For the past couple of months, over 500,000 jobs have been lost monthly in the US. Guess what happens when 2.6 million people are out of work within 4 or 5 months....less taxes paid to Cities, and States, more money paid out in unemployment benefits, ( only last week it was reported on CNN that because of the large volume of people trying to file for unemployment benefits, the computer system of the organization crashed...). and the vicious cycle rolls on and on culminating in huge budget deficits for eveyone involved.
So as we prepare to witness the inauguration of "44", I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for the guy. This is definitely not the job Mr Obama set out to get back in February 2007 in Springfield, IL when he informed the country of his intention to run for the Presidency. Come on, who wouldn't cringe at the sheer enormity of the tasks at hand.
And the unemployement problems is just one of the hot issues on his White House menu. There's the Financial Crisis which has turned into a modern day "Deep Sea" where you keep throwing money in with the hope that some day, by some stroke of magic or Divine intervention, the sea will fill up.....
Then there's the insanely high cost of healthcare here in the USA. Coming from an entirely different culture, I am always awed by how the system works. The costs of simple procedures quickly run up for no apparent reason (alright, the hospital facilities are top of the line, but must they be?).. In my native land of Cameroon (West Africa), about 40% of the healthcare system is State-run with the rest being handled by private groups and religious organizations for the most part. In my opinion, they accomplish quite alot with very little. This is America, I would have expected that to happen here of all places...efficiency! anyone?
Therefore something significant has to be done about this especially given the very high life expectancy here in the US or no administration will ever be able to balance any budget , I mean ever.
This is why I don't expect Mr Obama to do anything significant about it in his first term, but I hope he keeps it in the back of his mind as he tries to jumspart the economy because the price might just be too high to pay if another White House administration overloooks the issue YET AGAIN
But again, I don't think our 44th president should get any sympathy from anyone. Who has forgotten how vigorouly he campaigned for the job (an how strongly I supported and volunteered for him...) .
I was almost going to forget mentioning maybe the hardest battle Mr Obama wil have to fight day in day out; with opposition so strong and powerful, it might undermine all his good intentions and judgement; The Congress, yes the US Congress will play the most significant role in how quickly and how effective the country can be turned around. I'll leave a discussion on the role of Congress for another day
No comments:
Post a Comment