EC from DC
Moving in the Right Direction
Last week brought good news about our economy. Jobs numbers are up. Manufacturing is up. The unemployment rate is down. This is good news. By the numbers:
My first babysitter was the Reverend Noah Albert Cleaver, my great-grandfather. He took care of my oldest sister and me every day after preschool. He lived to be 103 years old. I was in college when he died. He was born in Cherokee County, Texas, and he died in Ellis County, Texas. He never voted, not one time in 103 years. Because if he wanted to vote, he had to pay $3.50 in a poll tax.
I was forty-five years old when the World Wide Web was invented in 1989. Up until the year 2000, my family did not have a personal computer, or a connection to the Internet. We picked up the phone or we sent a letter in the mail. These days, you can barely get by without it. I have a smartphone in my pocket, an iPad at home, and a desktop PC at both of my offices.
Missouri's Fifth District is what I like to call a microcosm of our country. Our urban and rural communities depend on and derive strength from one another in a symbiotic, beneficial relationship.
Yesterday, as it sometimes happens, I was on television for a little bit to talk about the issues of the day. I was on two very different shows, with two very different hosts, and two different audiences. I like to do that—to talk with people who think differently than I do. And my staff told me that many of you called my Washington office to say thank you.
