9 posts tagged “government”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-4-2009/chuck-grassley-s-debt-and-deficit-dragon
What is going on in American politics? It seems to be a childish fight to see who can scare more people into agreeing with their party’s lunatic fringe. President Theodore Roosevelt told us that every movement has its lunatic fringe and the parties are definitely no exception.
The problem is not that these extremes exist, the problem is that these extreme segments of both of the major parties are dominating our politics at every turn. A never-ending assault of scary statements and end of the world “if we support this” or “don’t support that” prophecies and on and on.
I have been wondering, in this era of so much media and information, how this could be so effective and not repulsive to most. Then I realized, that there is a large portion of the country that is elderly and concerned (for example) about health care who tend not to use as much internet etc. and would only have the words of someone they trust to believe as the facts. This gloom and doom, it’s the end of the world greatly impacts that group and any others that may not be as apt or able to do more research beyond what someone they perceive as an expert says. So there are really people who believe our Hanitys and Moores are the gospel (depending on which lunatic extreme is more comfortable to you)
There is so much childishness going on that is becoming stupid. This weird thing where people are being told to just disrupt town hall meetings with random yelling etc. talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. All any smart politician would do in the future is simply record a message, control who is in the crowd, or just not have them at all. Does one party not think if you do it now, they will do the same thing later.
The real trouble is that terribly ill informed people are believing things that are not factual and starting fist fights at political events and ultimately completely dividing the country.
To some this division is desirable, but for those of us who live in California we know there are only two possibilities.
A one party system where the lunatic fringe of that party can easily overtake our politics or a system where both parties get so angry at the other that everyone drifts toward their lunatic fringe and refuses to compromise on anything which in the end means absolutely nothing can ever get done. Everything ends in a stalemate.
The whole idea of our government is that there are different sides that negotiate and agree at some point on any issue that comes up even if that means that sometimes they agree to just put off an issue here and an issue there.
Now, whenever a politician says he or she will make a compromise with the other party that person is a traitor, and is punished in the media, by his or her party, and by voters and constituents who are told this person sold them out. If compromise is punished on either side, how is anything supposed to get done? This is the mindset and techniques used by the extremes of our party system that are gaining more and more control of our country and media.
As far as I am concerned I have a new term for this. Accidental terrorism. This is an inadvertent attempt to destroy or entire political system just to prove a few idealistic points.
The politicians are not the ones who will be punished when this all plays out. The so called experts on television and in our media will not be the ones who suffer. The people who make over $200k or over $250k who are so concerned about paying more taxes are not the ones who are going to suffer. It is the average person who although gullible when it comes to this sort of information, we all just want to live peaceful lives with the opportunity to support our families and better ourselves with hard work.
I attached a link to a clip that I hope you can access. It is not to say that one party is better than the other, it is to show how stupid the whole thing is.
This childish war to have one or the other extreme’s way is really a war against democracy and more specifically the average middle class person.
Everyone knows (for example) that there is a terrible health care problem. One side is fighting any sort of solution saying things should stay the way they are (Einstein – Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting the same results) and the other side is coming up with a plan to insure everyone while secretly using it as a Trojan Horse to sneak in a bunch of stuff such as money for abortions. In the meantime the American people suffer and pick a side to protest with while still losing healthcare by the thousands daily.
Ask yourself, if you were a terrorist who wanted to destroy America would your money be better spent on blowing up some airplane here or there or on some politicians on the lunatic extremes who will invest that money and the money of other Americans to make sure our entire government is in a stalemate.
I know all of us have our deep personal commitments, but there has to be some kind of compromises for our system to work. We have to get the lunatic fringes out of power and elect people with our individual values who know how to compromise and when to so that our government will not get stalemated. Especially since in the last election one party almost gook over completely. NO! Everything will not be perfect and everything will not go your way (no matter which party you prefer). But, the truth is this country will never get everyone to agree on anything and if you are waiting for your party to take over so you can have your way, you are really a part of the problem. An involuntary tool of those who wish to destroy our political system and our government!
Imagine you have little money and you are renting a room in a house. You pay most of your income to rent, but the people who own the house are not good with money. The people that own the house get 3 months behind on the mortgage and the house is in foreclosure. They suddenly get an offer for a credit card that will cover a part of the mortgage and save the house you are living in at least for a while longer. They decide to ask you if they should get the card to save the house and inform you that if they use this to save the house, they will have to raise the rent and if they do not they will lose the house and you will be evicted. WHAT CHOICE CAN YOU MAKE? You cannot afford more rent, you cannot be homeless, and you cannot imagine them suddenly getting any better with money even if they save the house and you will probably be in the same boat soon anyway.
