The Economy

RECENT JOB LOSSES WILL HURT EVERYONE
REGULATORS IGNORED SIGNS OF CRISIS
WALL STREET GETS THE HELP, MAIN STREET GETS THE SHAFT

FREDERICK, MD – March 21, 2008

The recent job losses at Rayloc in Hancock, MD and at Hagerstown’s Volvo-Powertrain plant will hurt hundreds of families and the local economy. While Rep. Roscoe Bartlett expressed little concern about the job cuts, calling the cuts “cyclical”, Democratic challenger, Mayor Jennifer P. Dougherty said, “This is just another example of how people in Washington lose touch with local people and businesses and use old ways of thinking to try to explain away problems.”

According to Dougherty, “Hardworking people will have to find a couple of minimum-wage jobs to try to pay their bills. They will dig into their savings and cut their expenses at a time when the cost of living just keeps going up. If anyone in Washington had been paying attention during the past 3-4 years, they could see the credit problems were going to explode and that real people were going to be hurt.”

“Dr. Bartlett blames everyone else for the economic problems, but takes no blame for the federal regulators who ignored the signs of crisis. Members of Congress should have been asking some tough questions a few years ago if they really wanted to avert a crisis,” said Dougherty.