Next to Michigan, South Carolina has the highest unemployment in the U.S.  One would think that the state’s governor would be loudly campaigning for federal help. Instead, Gov. Mark Sanford is rejecting millions of dollars from the Obama administration’s stimulus package unless the feds allow him to use the money to pay down the state’s debt.

Sanford is not alone. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour are also rejecting federal help. They say that tax cuts—not government spending—are the way out of our economic slump.

Where have they been? Didn’t the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy help turn a budget surplus into the huge deficits that the Obama administration inherited?

And as for paying down the debt, maybe Chuck Moore, business manager of Local 776 in Charleston, S.C.—a guy who knows a whole lot about how Sanford’s policies are hurting hard-working men and women—has the right idea.

Say your car breaks down, says Moore. When you get your federal tax refund, should you use it to pay down your credit card debt, or spend some money fixing your car so you can get to work and keep from losing your job? It’s no idle question.

Local 776’s bread and butter is Nucor’s nearby steel mill. If Sanford rejects federal stimulus money for rebuilding roads and bridges, it will deprive Nucor of contracts, keeping building trades members on the street.

About 80 IBEW members showed up at the recent phony populist Charleston tea party. They carried signs supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, a real brass-tacks solution to the low-wage, low-benefit future that faces working families if so-called leaders like Sanford, Jindal and Barbour—all potential candidates for president—have their way.

The most popular classes at colleges these days aren’t in the business department—they’re in solar photovoltaics, building retrofitting and wind turbine installation.

With the renewable energy industry expected to generate more than 20 million jobs by 2030, many young people see green-collar jobs as a smart choice.
And with billions of federal stimulus money committed to investing in sustainable energy, the green industry looks to be a bright spot of growth amidst growing stunningly high unemployment.

The rapid emergence of new green jobs will require tens of thousands of skilled electricians who can safely and professionally install and wire solar panels and wind turbines and retrofit buildings. And, as the articles in this issue show, we are already doing the work.

For nearly a decade, we’ve incorporated renewable energy into our training and this month the National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee will collect more than 70 lessons into one single green curriculum.

During the Memorial Day break, we are inviting congressional leaders to see for themselves what the IBEW is doing to meet the demands for new electrical workers. We have state-of-the-art training facilities, incorporating the latest in renewable power technology from solar arrays to programmable logic controllers.

And unlike many colleges, where even an associate degree can put a student more than $10,000 in the hole, IBEW apprentices start building their own path to the middle class the moment they pick up their first tool and textbook.

The IBEW has the curriculum, instructors and training facilities needed to meet the needs of greening our economy. For any political or industry leader concerned with creating a new energy work force, our doors are open.