Good point on the house ownership TB. I guess for many that would love to get out of middletown, we are doomed to be held hostage, licking our wounds, while putting solar panel and other green means to minimize our expenditures as we can't get out of the quicksand.      

 

IMO there should be a progressive (uh oh, there's that word) income tax. The more you make, the higher percentage you pay based on the argument that the wealthy derive more benefit from a free society. I've discussed the basic unfairness of our current tax structure. At the moment, the wealth of this country is concentrated at the top. In a consumer-based economy, the more people with money, the stronger the economy. I do not propose a re-distribution of wealth; what I propose is more in line with what happened during the last serious economic downturn. Use tax revenues to rebuild our infrastructure to take advantage of new technologies. The "Manhatten Project" this country desperately needs is to get the US off of an oil-based economy. So long as our enemies control the oil, we are in danger.

 

I also am of the opinion we need a constituitional amendment to term limit members of Congress. No elected official should ever serve long enough to get a pension. IMO elected office is not a "job", it is a "service" , they should not receive a "salary" but "compensation" for their time. It's galling to me to watch career politicians say that we're broke when they caused it and they will walk away with their gov. pension and free health care. That needs to come to a screeching halt!

 

I also believe that once the tax code is simplified, we send the accountants from the IRS over to the Dept. of Justice to straighten out this bank fiasco. Someone needs to go to jail over this mess.

 

It is going to take a while for property values to rebound from the mess the banks and mortgage companies have perpetrated. For now, it seems best to stay in the home you have and do everything to make your house more energy efficient. The goal there should be to have your house make money for you instead of your property costing you money. That is where innovation and new technologies need to come into play.

 

Finally, we need to stop scapegoating the public employee and place the blame squarely where it belongs: our elected leaders. Term limits, campaign and election reforms are needed there. If the electorate "can't see the trees for the forest", we need leaders who will step out of the forest and advocate what is best for the country instead of leaders whose only concern is reelection and the cushy government pension and free health care they'll get if they can just stick around long enough. It needs to start here because if not here, where?

 

The contention that most public service jobs require more education and have greater demands is a generalization. Corporate America can compare; I do believe there might be more teachers, police officers, firefighters, etc. than top level management in corporate America. The difference there is pay. I don't care how high Ginger Smith, Debbie Alberico or Bill Becker rose in the public sector, a comparable position at P&G would have paid much more. The difference there is that unqualified people in the private sector rarely rise that high unless they are outstanding employees; the same cannot be said for public service employees. Sometimes, all a public employee has to do is stay around to rise to his highest level of inefficiency.

 

 

I'd be interested in knowing how many of the 11 (at least) with brain cancer that worked at a particular area of the steel mill. I remember hearing that at least 2-3 of them worked in one small department at AK.