This is how I see today’s vote in California. It is a lose, lose proposition with doom and gloom being preached by both sides of the argument. We are doomed if we vote yes, we are doomed if we vote no, and we are doomed if we don’t vote.
The only thing that is clear is that the government in California as it is has absolutely no ability to fix the problems here and the people are so divided that at either extreme that it will be this way for a long time.
I am about to vote, but what a crock all of this is. Vote yes and they get the credit card that will cover some of the debt, but also makes more and inevitably robs from something else to pay for it. This also means raised taxes in several areas.
Vote no and it’s the end of the world for our economy in California and we will be without fire fighters, and police etc. (according to the commercials).
We all must vote and have our voice, but what a choice.
We began our presidential primaries with a tremendous showing of how much our country has advanced. We had a female candidate, an African American candidate, a Mormon candidate, an actor as a candidate, a candidate who is advanced in years, and a bunch of other people.
But, somewhere our great nation took a left when we should have taken a right (not the revered of course).
There was the issue of Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor that brought out this huge race issue and revealed to the world that as a nation we have ignored and never closed the door on our ongoing race issues dealing with people of African heritage and/or their deep resentment of their treatment at the hands of the laws and people of this nation from it’s inception.
Then we revealed to the world that with all of our pious talk of equal opportunity for women in our country and how advanced we are in terms of gender equality there was suddenly a rush of both accusations and some demonstrations of chauvinism and hyper-feminism. This showed the world that we are clearly not as far along as we let on.
Then we decided it was time to demonstrate to the world that we had no dignity or class at all. We suddenly saw images of members of our senate who were realistic hopes for leadership of our nation using such things as bowling, taking shots in bars and chugging beer, and describing our nation as people who cling to religion and guns because we are angry used as serious campaign strategies.
On the Republican side there was this McCain fellow, another prominent member of our Senate, stating that the American people were basically on their own and the government would do nothing to help (probably not exactly what he meant, but that was what came out of his mouth) and that the solution would be a “Gas Tax Holiday” which was immediately reamed by economists and the media worldwide.
And, let us not forget the images we saw on Martin Luther Kings birthday of Senator McCain somewhere in the south in front of a largely African American crowd apologizing for having fought so diligently against any official acceptance of the Martin Luther King Holiday and trying to explain why he did with the background being a huge chorus of boos.
By this point, people the worldwide laid their only hope in the American public and the media to sort this all out.
Then the statistics and interviews started to pour out that either clearly stated or hinted to the fact that much of the population of our nation that votes, does so for the most ridiculous reasons imaginable. One of the most important positions a human being can hold on this planet and this person is chosen because he or she is: a woman, not a woman, is African American, is not African American, is like movie stars (such as Paris Hilton), is a “maverick” (which is synonymous with the word reckless in the minds of many the worldwide), a member of the party the individual is loyal to (no matter how ridiculous or idiotic the individual may be), and so on.
Now the entire planet is concerned with our election. Not only because it is definitely the best reality show on the planet, but I suspect that there is such concern because many around the world recognize the influence this position has in the world and there is a genuine concern that this years vote will be so screwed up that it may mark the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Then just when it seemed it could not get any worse, the conventions proved that to be just the beginning of the stupidity. There were great speeches and suddenly this woman shows up and describes herself as being like a pit-bull wearing lipstick (the hokey mom that said the only thing between hockey moms and pit-bulls was lipstick). Within a weekend the direction of the votes of the American people (according to the coverage) shifted into the direction of the person who is in reality only running for Vice-president.
I receive emails and responses to my blogs and from people around the world that show a deep concern and interest in our elections this year and the scary part is that the people in this nation are not that deeply concerned.
Over the last week the most important political conversation and coverage that was consistently heard had to do with putting lipstick on pit-bulls and pigs. Seriously folks, have we collectively lost our minds!
The conversations and correspondence I have had with people here has greatly discouraged and almost angers me. People here are acting like we are voting for who is the better football team. I am loyal to my team because they are from my area, they have more people like me, they have better media coverage, because they play a little dirty, they don’t play as dirty, they have better fans, etc.
