From 1934 to 1940 , severe drought ravaged an area twice the size of Pennsylvania covering parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. When the drought destroyed the crops, there was nothing to hold the soil of the wind-swept and treeless plains. The area became known as “The Dust Bowl.”

By 1935, winds reaching 60 miles per hour whipped the dirt into gigantic clouds as high as 1,000 feet blocking the sun. Dust reached the president’s desk in Washington and even reported by ships 500 miles out to sea. Storms blanketed highways in impenetrable clouds of swirling dust stranding motorists. With the land literally blown away, farmers left the area. By the end of the decade almost half the population, an estimated 300,000 from Oklahoma alone, migrated. Most headed to California in hopes of finding work and a better life. John Steinbeck immortalized the hardships and misery of these “Okies” in his 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”

The federal government moved to reclaim the land by strategically planting trees throughout the area that reduced the effect of the wind and by promoting scientific farming methods. The effort was successful. When the drought ended in 1940, the land could successfully be farmed again.

While hundreds of House members and dozens of senators hit the campaign trail in a fight to save their jobs with help from President Obama, more than 2 million out-of-work Americans are faced with being lost in a “Dust Bowl” of  unemployment obscurity by the end of the year. 

Even though Congress passed a jobless benefits extension in July, the boost only lasts until Nov. 30, meaning  a  backlog of recipients will lost their benefits all at once come December.  Between the end of August and the end of the calendar year, approximately 2.37 million Americans will stop getting unemployment checks, according to Labor Department statistics. 

The looming cessation of benefits is not going to help consumer spending among a depressed citizenry where the economy already ranks as the top issue for voters in poll after poll. 

According to Gallup Daily, 47 % of Americans believe Economic Conditions are poor and 62 % believe that the Economic Outlook is worse.

So, while President Obama is on a three-day, cross-country jaunt, doing the only thing that he is semi-competent at:   fundraising, Congress must now turn its focus from legislation to re-election.  Somehow, they have to convince Americans that their constituents’ fiscal well-being matters more to them than their own phony baloney jobs. 

Republicans criticized the president’s fundraising trip Monday. They used this fund-raising trip to show that his priorities are not in order.

The Republican National Committee has posted a new web video highlighting the five states Obama is visiting, along with the local unemployment rate for each. 

Obama will be making fundraising stops in Wisconsin, California, Washington, Ohio and Florida.  Most are states the president will have to carry in 2012 if he runs for re-election, and he is using his visits this week to campaign  for Democrats caught in tight races this November. 

Paul Lindsay, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said:

Every day that the president is not talking about jobs and the economy is a day that Democrats continue to show how out of touch they are with the problems of the American people.

The NRCC premiered a website Monday, titled “The West Swing,” mocking Obama’s scheduled fundraiser with party leaders in Los Angeles Monday night. 

“Don’t let Democrats mislead voters — the economic mess is a result of THEIR failed agenda,” the site says, urging supporters to contribute to “offset” the Democratic money raised in California. 

Republicans, who were against the jobless benefits extension because they said they wanted it to be paid for, claim other action can be taken to lift up the economy.  Lindsay said Republican candidates in the months ahead are going to draw increased attention to the possible expiration of the Bush tax cuts. 

While Democrats argue that most of the tax cuts should be extended for all but the textbook wealthy, Republicans say they should be extended across the board. Lindsay said letting the cuts lapse ensures job growth will continue to stagnate.   He said:

This is the small business tax.

Democrats, in a hypocritical bit of political subterfuge, proclaim that taxes should go back up for those making more than $200,000 in order to start plugging the deficit.  They falsely claim that they’ve been able to stop an economic crisis from becoming considerably worse and are proud of their efforts providing short-term relief with repeated jobless benefits extensions , even though the federally funded cushion is deflating rapidly. 

White House spokesman Bill Burton whined on Monday that while Obama is “not satisfied with the pace of this recovery,” Republicans offer only obstructionism: 

We have been able to make some progress. What you see here is the Democratic vision, which is continue to make progress, keep on with the policies that are moving us out of this crisis. Republicans, he said, want to “obstruct the progress we’ve been able to make. 

Burton used the Wisconsin energy plant Obama visited Monday as an example, saying the plant was adding 80 jobs “as a result of new investment and the fact that they’re manufacturing something that people abroad and domestically are interested in buying.” 

Obama, stopping by the Wisconsin firm on his way to a fundraiser for state Democrats, said ZBB Energy Corp. is showing how “manufacturing jobs can come back.” He described the clean energy industry as one area where job growth can be fueled. and added:

We expect our commitment to clean energy to lead to more than 800,000 jobs by 2012. 

And I expect Joy Behar to turn into Florence Henderson any day now.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said the president is playing a vital role by hitting the campaign trail.  Reed said on “Fox News Sunday”: 

I know the president will be campaigning throughout the country. He’ll be campaigning in many, many districts .  I think his ability to talk about what his administration has accomplished in terms of health reform, in terms of stabilizing a terrible situation. … To go back to the Bush policies would be a disaster for the country. And many candidates will be wanting that message. 

Right, Sen. Reed.  That’s why Democratic candidates are all running away from the president.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader John Boehner on Monday requested that the Obama administration provide a complete list of new federal rules projected to cost the economy $1 billion or more. 

Boehner said:

The Obama administration owes the American people a full accounting of the degree to which its policies may be negatively impacting  job creation in our country.

Congressman, considering that, according to Gallup:

More than 6 out of 10 Americans in Gallup polls conducted this year have consistently said “most members of Congress” do not deserve re-election. These are the highest numbers in Gallup’s history of asking this question.

I would say that both parties have a lot of work to do to regain Americans’ trust.  If Republicans rise to power in a November Mid-term electoral sweep as predicted, they have the opportunity to make a difference in their constituency’s lives.  Or they can sit on their stools at the Beltway Country Club, drinking chocolate martinis, while more and more Americans are consumed by this economic “Dust Bowl”.