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Barack Obama's economic plan is to inject $75 billion
of stimulus into the economy by getting money in the form of tax cuts and
direct spending directly to the people who need it most. He reserves an additional $45 billion of
stimulus to be injected into the economy later should the economy continue to
tank. His promise is that this money can
be in the hands of America and giving our economy a kick in the butt quickly,
and efficiently.
I know that many of you hate this idea. There is an almost religious-like faith in Reaganomics
that if we let the rich get richer they will spend, spend, spend from their
abundance and that spent money will trickle down on the rest of us peons. But if feels more like we are peed on than just merely peons.
Poverty is not a disgrace, but it's terribly inconvenient. ~Milton Berle
I am not legally poor, but I am anxious, and
practically speaking, I am poor. I have
a job now, but I had been out of work for five months. Part of that is to blame on moving to another
state to be near elderly family, and part of it is because we were in a bad
accident the third day we arrived in Oklahoma City, and I have had to care for
my wife 24/7 until just recently.
Nevertheless, we are out of what little money we had saved up, and my
wife is still unable to work. I won't
get my first full paycheck until December 23rd. We are very anxious at my house, and I
promise you, we are not the most anxious.
There are millions of American's in far worse shape.
Some of you know that I work with abused and
neglected children, and one of the biggest problems underlining the problems of
these dysfunctional families is poverty.
The misery and unrelenting fear that comes from poverty drives desperate
weary people to drink too much, gamble too much, drug too much, have
promiscuous sex, and sit on their asses all day watching TV.
Th importance of entertainment, humor, and
personality: When one can only survive, then any respite from the
survival struggle is important. Entertainment brings respite.
Individual personality is what one brings to the setting because money is not
brought. The ability to entertain, tell stories, and be funny are valued.
Bridges out of Poverty by Ruby Payne, Philip DeVol, and Terie Smith
Recent data reveals that the unemployment rate has
experienced its sharpest monthly increase since 2001 the last time the economy
fell into recession. Jobs have been lost
in a wide range of industries, including construction, manufacturing, retail
and the financial services. In the last month 18,000 jobs were created, but
that is nothing when we need 125,000 new jobs each month just to keep pace with
population growth. Unemployment is going
up, and nothing good has trickled down on us for a long, long time.
I am ready to give Obama a
chance, including some time to repair problems he did not cause. The NeoRepublican free market philosophy has
acted as if the rich had a free license to take whatever they could get their
greedy hands on, and they didn't care what they had to do to get it. Now even the credit card industry is hurting,
because, like the morgage industry they offered credit to people who were not
in a position to pay their credit back, and then they sold those debters off to
other lending institutions thinking they had shifted the risk, and they would
be OK. Well they are not OK. We are not OK.
Barack Obama's Plan to
Stimulate the Economy and Protect American Families
·
Provide an
immediate $250 tax cut for workers and their families.
·
Provide an
immediate, temporary $250 bonus to seniors in their Social Security
checks.
·
Provide an
additional $250 tax cut to workers and an additional $250 to seniors if
the economy
continues to worsen
·
Provide relief
to homeowners hit by the housing crisis.
·
Provide aid to
states hardest-hit by the housing crisis to avoid a slash in services.
·
Extend and
expand Unemployment Insurance.
I was talking to three
brothers a while back, ages 5 to 8. I asked them what time school
started, and the kidos got into a fuss.
The 5 year old thought it started at 12.
The 7 year old said 10, and the 8 year old said 4:30 in the morning.
All three boys were wrong. But
the boys were eager to tell me about the murder of their big sister, which
happened in front of them, at the hands of their mother's boyfriend. I should add here that these children knew
ever detail of that violence in their home, and they recounted every part of
the story perfectly.
There are rules of living in
poverty that we who are not poor are often ignorant of. We must learn the culture of poverty and seek
to draw them into a life free of want.
Jesus said the poor would always be with us, but I'm hoping it was true
for only a few thousand years.
There was a time when the
middle and upper class could not imagine living in a society that did not rely
on slavery for cheap labor. There was a
time in this country when the movers and shakers of America could not imagine women voting, or running for
office, or leading a business. Hopefully, it is possible that we can, eventually, someday live in a
world where children are not born into abject poverty, and turned and directed
by the unwritten, and nearly unbreakable rules of scarcity and want. |
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