So now Washington is saying that if we don’t pass this “economic stimulus package” soon, the entire U.S. economy will crumble apart. Seriously?
OK, fine. So things are getting pretty bad from where they were before. Open a newspaper or turn on the news and you’ll hear nothing but layoffs. If you are a graduating senior, it feels like even finding a job is a miracle. Instead of screaming and panicking, why don’t we all take a second to think rationally about the next step?
Remember that little $700 billion TARP bailout late last year, where Bush warned us that the consequences of not passing it would be dire? Whatever happened to that? Wasn’t it supposed to help get things back on track? Well, it didn’t, thanks to former Treasury Secretary Paulson. Apparently, buying into banks as opposed to cleaning up their balance sheets like we all thought would happen was supposed to be a better plan. Not like it makes a difference if they weren’t willing before to hand out a loan to a student, right? I mean, not to point out any bias whatsoever, but should we really have trusted the former CEO of Goldman Sachs to help us get out of this mess when banks screwed up left and right?
These are things no one ever thinks about. I don’t get it. We vote for our officials and no one seems to want to monitor them. It’s great that Obama told all of us how we can have hope and change, but is this really what we thought it would be? For some reason, we still are throwing money down the toilet. At this point, do you really care about making sure we have a federal fleet of hybrid vehicles ($300 million) or that our federal buildings are “green” ($3.5 billion)? How about the $650 million for digital television conversion? People are losing jobs and yet we are spending like never before. If the government wants to help create jobs, do so in the private sector, where it is desperately needed. How about investing more in tax cuts? When CNN is publishing an article stating that more than one out of 10 Americans is on food stamps, I doubt that more money in a family’s pocket will really be saved.
Another place to invest money would be in restructuring the Securities and Exchange Commission. After the Madoff scandal and the rumors that Fannie, Freddie, Lehman and all those banks were in good shape only weeks before their fall, it only seems logical that there would be investors who would be hesitant to invest. Perhaps an attempt to help overcome the fear by flexing the muscles of the federal government are in order, no?
From what it seems, things will not be getting better right away. We have a lot of learning and fixing to do. For those of you folks reading this who thought Obama in office would mean that gas and mortgages would be taken care of, sorry. I know that there is a lot of potential for him to do great things, but these things aren’t necessarily the goals of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
However, we can change something in 2010 that has affected and screwed us over directly. Gov. Paterson, SUNY’s top ally (by this point, I hope you are aware of my sarcasm), will be running for reelection. As much as any other SUNY student, I am appalled and disgusted by the governor’s handling of the state’s budget gap. When the time comes for him to campaign, all of us will be first-hand victims of his out-of-control taxing. It will be us, who, with our frustration, will successfully put someone in charge who will help students, not hurt them. Yet let it be that we also hold responsible any elected official who supported the tuition increase in the New York state government. Students are a powerful voice in the state and, for those who taxed us instead of someone who could really spill the cash, we will make sure that when you work for the state, you work for the heart of SUNY as well: its students.