Job Spectrum

President Obama said to the Congressional Black Caucus today that he would try and help them in getting money for a summer youth roles programme, according to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, who attended the meeting.We need a summer youth roles programme and we need it quickly, said Cleaver, a Kansas Town Left winger who chairs the CBC's roles task force. He manifestly could not guarantee that it might occur, he only assured that he would try and make it happen.

The roles issue is a sore point with the congress. It wants more notice given to low earnings communities where unemployment is high. The government has opposed programs to target categorical groups.

Relations between them and as a previous senator the president used to be an affiliate - have been irritable at certain times.
At the moment the congress is angry that their fears about summer roles are not mirrored in the $15 bln roles bill passed by the House last week. A scaled-down replacement for earlier, more all-inclusive legislation, it offered tax breaks to business in return for hiring new workers.

Recounting what he claimed at the meeting, Cleaver said, "Mr. President, in 8 weeks we are going to have many thousands of high schoolers leaving college for the summer without roles going home to elders without roles.That's not a good scenario.
On a political note, Cleaver claimed that Obama sounded more hopeful about the mid-term elections than current campaign predictions.
Republicans have promised to beat Left wingers over the head with medical care reform all the way to November.But Cleaver said that Obama envisioned the issue would pass and then lose the virility it has as a political weapon.
Did he assume the president was just attempting to cheer them up?

He used to be a CBC member, Cleaver claimed. With the people in the room he might have gone in any direction he needed to go. I think he thinks it.
And the black caucus?
Everyone's cautious, Cleaver related. Folk are a little jumpy.