Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   6/03/2014

Measure A—Yes to State of Jefferson; Show Dems our will!

My headline says it all.

Off the top of my head, I’d have to say that, in my decades of providing and evaluating employment resumes, I’ve rarely personally known of applicants “padding” their records in the sense of claiming things that weren’t true. Many times I, or another manager, would confirm an applicant’s dates of employment, but previous employers eventually provided nothing beyond mere dates, lest they place their company in legal or employment commission jeopardy. Most managers or owners have encountered curious “gaps” in someone’s history; upon inquiring, some are frank about having been housed and fed by, shall we say, the taxpayers in a secured facility. You could often sense a previous employer’s tone of voice: drab, as in “Yeah, they worked those dates,” or positively cheery, as in “Wow, did we hate to lose (so-and-so).”

I never placed one word on a resume that was not the literal truth; however, I share with many the routine and noncontroversial practice of emphasizing the duties and accomplishments that were most relevant to the position being applied for. Throughout one’s employment history, it is actually advisable to keep your resume current and flexible, no matter your job security (companies do go out of business), and to tailor your history so that someone with 25 seconds to scan what you’ve written quickly sees what they are looking for in a new hire. Over one’s work history, it’s just reality to have not only numerous employers but also more than one field.

I feel safe to say that if someone stated an inaccuracy that erred on the “inflated” side, and when such an inaccuracy (falsehood in a literal sense) accrued to their financial benefit, let alone provided minimal qualification for a position, that person, no matter his or her otherwise commendable and appealing performance—that person would/should be terminated and asked to reimburse said employer for fraudulently obtained compensation. That’s not me being excessively harsh; it’s standard procedure in the business world. Most employers will skip pursuing back pay; they’re just happy to let the desk or office get cleared out. 

No one is above being truthful about their employment history, whether it’s using phony dates to hide one’s job-hopping, 3 to 6 month stints, or claiming to have training not actually achieved, or mentioning an impressive learning or business contact never really contacted—or, in the case of a local candidate, claiming a degree never actually awarded. My tolerance is strained to the breaking point when I consider the relative ease of earning an actual Masters degree in an education field from one of many reputable correspondence or online, study-at-your-own-pace, institutions, when compared to an actual brick-and-mortar campus requiring fulltime attendance. Readers can hopefully read into this who will get my vote for Superintendent of Education.

Back to last week’s unfinished topic, “Ten Obamacare Promises Broken” (Cathy Burke, 12/29/2013, Newsmax).

5. “Obamacare won’t add ‘one dime to our deficits.’” On Feb. 26, 2013, the Government Accountability Office issued a report projecting that Obamacare will add to the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion.

6. “The ACA will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.” That’s not even in the ballpark. Each round of cost projections have been higher than the previous one, noted blogger Cam Harris; the then-current Congressional Budget Office’s report of May 2013 pegged the real 10-year price tag at around $1.8 trillion.

7. “Families making less than $250,000 won’t see ‘any form’ of tax increase.” The Heritage Foundation found at least $770 billion in 18 separate tax hikes, fees, and penalties, many of which heavily impact the middle class. Among those are the individual mandate tax, the medical device tax, and new penalties and limits on health savings and flexible spending accounts.

8. “The ACA will keep healthcare costs down.” While the president’s Council of Economic Advisors peddled this line endlessly, the closest they can come to any quantifiable support is a so-called “reduction in the rate of growth,” which even they admit is unrelated to Obamacare. James Capretta, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and American Enterprise Institute, wrote “Another Broken Promise: Obamacare is Driving Costs Up, Not Down” (Weekly Standard, 11/26/2013). The National Health Expenditure projections showed a slowdown in health spending that began long before the law was passed. HHS actuaries conceded that the reasons for declining rates of health care spending growth are a result of the economy, fiscal policy, Medicare cuts and slower growth in Medicaid, Medicare and other government programs—all unrelated to Obamacare.

9. “You have a deadline and a mandate.” The parade of squishy, malleable deadlines for individuals and businesses makes this promise nothing short of laughable.

10. “The state sites are working great.” Hello, Cover Oregon! Numerous state exchanges have produced epic failures and collapse, costing hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars.

Experience and results since January 1 have only provided ever-mounting evidence that Obamacare is the fraudulent, deceptive and unsustainable boondoggle conservatives said it would be.