Although there has been a lot of calls for the facts and less campaign nonsense the truth is when different forms of media have offered both the facts and the nonsense people have drawn in droves to the nonsense. No matter what people say as a group, the fact is that the nonsense and negative tactics have once again shown that they work as evidenced by the polls.
In one conversation I had, someone made a very good point: “You have to vote for someone so I guess you are going to have to do the best you can and vote for the lesser evil.”
At that point it hit me. It is like asking me to vote for the Apocalypse I would be more comfortable living through. Or maybe like the guy in the mafia movie about to be killed and asked by the guy about to kill him if he would rather be shot in the front of the head or the back.
The truth is that the entire planet is deeply interested in and can watch our government in action and we are blowing a great opportunity. I am not the only person who thinks we have a pool of the worst candidates we have ever had, there are many prominent members of the media and political community that agree. And have we all not seen the petty and childish actions that have been the basic normal operation of our government as a whole for the past few years. These things have doubled during this election.
If you are American, please take a second and imagine how all of this would look if you lived somewhere else. Is it any wonder that over the past few months all of the nations who hate us have ramped up the rhetoric and worldwide less and less people like us?
The White House today undermined the argument that the John McCain Camp has been making that what the Iraqi government was supporting and Senator Obama’s troop withdrawal plan are not the same thing by publically coming out against what the Iraqi government has stated.
This is clearly no longer a “General Time Horizon” in the eyes of the Iraqi government, but is the actual goal they are pushing for. The fact that an unpopular Whitehouse, is pushing against a timeline to withdraw from an unpopular war, while the government of that country is saying, “thanks, but it is time for you to go,” seems to completely undermine the Republican Parties attempts to help Senator John McCain.
If this had just been left alone by the Whitehouse it might have blown over in a few days, but now with all of the press getting ready to begin discussing how these statements angered the Whitehouse this story is about to begin to monopolize the airwaves.
This stand by the Whitehouse is also likely to start a war of words with the government of Iraq and do even more to convince them that the Americans need to go soon.
Senator McCain had just mounted an offensive on Senator Obama with repeated talk and adds describing how he does not understand how to work with foreign nations and has been repeatedly wrong about Iraq. Just as people were beginning to bite on that line, the Whitehouse begins to assault the government of Iraq and bring attention to the fact that the government and Senator Obama seem to agree.
The feeling one gets when hearing the Whitehouse response today is that they knew all along that the government of Iraq felt this way and were in negotiations about it, but simply wouldn’t tell the American public in support of Senator McCain.
If that is the case, it looks like the Iraqi government has grown weary of playing American politics the Bush Whitehouse way and has decided to hope on Senator Obama and to even support him publically.
I am not one to agree with all of the negative nonsense that is out there about President Bush and his Whitehouse, but this may leave him looking like the person who ticked off the Iraqi’s (again) and who undermined Senator McCain’s run just as he was gaining momentum. I suppose it all depends on how far the Whitehouse will go with this media campaign against the Iraqi government.
I have to wonder, if the government of Iraq wants us out in that timeline, much of Capitol Hill wants us out in some kind of timeline, and a decent percent of the American population wants us out in a timeline, if it may not be a good idea to firm up the “General Time Horizon” and leave room to reexamine the state of the country near that time.
I guess if you are too busy trying to play partisan politics and get the person from your party elected, one may not see this as a reasonable option. But, with all the talk of how well the Surge worked, it seems like the requests of the Iraqi government for us to set a date to leave would not be that far fetched.
All this talk about how well the Surge has worked has backed the Whitehouse into a corner and may be the boomerang that went up to make Senator John McCain look like the better person on Iraq only to come back in his face when he says setting a timeline is unreasonable.
I mean either it worked or it didn’t. If it worked, we should not need to be there much longer. If it didn’t, work all that well, then a timeline is in fact unreasonable and Senator McCain’s assertions will be seen as lies (when they are in fact simply exaggerations).
I am still left with one huge question: Did the Whitehouse think this through before they made these public statements?
With this (unpopular) Whitehouse on your side, it must be hard to run for president!
Reports are starting to surface stating that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is in a big rush to get information about credit card defaults. Why is our government in such a rush to get information about credit card defaults?
Lets think for a second. The economy is bad, gas is slowly drifting towards five dollars a gallon, huge numbers of people are loosing their houses, unemployment numbers are through the roof, and so on, what do you suppose people are using to stay afloat a little longer? If people cannot pay anything else it is only a matter of time before they start defaulting on credit cards also.
