Time to Stop the Madness
My first blog entry in a while deals with two issues with the first being the cost of gasoline and the second the stalemate in government.
Gasoline
You have to be of a certain age to remember the oil embargo back in 1973. At that time we had gas rationing and the price of gas increased dramatically. It was supposedly at that time that this country was going to develop an energy plan to reduce/eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. It is now 38 years later and we do not have a National Energy Plan and are still spending outrageous amounts of money to purchase oil from the Middle East .
As we approach the $4.00/gallon price for regular gas, it is easy to realize that the price is going to rise. For once, Americans need to start conserving gas at every opportunity. This change in behavior includes car pooling as well as using public transportation. There is clearly a significant amount of wasted gas every morning while cars are on the highway, in a traffic jam, waiting to move. If more people would carpool or use mass transit, we would reduce gasoline consumption.
The government needs to develop a national energy plan which includes the requirement that cars get better gas mileage. In addition, government needs to work with the private sector to develop alternatives to oil/gas as the price increase in gasoline is going to cripple the economy. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, it affects everyone and clearly we need to move in a different direction.
Stalemate in Government
Are we going to be confronted, for approximately the next two years where nothing is able to be accomplished as we have a Republican controlled house and a Democrat controlled Senate? It is still the game of politics that we are playing and as a result, nothing significant is getting accomplished. Government is out of control, with its spending and every time they talk about reducing spending they target Medicare and other programs, but do not target government waste. While Obama came into office with the promise of change, the end result is that we are worse off now as he really has maintained the status quo. All of the funding for government programs needs to be reviewed as well as campaign contributions from different groups that support politician efforts. We need a government that has the primary purpose of bringing this country out of its major recession and not trying to please their contributors.
We clearly need to look at all states and determine which areas are in need of serious economic support. We then need to work with new businesses to be located in these areas. I come from Brockton Massachusetts Vermont
What is going to be considered full employment? As I have said previously, full employment was considered to be four percentage unemployment when I was in high school. We have shipped a significant amount of jobs overseas and I question where we will end up if we don’t take action of taxing or tariffing goods that come into this country. In many cases, it is American businesses that have moved their manufacturing overseas to take advantage of the cheep labor costs. The end result is that the companies make a significant profit, but American workers are still unemployed.
Stalemate in Government – (Continued)
At what point in time are we going to realize that we cannot continue on this present course. Are we going to pay unemployment benefits, to people who have been unemployed for a significant period of time or are we going to stop these payments and then have to deal with the ruining of many people’s lives as well as the effect on the home real estate industry as we have an increased amount of foreclosures?
It is time to stop playing the game of politics and have Republicans and Democrats work together to solve our major problems.
