I happened to stumble across a talk show on NPR today where the topic of discussion was funding for food pantries. I fumed as I listened, unable to call in myself as I was driving while listening to the radio. Caller after caller as well as the moderator, Kathleen Dunn, extolled the virtues on contacting elected officials to encourage them to fund food pantries. Now, I'm not saying that the hungry should not be fed. But since when is it the government's responsibility to fund food pantries?? Why isn't anyone asking people to contact members of their church for donations to food pantries? Why aren't the food pantries themselves holding fund raisers and food drives? When was the last time the Muscular Dystrophy Association called you and asked you to write your congressman and ask the government to fund MDA? Really? Never? MDA has raised billions of dollars on their own. Why isn't Kathleen Dunn or her callers encouraging people to ask their boss or their brother or sister to make a matching donation to a local food pantry? At some point the citizenry has to become responsible for themselves. That includes their fellow man. The government is not going to solve this one. Food pantries need funding and food. Contact your local food pantry and make a donation of food or funds today. Call your brother, your sister, your mom and dad, your friends and ask them to do the same. Ask your employer to start a matching donation program where you work. Volunteer at your local food pantry and help them set up a fund raiser or a food drive. It's up to us to take care of each other. Not the government!
The rush to bail out our financial institutions has all the lustre of a smarmy used car salesman telling me I have to buy the car I'm looking at right now! Another guy was just looking at it and went to get his money! If another guy went to get his money, why is the salesman pressuring me to buy? Our Senators and Congressmen think we're stupid!
To be certain...something had to be done. But I don't think this was it. When the first proposal failed the stock market actually bounced back. The second proposal passed and the stock market went down. What does that tell you? They could have waited. They could have taken their time and done only what needed to be done. They didn't. It's business as usual in Washington, D.C. and one wonders if there will ever be such a thing as "change".
I would not have voted for a bailout package that had money in it for anything other than propping up financial institutions and it would be a loan not a gift from Uncle Sam. I have yet to speak anybody who's even remotely encouraged by the deal. Once again our elected officials have ignored the American People and the United States Constitution. Instead they have opted to once again get over on the taxpayers.
From badgerblogger.com
Posted on Friday, 28th April 2006 by Patrick Dorwin
A few weeks ago, Congresswoman Gwen Moore was one of the politicians that helped to kill the plan for a Waukesha company, BuySeasons, which is listed by Inc. Magazine as the fastest growing privately held business in the state, from moving to and expanding in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley. The company has 150 full time employees that earn on average, $11.55 per hour, and last year they hired 218 central city residents and expected to hire even more after the relocation These seasonal employees earned between $9 and $16 per hour. But Congresswoman Moore and other local politicians argued that these “were not the right kinds of jobs” to bring to the area. This is an area where unemployment and poverty rate is sky high, but I guess these Liberal politicians prefer this blight and despair to the opportunity this would give people to climb out of the morass.
Today, Congresswoman Gwen Moore’s news letter came in the mail. The lead column is titled Poverty Harms The Whole Community, in which she talks about the struggle that people in poverty have, and how hard it is for lower skilled and less educated workers to find decent paying jobs in Milwaukee.
She then discusses the government programs that she is supporting that will encourage new small businesses, and federal tax dollars that she is bringing home to the district to stimulate the local economy and combat poverty.
Excuse me Congresswoman, but you killed real jobs just a few weeks ago, jobs that would really do the things that you hope these programs will do in the future. The jobs you killed were just what the lower skilled workers that you claim to want to help, need. These jobs would give the employees the experience they need to succeed in the job market, but you killed them, then a few weeks later you brag about all that you are doing for us… Bah!
You can read Moore’s column by clicking the thumbnail below.
Update
BuySeasons is reconsidering their decision to give up on the Vally site.
The Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee is now supporting the sale of the desired land to BuySeasons. Alderman Bob Bauman still opposes the sale saying that Milwaukee is “running short of land available for industrial use, and should better protect that ’scarce resource.’” He also calls BuySeasons “a fad business,” and goes on to attack this company that wants to bring a few hundred jobs to Milwaukee… as if we had an overabundance of jobs in the area… Moron.
****************************************************
*********************************************
Elect Dan Sebring for Congress in 2010
www.dansebringforcongress.com
****************************************************
*********************************************