Is the next bubble to pop in an explosion leaving millions of casualties and destroyed institutions going to be the credit card markets? It seems like a reasonable assumption.
I wonder how many people in deep financial trouble, who are barely able to juggle bills, will fill out that credit card application that comes in the mail to get a month or two month breather. Then another and another until the lenders stop giving this person cards due to “escalating credit.” Then when that person is no longer able to use one card to pay another what will happen?
The key difference between this bubble and the other recent bubbles to burst is the idea of the minimum payments. As long as a person can pay the minimum payments it is good way to alleviate some of the stress by spreading out the payments for a long time until you are back on your feet to pay it off.
The reality is that if you could not afford all of the bills this month and had to stretch the some of this months payments out using a card, not only will you probably have the same problem next month, but you have added a new payment to the list of things you cannot afford to pay.
This may not be a problem, but in thinking this through, it is definitely an area the government needs to be monitoring and to have a plan on what to do if it becomes a problem.
Banks have been absolutely pummeled over the past few months and it looks like there may be a few more beatings on the horizon. It is like being in the ocean getting pummeled by waves, soon after you get hit by one another one is not far behind ready to crash into you. Then another and another and another.
If all of this mumbling about the government being proactive is in fact true, it is definitely a step in the right direction, but the economy may have to get far worse before it gets better.
I wonder how many waves of bursting bubbles we will have to endure before a way out is found.
China has begun negotiating with the Dali Lama and has come up with this:
- Stop supporting independence for Tibet
- Support the Beijing Olympics
Isn’t this the same garbage this ridiculous government has been on about since before these “talks” with the Dali Lama begun? Stupidity that is dressed up as progress is simply well dressed stupidity!
I am against the Beijing Olympics, but I do not blame the government of China for these Olympics. The problem is the crazy people that on one hand say the Olympics are about unity and so on, but then select China of all places to host this thing.
Now these people in this crazy regime (which has proven itself to be crazy in so many other ways) want to try to act as if they have turned over a new leaf by making stupid demands that they have been making while simply pretending it is something new that they are doing.
Let’s say you and I disagree. I decide I want to begin talks with you to get us working together. So we both come to the table and I begin with this:
“Why don’t you just believe whatever I believe, shut up, and do as I say and we will all be happier and the world will be a better place?” (I feel like I am writing lines for “The Godfather” or “The Sopranos” or something of the like)
This is how ridiculous the approach that the government of china is taking. Think about what this says. It says I have the power to destroy you and I am just laying out the facts to you sort of as a last chance.
What this method does not say is that I am being flexible and looking to reach an agreement that will work for both of us.
The government of China is clearly crazy and the Olympics are officially disgraced by the poor judgment of choosing China to host.
Now we are being forced to watch this foolishness paraded around as progress. I am disgusted.
Reports are starting to flood in today that banks are starting to take the losses and cut the prices they will accept for foreclosed homes. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
For the moment this is a good thing.
Well, the housing market is stalled and although the price of homes has fallen, the fact that banks have become far more cautious about lending for home purchases has cancelled any cuts in prices out. This trend seems to have the ability to create a bottom to the falling housing prices, give hope to those who are looking for loans as the lower price makes it easier to get a loan, and as the homes move into the realm of extremely cheap, home sales will again begin to flow and everything will gradually drift back to normal. Or, so we are being told.
If you are an investor looking for Good investments, what a deal a highly discounted house can be. Hold on to it for a while and watch the money pile up.
The other side of this coin is that if you own your house, that value has not only dropped, but as this begins to take place, the value is about to go through the floor. What was considered the best investment a person or family could make in many circles is about to become the worst mistake much of the American population has ever made financially.
Anyone who was already looking to sell their home is in real trouble. The price is beginning to drop faster than your realtor can take a person through for a tour. And God help the poor soul who has something considered to be a “sub-prime” loan. For that large segment of the population, financial ruin seems inevitable.
So weather it is the Joe Shmoe family from next door, up to the Ed McMahons and Evander Hollifields of our nation, this trend threatens to take us from bad to worse.
The thing I find to be astonishing is that there is a family who is in a home. The economy is going through the toilet. This family falls a few months behind in their mortgage because their family cannot afford all of the increases in prices, layoffs, etc. rather than negotiate a temporary or even permanent alteration to the loan that is in place (probably at an inflated price) these banks would rather spend all of the money ant time to foreclose on the house only to sell it for less than half of the price this same bank was trying to get out of the family that was living in it to begin with.
