Hillary is taking some flak for not bringing many good jobs to upstate New York, even though she promised to do so during her 2000 Senate campaign.
New York’s job growth has been slow compared to the rest of the country. For example, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region had 547,200 non-farm jobs in January 2001, according to the state Labor Department. But as of October 2005, the job count for the area stood at 555,800, an increase of only 8,600.
Hillary recently stressed the need for students to learn better math and science skills to compete in the new job market, saying, “I am old enough to remember Sputnik,” and “I can remember my fifth-grade teacher coming in and saying the President wants you to do your math. I certainly didn’t want to do it, but if the President wanted me to do it, I thought I better do it. Well, we have a silent Sputnik today.”
Hillary also went old-school: “I don’t want to sound like my late father, who said, ‘I got up at the crack of dawn and after I milked the cows and fed the chickens, I walked 10 miles in the snow to schools.’ But certainly there is a concern on the part of many people that with the enhanced entertainment, media-saturated environment that our children grow up in, instant gratification is the name of the game.”
Republicans were quick to criticize Sen. Clinton for not doing enough. “For five years, Mrs. Clinton has been missing in action when it comes to delivering for the upstate economy,” said Ryan Moses, executive director of the state GOP. “She has failed miserably on her pledge to create 200,000 jobs. Now as election time draws near, once again she is pretending to be focused on helping the upstate economy. What bogus campaign promise can we look forward to this time?”
