In advance of President Barack Obama's upcoming speech on jobs and unemployment, Yahoo! News asked its readers and contributors to tell us what subjects they'd like to hear Obama address. Below is a first-person perspective from a reader.
[Your Voice: Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to share your thoughts.]
FIRST PERSON | Obama plans to revive the hope of our nation in a stirring speech just after Labor Day to try to get re-elected, er, I mean fix the failing economy and reduce the national unemployment rate, right after he's done vacationing.
Why do today what you could put off until after Labor Day, right?
As a 25 year-old who works from home, raises two kids and attends college in an itty, bitty town called Sterling, Alaska, that nobody Obama even knows has likely ever heard of, I can say with sincerity I doubt his speech is going to change my life.
I don't need a speech. America doesn't need another speech full of empty promises and election-ballot hopes. It needs change -- now. Sadly, a speech with a plan is what we're getting. We can at least hope Obama's speech offers some real ingenuity, creativity and well, hope, to really fix the economic and financial problems facing our people.
I'd like to see Obama present an idea that improves the economy beyond his short term as president. Stimulus packages do help relieve hardship now, but they fall well into this paraphrased old adage: Don't catch a man a fish; rather, teach him to fish. You should prevent the man from starving while he learns to catch his own meal instead.
Sadly, the short-term stimulus efforts being suggested don't come with a long-term solution. In fact, education is one of many fields facing a dam in funding thanks to an effort to reduce the deficit. Not everyone in America is a construction worker; just building the country back up in a literal sense isn't going to remedy a 9 percent unemployment rate. We need to bring jobs back onto homeland soil and stop out-sourcing to save a buck. We need educate people in general and in trades so there are people to do those jobs. We need to stop devaluing our dollar and find value in ourselves.
Having a little experience trying to pay too many bills with not enough money, I can attest that spending more does not balance budgets, unless your spending comes with returns. His speech is also said to appoint a special committee to cut spending to fund these so-called economic stimulus efforts. How much does that committee get paid? Why are we cutting funding for environmental programs working to ensure we have a planet to spend on? Why are we cutting public services like WIC and low-income housing that help the growing populace of poor in America? Why are we cutting funding to farmers and ranchers that produce the food we survive on? Why, when our own people are suffering, are we so worried about defending our borders from an invisible threat? There is no use defending a country, if doing so starves the citizens. Why are government officials getting raises? Why are we paying senators for life, even when they're no longer serving? If you're trying to cut the pork fat off a hog, you don't aim for the vital organs.
I'd like to see Obama suggest funding go to the "we" who are the people, and not just the people who can throw enough money into the fight to be heard.
Why aren't we taxing the wealthy more? Why are we riding the middle class into a dusty remnant of yesteryears? We need to redistribute the wealth. We need a president who can help that happen.
I'd like Obama's speech to include something we haven't heard before. I'd like it to include something he wasn't told to say and puppeteered through. I'd like to hear the truth, because that's all that will ever set us free.
big brother spoilers grocery stores lexus lexus amoeba georgetown david letterman
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.