Election Issues Today

Caroline Kennedy and the Making of a U.S. Senator

What exactly qualifies a person to be a U.S. Senator?  Not constitutionally, but in our own eyes?

Caroline Kennedy is 51 years old, a graduate of Radcliffe College at Harvard and Columbia Law.  She is intelligent and informed and carries both the burden and the benefits of her family name.

She has stated that her interests in the Senate seat are “patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined.”

She would bring to the job name recognition and the ability to focus attention on issues she deems to be important.  Her favors and alliances would be sought after by the most experienced old hands in the Senate.  They know the power of a name and the value of influence.  She would bring both to the job.

She probably has as many qualifications for the Senate as Hilary Clinton did when she ran for the same seat.  She probably is more qualified than Al Franken who ran for the Senate in Minnesota this year.  Remember Ronald Reagan ran for California governor from his position as president of the Screen Actors Guild.  And Arnold, the current California governor?  What were his qualifications?   I think…POTENTIAL for LEADERSHIP, is perceived by voters and they respond at the ballot box.  So if Kennedy does get the appointment, she will have to hold on to it at the ballot box in 2010, and then again at the end of the shortened term in 2012.

You don’t know how well a candidate will do until he or she gets into the job.  Some of  the best-qualified candidates in U.S. history didn’t do all that well in office.  (Herbert Hoover comes to mind.)

So I wish Caroline good luck.  I think she would do a good job.

Big Automakers Benefit from Bush Benevolence

President Bush has granted Chrysler and General Motors some financial rescue money to the tune of a $17.4 billion loan from the bailout money that was signed into law as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was designed to save the finance industry. Ford is not participating in this particular “loan.” And the Congress will have to go along with about $4 billion which would be distributed in February from the second half of original $700 billion bailout package. This is all so complicated. And…

The dollar amounts of these various bailouts is so staggering that we ordinary citizens can’t even comprehend how much money it would be in “real dollars.”  Like for buying groceries.  The U.S. Government is like the grandpa who can’t afford to buy Christmas presents for all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but puts $3,000 on his credit cards anyway and says he felt he just “had” to.  President Bush found himself in the same situation.  He felt that he just “had” to save them.

President-elect Obama evidently concurred in Bush’s actions, and stated that the industry will be held accountable for the “long-term restructuring” that will be needed to save the auto industry in this country.

If U.S. automakers go broke, that is, if they just keep their assembly lines shut down for, say, a year, then a very high proportion of the U.S. populace would be out of their homes and standing in soup lines.  Can you even imagine such a situation being allowed to happen in the richest country in the World?

No, it will not be allowed to happen. But I can’t help but remember lessons from U.S. history about the “captains of industry” and “big oil” and how the real power brokers came to control the entire American economy.  Things haven’t changed much.

The U.S. Economy is Dominating Politics

The News Media continue to headline new economic bad news every single day.  The Stock Market Reacts to every economic “sneeze” like a dotting mother.

The general population has turned their attentions away from the political process, the Presidential Transition, the press conferences, the cabinet nominees and whatever else the media and the politicians WANT us to keep in focus, while “We, the People,” in order to form a more perfect plan to survive this economic DISASTER, are focusing on the struggle to make mortgage payments, car payments, insurance payments, and credit card payments, while supporting and helping family members who have lost jobs or have been put on reduced hours.

And speaking of credit cards, watch out this year, as the temptation to make this a “normal” Christmas for the kids can bankrupt you in the new year.   No, you can’t make this a “normal” Christmas for the kids.  Do them a favor and expose them to the fact of life that they REALLY need to learn: It takes MONEY to EAT!

Teens and pre-teens are old enough to understand the concept of “tightening the belts,” of economizing, of sharing the burdens of a household’s finances.  Not every little thing, of course, but the main facts.  Take it easy on expenses this Christmas and it will pay dividends in the next year.  There will be “time enough for celebrating when the dealings done” and we have a new economic recovery plan in place so the dollars start to flow from the Federal spigot down to the ”folks on Main Street,” as the candidates would say. 

Deteriorated Infrastructure May Be Key to Recovery

Public Infrastructure in America is in need of repair and the new President-elect appears poised to push forward with an economic recovery plan that will re-build roads, upgrade schools and improve energy efficiency across the country.

Recently I joined with many others in urging Mr. Obama to concentrate his economic recovery efforts on public infrastructure.  In asking his transition team to prepare to expend millions of dollars on infrastructure in the biggest effort since construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950’s, the President-elect is focusing his team’s efforts on creating well-paying jobs rather than the “dole” of welfare-like benefits that demean the human spirit.

In addition to roads, there are thousands of bridges in America, many in the rural hinterlands, that are in critical need of upgrade.

Our National Park System, underfunded for reconstruction projects for many years, could also benefit from a new effort to preserve and improve our conservation and recreation lands.

City Parks and other local infrastructure, including streets, sewer systems, pedestrian improvements, and neighborhood lighting projects could all use an infuse of federal dollars that would put people to work.

Not to be overlooked in any comprehensive recovery effort should be some emphasis on TRAINING.  We have a broken apprenticeship program, badly outdated and overcome by technology advances in the past forty years.   Let’s prepare today’s youth for skilled labor and technical jobs by paying them enough to support their families while they train.  A work-school program that puts 50 percent of their time in the classroom or in field training environments could provide long-term benefits for the next generation.