July 29, 2012
Maybe things aren't so bad after all?
I have been accused by some readers of
being too pessimistic. I thought about that at length and decided
that in this article I would focus on the positive aspects of some of
our nation's challenges.
For example, instead of focusing on the
30 million Americans who have no health insurance, let's remember
that over 90% of all Americans do have some form of insurance
coverage. By the way, about half of all American's health coverage is
provided by Medicare, Medicaid, Government Employee, and the VA
health care systems...those dreaded public options! Instead of
worrying about the 25 million or so who do not enjoy full employment,
remember that over 125 million Americans are working...albeit with
wages that have been stagnant for well over a decade. Instead of
focusing on the roughly 50% of workers paying no federal income
taxes, let's celebrate the positive fact that almost half of all
working Americans make enough money to be able pay these taxes, and
lets make them pay even more. Instead of bemoaning the trillions of
dollars that have been spent on our last two wasted wars, lets be
happy that both of these are winding down and the citizens of Iraq
and Afghanistan are now far better off than before we came...aren't
they? Let's stop being so worried about the state of our children's
education. Let's just ask for more federal involvement, encourage
more unions, stronger tenure rules, lower teacher pay, more end point
testing, and even less parental involvement. After all, how important
is it to worry about our kids and grandkids receiving the types of
quality education that will actually prepare them to live productive
adult lives in our rapidly changing global environment? Instead of
continuing to be upset at the fact that over 12 million illegal
immigrants have been allowed/encouraged to enter our country over the
past three decades, look at the money we saved by not enforcing our
borders, and the fact that with the economy remaining weak, fewer and
fewer are now coming to America. Instead of being unhappy with the
fluctuating cost of gasoline, let's keep buying gas guzzlers. Housing
values underwater...look at the bright side, housing prices have
never been lower...what a great buying opportunity. Now if we could
just create jobs and convince those darn banks to start lending money
again we might actually sell more homes and drive prices higher. If
you were unhappy that none of the bankers, Wall Street types, and
even some of our culpable elected officials were charged with any
crimes or had to serve even a day in jail for their role in creating
the housing bubble that nearly sank our nation...look at the bright
side about how much this helped reduce jail and prison over-crowding.
If you are unhappy at the OWS crowd going after the 1%? Look at the
positive fact that they haven't yet decided to go after the top 30%.
We should all celebrate the creation of ethanol as the renewable
replacement for gasoline. Let's ignore the fact that it costs more
energy than it saves to produce. Let's also ignore the fact that this
has reduced the amount of corn and other competing grains available
for foodstuffs...resulting in significantly higher food prices. The
best news here is that the EPA has not raised the allowable ethanol
levels to 20 or 25% instead of the 15% currently approved. Let's
celebrate the fact that only about a fourth of our children now live
in households whose income falls below the poverty line. More good
news; our national debt is only $16 trillion. I say only because it
has been projected by the OMB to increase by about one trillion
dollars per year for the coming decade. Thus $16trillion will seem
like chicken feed compared to the projected $26 trillion by 2022.
We should be ecstatic that in spite of
an approval rating of less than 10% for our federally elected
lawmakers...we continue to re-elect incumbents over 90% of the time.
Think of the pleasure this brings to them and their families, and the
powerful special interests who don't have to worry about training
new lawmakers to follow their orders. Finally we also should be
grateful that the two parties are so frozen in partisan politics. If
they were not, who else could we blame for all of our problems?
Surely we wouldn't look in a mirror...would we??
Hmm...maybe I am a pessimist. But if
so I'm an optimistic one because I am certainly positive that one
cannot look at these irrefutable facts and not conclude that
something is terribly wrong with our nation. If you disagree please
let me know what you see that I am missing. I would prefer optimism
over pessimism any day...I just need some evidence.
I can't wait for my Ostrich-like
(oops...optimists) friends to read this...though, it's likely that
they have their heads buried so deeply in the sand that they won't
see what is so clearly visible anyway?? Haven't you found in your own
life experience that ignoring problems usually makes them become less
problematic?
As usual, these are my opinions. What
do you think?
Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC