"We Are No Longer The Land of Plenty"
By Capt. Fred Davis
Published: Friday, June 22, 2012







We the people — the middle class or what once was such, are being hit the hardest in these tough economic times that change daily. Are we to believe the “Trickle Down” effect will actually get to us? How and when? Currently the trickle is more like a slight drip.

If we listen to the politicians, no matter what the problem is nor what their party affiliation may be, their answers are always the same. Washington needs more money or in our case, Lansing is broke so look elsewhere for help.

Perhaps closing a few schools in neighborhoods that lack enough students to fill the classrooms is a beneficial move financially but it needs to stop there. Once those schools are closed, don’t continue slashing at education by cutting funding to schools whose communities can and do support them. By taking these actions there is no real gain. The cost may reduce initially, but the result will be families, whose students have been needlessly transferred to distant locations, having to move. So the cycle will occur again, areas with too few students and areas with too many — thus a need to expand.

If the old schools were closed due to a lack of funds, where will funds come from to build new school buildings in areas where students were forced to transfer?

The same reasoning can be applied to maintaining our infrastructure. We let the roads and bridges go until repairs are out of the question. Temporary repairs only prolong the needs as deterioration sets in and replacement is required. At least the need to maintain our roads and highways creates jobs. That is what has to be done — now, not when everything is crumbled around us.

Those living in areas where police and fire protection services have been cut are helpless. Some neighborhoods have become so unsafe people are fearful to even leave their homes. The government cannot keep taking away from the people. They can’t keep asking for sacrifices and tax increases. They have taken too much.

Government needs to cut spending. Eliminate hiring additional employees to do legislators jobs while they attend meetings and dinners “honoring” them. As others perform their jobs, they boast of how hard they are working to represent their constituents. For every elected official — at all levels, there are from two to 20 employees drawing paychecks from our taxes. These jobs need to be transferred to the private sector where we don’t have to support them.

All elected officials — in any capacity need to be seeking ways to bring industry back to our country so our unemployed can go back to work. Have we not given away more than we could afford to support world commerce?

If the government wants more tax money it must invest a portion of what they have in our country’s future. They must seek a way to make the wealthy invest their money in our country or pay a greater amount in taxes before they transfer it to a foreign bank.

The only way we can get back to a comfortable level of living for everyone is to create more taxpayers, not more taxes. We must promote investment in industry and business to create and provide more jobs which will produce more taxpayers.

Each year we are given statistics telling us, the middle class, how many millionaires there are in our country, “The land of riches.” The United States led the list for many years with the largest number of any country. This year’s reports indicate the greatest numbers of millionaires are in Asia.

As I see it, our millionaires should take note and invest more in our country — the country that made them wealthy!

 

 

 

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