Or in several of the cases this family has a loan payment that is a struggle but can barely be made until this sub-prime loan suddenly starts to change in interest regularly increasing the payments and forcing the payments of the family out of the reach of their budget. Would it not make sense to freeze these increases in rate to stop all of the foreclosures that all of these banks seem to have such a fear of.
If this were all there was to this, this would be a philosophy similar to chopping off your legs so that you can run faster.
The plan is clearly to write off the losses and to get our tax money to pay for it. That means they get the house away from the family who is struggling to pay, get to sell the house to someone that can afford the new extremely low price (low price means lower payment), and by taking the losses, they can use the economy as an excuse to not only get the normal government breaks but to ask for more. In other words the entire country foots the rest of the bill.
This seems to be the only reasoning for banks to accept such bad deals without putting a serious attempt at solving the problem. I know that this is just the musing of a casual observer (and homeowner) but it seems to be the only explanation I can come up with for allowing the housing market to disintegrate as much as it has while taking so much of the losses.
The problem with this (if it is in fact the case) is not with the banks. Banks are business that exists to make money. The problem lies with the lack of regulation to protect the American people from business practice that will hurt the American people and the world economy. I think less legislation is okay if an industry is able to keep itself from hurting large numbers of American people. Once an industry demonstrates it is not capable of governing itself in a manner safe for the American public that is where the government not only has the right to step in, but the obligation.
It is not the banks responsibility to protect the American people, it is the government. It is our government that is letting us all get burned in the process.
If you are an investor, this is great. If you are a bank this is a breakeven point and a slight improvement, if however, you are a homeowner currently, this is the destruction of what you have spent your whole life working up to. For that last group, I guess the hope is that you have enough income and a stable enough job to hold out until the prices come back up (if they do).
Our government is caught up in elections, partisan politics, and all other kinds of political blah, blah, blah. The problem is that there are no plans to help American Citizens with the troubles we are having now and our government on all sides is caught up in ridiculous distractions that do absolutely nothing for what is going on with American citizens here and now.
President George Bush did his best with the stimulus package, but by the time the checks are getting to people gas is well over four dollars a gallon and the massive amount of people that are unemployed or in fear of soon being unemployed cannot afford to spend their stimulus checks shopping on frivolous knick-knacks simply to stimulate our economy. This stimulus package was not a great idea and many of us knew it wouldn’t work the way that was planned, but at least it was some attempt at doing something.
President Bush today placed the blame for no other plans squarely on the shoulders of the “Democratic Congress” for not passing his other ideas such as making his tax cuts permanent.
The problem is that the parties are too busy with, ending primaries, preparing for presidential elections, global warming, fuel alternatives that will not be feasible for the average American citizen for five or six years, and so to be worried about such trivial matters as all of us loosing our jobs, spending every dime we have buying gasoline, and loosing our healthcare benefits.
This week we discovered that wealthy people who had good loans (as opposed to a sub-prime loan) were loosing their homes now also (the poster child for this is Ed McMahon of Publishers Sweepstakes and Tonight Show fame), unemployment is again breaking records (at 5.5% according to the Labor Department), the Dow Jones dropped over four-hundred points today, the NASDAQ dropped more than seventy-five points, oil prices broke the one hundred and thirty-seven dollar barrier but is now expected to go over one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel by the Fourth of July, houses are being foreclosed at record levels, the U.S. dollar is hardly worth the paper it is printed on and on and on.
I think I have figured it out, if everybody looses their houses and cannot afford to drive their cars, global warming will be reduced at record levels. The American Public as a whole will be homeless and angry but at least Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize will not have gone to waste.
Our government officials don’t have time to be worrying about what “drama-queen” Hillary Clinton is going to do. We are all eagerly awaiting the moment that she informs us that she has lost a race that we all know she has already lost (all except her and her advisors).
There is endless partisan bickering and finger pointing.
The Democrats are spending all of their time on global warming and trying to prove that the Bush regime did all kinds of secret evils. If he did or didn’t how is that going to help the economy or price of gasoline. The guy is in his last few months, the country is going to a place very close to hell (I suppose partially due to global warming) and more than half of our government is focused on being a lynch mob.
The Republicans are busy having President Bush blame the rest of the government for not pushing through his half-baked ideas (but I have to admit, at least there are some ideas) and the rest of the party is busy separating themselves from the President to try to get Senator John McCain elected.
