U.S. economy is going to get even uglier. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s economic team was slow to recognize the severity of the jobs crisis, and now seems unable to get Congress to actually do something about it.

My sister is more than a bit of a genius. She has a real talent for being able to reinforce connections between people with little traditions, one of which I’d like to share with you this morning. Every year, at the start of the school year she sits down with her sons and they dictate a little letter to their teacher. At the end of the school year they do a follow up letter. I just received a copy of my nephew’s first grade letters. (Note to protect everyone’s privacy I have shortened all the names to the first letter).

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

Below are the letters:

August 10, 2009

Dear Ms. C.,

I was very excited about the first day of first grade – it was very fun. But I just wanted to tell you that the day before first grade, I went off the high dive even though I was really scared.

Today, my favorite thing was when we got to color those pictures and doing reading workshop. I did a picture of me as a scientist because I am a scientist. I like science a lot – it helps me to know lots of stuff, like that there are arteries all through your body.

Another science experiment that I learned, Ms. C., was how many little sponge squeezes it takes to fill up a big cup, which was 223 squeezes. It took a very long time.

This year in first grade I want to learn what would happen if you cut a tree open in the middle by making a sideways triangle in a tree, and the tree was tilting. I would like to know if the tree would fall down if you did that. And I would like to know if a tree fell down in a fire – would it burn up?

I also want to learn about if the stem of poison ivy is as poisonous as the leaves, or less, or more. Finally, I would like to learn about how high every type of animal can jump, or which one can jump the highest.

Ms. C, I have one more thing I want to learn, and that is how high a mountain has to be before someone cannot climb it.

I hope your baby learns a lot of stuff from you. I hope to learn a lot too.

Love,

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

Congress returns from its April recess this week with financial reform at the top of its to-do list. With millions of Americans still bearing the brunt of the worst recession in 80 years, Congress needs to start protecting our economy from Wall Street excess, and repair the shredded social safety net that has allowed the Great Recession to exact a devastating human cost.

Big banks are an economic parasite

In a major restructuring effort, Wal-Mart reduces mid-level workforce

Unemployment figures in the U.S. are staggering: The official rate stands at 10.2%, the highest in 26 years. A broader measure that includes people who are involuntarily working part-time or who have given up looking for work is at 17.5%. That’s a full-blown economic emergency.