Posted on 04/26/2009 10:04:05 AM PDT by Schnucki
As he approaches 100 days in office, the President faces a grim reality check.
Buddleia has taken over large parts of downtown Gary, Indiana. The city, once home to 300,000 people, is down to just a third of that. There are mile after mile of deserted, derelict and abandoned homes; sub-zero winds blow in off Lake Michigan.
"Gary, Indiana is like an eagle poised to fly," mayor Rudy Clay tells me, "All we need is the air of the fiscal stimulus beneath our wings and we'll soar once again and make America proud."
The mayor has applied for $400 million out of Barack Obama's $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan. Top of his wish list are automatic weapons and Kevlar vests for the police, and some more police to tote them: last year, in this, the crime capital of the Midwest, he had to lay off police officers due to shortage of funds.
The city symbolises the scale of the economic challenge facing Obama as he approaches 100 days in office. If the president is to deliver something more than the "audacity of hype", homes will have to be built in Gary, health care delivered, and a way found for its inhabitants to live on something more than benefits and debt. But much of America is in revolt against what needs to happen for this to be achieved. And Obama's own momentum on the economic front looks weak.
There are three levers the federal government can pull in the face of this crisis: monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and bank recapitalisation. Obama has used all three but so far ineffectively. In each case, he has run into obstacles rooted deep in the US institutional set-up, indeed deep in the country's psyche.
On monetary policy, Obama has remained a bystander to the efforts
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
This would all be ok if we had a latter day Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings. At this point, Ron Paul is looking better and better. Sure, the messenger is shrill but the message is pretty spot on.
We, as Americans had better face the fact that we are returning to the 1870’s. If you are waiting for the calvary to ride into this movie and rescue the fort, you’d better get used to the idea of copulating with Indians ‘cause they ain’t coming. The calvary in this movie spent their budget on dead horses.
Some things to note about the article:
1. These industrial cities are not coming back.
2. What does that mean? No more budgetary money. We as former once great cities need to determine what of our legacy we are going to preserve and bulldoze the rest. If there is 1/3 the residents then do we have 1/3 the police, administrative staff, schools, fire, roads, houses, malls, stores, etc.
3.These cities had better get used to downsizing. They should spend their money consolidating. That means less police and more bulldozers. Less fire and more landscapers. Read about Olmstead and return your vast unused neighborhoods into buccollic landscapes. Incent the few remaining citizens to move from their last hold out houses in largely abandoned neighborhoods into mixed use zones near the heart of the city or give them a park like setting around where they live.
We have to have a plan to reverse industrial cities into small towns again. Everything has its season. The high water mark does not have to be maintained. Just because Madison Avenue had us believing we needed a new Cadillac every three years doesn’t mean we did. Just because big city mayors want to continue being prince of a greater city doesn’t mean they should.
They want you to believe that.
Then the Mayor says...Top of his wish list are automatic weapons and Kevlar vests for the police, and some more police to tote them: last year, in this, the crime capital of the Midwest, he had to lay off police officers due to shortage of funds.
Gonna be the most well armed eagle in all of mankind.
Gary is a pit. Lots of reasons why. The liberal political establishment hasn't helped.
I note again: What a shame we have to read foreign publications to get the real skinny.
My grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all lived in Gary, Indiana. In the 50’s and 60’s we frequently would gather there for family functions - it was fairly nice.
Now I wouldn’t visit that place on a bet. It’s a slice of the third world that grew where a once thriving town existed.
GO CUBS GO!
Actually, I think they want you to believe that all things are the same, we’re just “in a cycle,” the majority have turned against Obama, and everything will return to the way it was after we elect someone else.
It’s just a different “they.”
I can understand the cycle. They keep saying we are not Christian but we are.
Somebody tell me just what four million would buy to start a new company to employ all the able-bodied residents of Gary, Ind., especially since it wouldn’t even pay for new police and their equipment for very long.
Ouch.
Double ouch.
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