Many billions of dollars have been spent as part of the multi-billion dollar stimulus plan enacted by Congress last year. There have been countless news articles about projects the money was spent on, but my observation was that a lot of those were projects that were started before the economic meltdown occurred and getting information about new projects that may offer new jobs is difficult to impossible. Aside from a few road signs that "This project funded by..." there have been few indicators that the stimulus plan is actually working. General Motors and Chrysler still declared bankruptcy, unemployment is still high, big banks are still sitting on tax dollars they were bailed out with. So, the question is "Where has all that money gone?" A search for stimulus fund projects on the internet returns very little information other than wishes and a search in a state's website does not return any usable information about where new jobs may be.
One thing that has become clear is that most of the people we elected to Congress are not interested in the best interest of our country. The deficit continues to grow, and our congressional leaders continue to blame somebody else, usually the last administration of the other party. There is no bipartisan support for programs that will end the recession, improve the quality of life or eliminate the deficit. Our elected leaders are too busy telling us what we need to listen to instead of our opinions about what we need. If the country were run like a corporation, most of our leaders would have been fired for incompetence by now. Our Congress is made up of people who are not our good friends, not our good neighbors and we are not in good hands. We are gradually losing the freedoms this country was founded upon to our own government. This mess is probably the fault of the average voter because we can see where the problems lie, but we continue to vote for the same people over and over again. But in our own defense, most of us are too busy trying to survive to be able to pay close attention to the people running our country.
While the problems with the economy are too big and cost too much for a lot of us to even comprehend, a common sense approach might reveal some solutions that are workable. The real problem is that some of them may take more guts than are available in the congressional offices. The most important thing that could happen in Congress is for the blame game to stop. We have serious problems with the economy. Foreign investors are taking over a lot of major industries and buying up a lot of real estate. Our congressional leaders must stop blaming past administrations and come up with some real solutions. These problems did not happen overnight or in the last four years. They have been around for at least a generation, regardless of which party controls the white house or congress.
The second most important thing that needs to happen is probably an attitude change. We don't need more economic programs. We need to fix the programs we already have and Congress needs to stop raiding the entitlement programs to fund new programs and stop loading up new programs with special interest amendments and set asides that add billions to otherwise good programs. We don't need to fix a neighborhood pool or build a multi-million dollar bridge to nowhere. We have serious problems and we need serious people to work on those problems. Our elected officials at all levels of government are put in office because we believe they are serious people. Sometimes they need prodding to get things done in an acceptable manner.
As the taxpayers, we have a responsibility to make sure that the people we elect to govern us know that they are elected and should pay attention to our opinions. I encourage everyone to stay in touch with your local congressional offices, attend city or county council meetings and get involved. Only through involvement will any real meaningful change take place.