Senator McCain first said that we should do nothing to help anyone, then he said to do mostly the same stuff that we are doing. Then his party comes out and says; “Well, the economy is not his strength.”
It is beginning to cost more to go to work than people are making, and after these people loose their homes and file bankruptcy, there will really be no need to spend more getting to work than you make when you get there and these people are going to start quitting and looking for government assistance (and unemployment that will be charges to the people they were working for). What then.
I don’t care for or about the parties. I do not care which one of these lackluster candidates becomes president. I don’t care quite as much about what is going to happen five or ten years from now when I have to be concerned if my family and I will survive this year.
I guess in Washington we are simply numbers and statistics unless you are a person running for office. When that is the case we get attention (in the form of lip service) for a few months and then we are again reduced to pawns in a huge game of numbers.
Both of the main candidates are Senators. I think the real race is to see which one can come up with something that can be done now (before that person is elected president or not) to help the American people.
Iraq is a war and clearly is not going anywhere in the next few months. Global warming is the evil to end all evils; I get it! But, it is going to be much more evil for me and my family if as the planet warms I am homeless. I understand that we want to preserve the wilderness and the beautiful places and protect these places from all of the evils of drilling. What is going to happen as the state and federal governments begin to loose funding to protect and maintain these areas because the gasoline is to expensive for their vehicles and they lay off the employees that didn’t already quit because it cost too much to get to work.
All of the stuff they are worrying about are lower on the priority scale and both the Democrats and the Republicans area doing nothing. The Democrats keep saying the Republicans are doing nothing about the economy, while they are doing nothing also. The Republicans are finger pointing because their harebrained ideas are being held up by the Democrats.
It doesn’t matter who is to blame, the question is who is going to actually do something sensible about what is going on here and now.
Imagine a person on a treadmill in workout clothes with a towel around his or her neck. That person has on fancy designer running shoes and has a fancy pants MP3 player. The only problem noticeable when the person is about to turn the treadmill on is that the person is facing the wrong direction reaching backwards to turn the thing on. What is going to happen?
There is bill (AB 2716) in California, that is due to go before the governor to mandate paid sick leave for all employees within the state. The argument over this bill seems to step from the costs that will be forced on small businesses. A similar requirement has been in place in San Francisco for a while (since February 5, 2007) and the small business have felt the squeeze and have had to make adjustments.
Some businesses, such as some restaurants have stated that they will have to cut holidays to have the resources to cover the added expense of all of this sick time. This struck me, not from the perspective of an economist or a Human Resources perspective, but from a simple logic and disgust perspective.
Did groups of restaurants just state that they would rather have their sick employees at work cooking for and serving food to my family and I? I have a problem with that idea. Actually, I would prefer that if I go to any business, the person I encounter there is not passing on some illness to me. Any incentive to keep your sick, half working, half alert, self home is a good thing.
There has been talk about the employees of these small businesses preferring to have raises rather than to have this benefit. That would be okay if sickness was something you could keep to your self. A sick person contaminates the entire workplace, the other employees, the clients of the business, the families of the other employees, the families of the clients of the benefits. These people, who will work instead of resting their bodies to allow themselves to heal, will end up with a need for more intensive medical treatment. The fact that some employee cares more about making a few dollars more rather than be concerned with the health and welfare of the people around them is exactly the reason a law like this is needed. It would seem that this would be common sense, but once it becomes clear that people who work in industries such as food services are resistant to allowing their employees to have sick time, it then becomes an absolute necessity for the government to step in.
The argument that it makes it harder to start or maintain a small business does not mean that it is not the right thing to do for everyone is involved. The businesses have had ample chance to use common sense and have clearly shown that they are not able to manage this themselves.
The idea that businesses small or large will, as a whole, govern themselves and do what is best for the welfare of their employees, the public, and the good of the country, is a foolish idea. I do believe in many of these cases the business need to have a chance to do what is best for their business and the welfare of others without government interference. But, at the point that the business world shows an inability to do what is right in some area, then it is the obligation of the government to serve the greater good of the people and the nation as a whole.
I am a strong advocate for small business tax breaks etc. and feel that if the economy is going to be stabilized, these businesses are a necessity. The problem is that I do not believe that we sacrifice the health of others to do this (even if shortsighted, self-centered individuals would rather get one to five more dollars a paycheck more than care properly for themselves, or respect the right to a healthy environment for their coworkers, families, friends, customers, and all of those these individuals encounter.
