A Thought Provoking Question on C-Span Today

The question posed to callers on C-Span today was, "Do you see signs of an economic recovery?"

It provoked a lot of different answers, many of which reflected confused and disgruntled citizens, in my opinion. How the host was able to keep a straight face when some of the people rambleed on regurgitating the news blurbs that are spoon fed to them, was beyond me. I imagine it's a very high stress job and that's why the host constantly changes.

The one gentleman who seemed to be conscious and on topic was, thankfully, engaged by the host to answer a few more questions.

If I ever had the nerve to call into this show, this is what I'd have to say on the topic.

California's economy is in a shambles and it's mode to recovery is sadly "one step forward-two steps back".

We see new business development in the form of Kohl's Department stores opening up in spaces where the bankrupt Mervyn's once stood, stimulating the economy of the cities where they are located bring tax dollars once again, but the majority of the jobs in these stores are low wage, part-time and come with no benefits.

We see road construction along our major highways, but that construction was spurred by bond measures the people voted for years ago and will have to pay for in the years to come while the repair of our city streets lay waiting. I recognize that one of President Obama's initiatives was to fix this country's roads. Those companies who fix roads the people who work there are in that business specifically and you're not going to find an out of work roofer or framer or an automobile dashboard assembler being hired on a road crew to repair potholes or widen streets. You may be able to employ that water truck driver or that materials hauler or the heavy equipment operator for a time, but that is not enough.

...and this is where the discussion turns from economic recovery to economic despair.

In this instance, the goal was big, but not big enough. Modeled after an era where train track was necessary to connect one community to another, public transportation in the form of high speed trains should of been the top priority to replace an ailing government owned AmTrack system. Look at the devastating train accident that occurred in Chatsworth, California, on September 12, 2008. Look at the technology that could have, that should have been in place to stop a train from an impending collision. It harkens back to 1895-1900 at Grand Central Station in New York City when it took human tragedy to make mass transit safer. Why does it always have to come to the loss of lives to make things change for the better?

Our century old water infrastructure is crumbling under our feet because cities across the state asked it's citizens to cut back on their water usage and only water their landscaping certain days of the week, but the ebb and flow of the pressures have created great strain and we have seen more water main breaks than at any other time in history.

California laid off teachers because property tax revenue dwindled due to the credit crisis and the ensuing mortgage industry downturn. Everything good in a prosperous economy is tied to housing. If you build a house, you just put people that manufactured the products that go into that house to work; you employed construction workers to build that house, you created service jobs to maintain and improve that house and people with jobs will buy that house, people working at a mortgage company will make a loan and now a home owner will pay taxes to benefit the community. A homeowner will want to buy new furniture for their home and get a better job and a new car because of their higher income and on and on it goes. But people are fleeing California because the cost of living here is too high. The cost of establishing and running a business in California is prohibitive when you have to consider taxes and health care insurance. When employers hire unskilled labor pools due to these high costs, people desperate to support their families both here and in foreign countries, it drives down wages and there becomes a bigger disparity between the seemingly middle class and those who struggle constantly with poverty.

...and this is where the discussion turns from economic despair to political opinion.

US Citizens should get a free education. You have to be able to take care of yourself and your own before you can take care of others. That was big screw up #1 that helped to drag down the California economy. Butter it up with NAFTA and you added insult to injury and drove manufacturing jobs away. The auto industry seized up and those good paying jobs that were there for so long, for generations, are now gone and won't ever be coming back.

And this next sections outlines how the medical and insurance industry failed.

The next paragraph was taken from The Centers for Immigration Studies, "Guestworker Programs for the 21st Century": "The United States has had two agricultural guest worker or Bracero programs with Mexico, and one program, H-2 and H-2A, that permits U.S. farmers to recruit foreign farm workers in any country, although most come from the Caribbean and Mexico. None of these programs fulfilled their stated purpose: to add workers temporarily to the U.S. work force without adding permanent residents to the population, and to do so in a manner that does not adversely affect U.S. workers. Instead, the Bracero programs laid the groundwork for one of the world's great mass migrations — that from Mexico to the United States — and the H-2A program has been wracked by costly disputes."

Since our country's borders were not secure enough, now you have a growing population of undocumented workers having babies to create an anchor child. You now have a population of citizens of poor workers with compromised health care. And you wonder why our health care system is failing? Everyone knows that hospitals won't turn away a patient who comes through the emergency room doors regardless of their ability to pay.

I'll go on and write more later, but once I started to touch on the health care crisis, as I was laying down on my stomach on the bed typing on my laptop, in my distress over the subject due to the fact that I have a preexisting health condition and cannot secure health insurance on my own, I had to take a shit.

I'll be writing more later on: Redefine the path to citizenship. Make English our national language. Making college mandatory.