Economic Recovery, My Foot
Economic recovery my overdrawn bank account. We are no more in an economic recovery than Leonardo di Caprio was "king of the world" when he hung onto the mast and said so in "Titanic."
One leading indicator is the unemployment rate, which at 9.8% is at its highest point in the last ten years. Even George W. with all his shtick only had an unemployment rate of 6% at its peak. It really isn't Obama's fault. Though he opten into the game, he inherited a wildcard economy with a joker of a mortgage industry, and while his intentions appear to be sound, he has also spent like Diamond Jim on programs that may be leading us further south.
The day we will be in an economic recovery is when the only ones who aren't working are children, the infirm and those who really don't want to. It will be when everyone has health care and people like Monique Zimmerman-Stein, who was born with a congenital condition that causes blindness, won't have to forgo the treatment to save her eyesight so that the money can be spent on her daughters, who were born with the same condition. It will be when those who are willing to work will be compensated and those who aren't won't be.
Lastly, it will occur when the value of my property goes up, so I can finally sell my place.
Given the bleak situation with the economy, shouldn't we expect the government to do everything it can to cut back and save tax dollars? There is still so much wasteful spending at the local level. A prime example is how the County of Los Angeles has been handling its contracting. For example, two companies, Maximus Inc., an incumbent company that currently handles GAIN, and Policy Studies Inc. (PSI), were both competing for a contract to manage the L.A. County CalWorks GAIN, basically a welfare to work program. Both companies submitted proposals, and both companies' proposals were scored accordingly. PSI's proposal recieved the better score and as a result, County staff recommended the contract be awarded to PSI.
The Supervisorial response from 3 out of 2 supervisors was that the scoring process was unfair for reasons unclear and that because the system was flawed they ordered that the County create a new scoring system. Keep in mind that up to that point, this system had worked just fine for the Supervisors and Maximus alike for years. They still have not clarified their reasons as to why it worked before and what specifically has currupted the nature of the process. It also turns out that Maximus has spent close to $200,000 lobbying various interests throughout he county to garner support and they also happen to be generous contributors to certain Supervisorial campaigns...interesing.
Here's the best part, the scoring entity determined that PSI would save the County an annual $1 Million in spending on top of correcting failures identified with Maximus in its inability to effectively get people on welfare back to work. The Supervisorial decision will not only delay if not prevent the annual benefit of saving $1 Million, but it will actually cost the county close to $30 Million to re tool their scoring process at a time of heavy budget short falls.
During these tough economic times when every city, county and special district is complaining about lack of funds, how is it that so much money can be wasted?
I dont think the economy is okay i think its only gonna get better if we all try and put everthing back to the way it was..or even better to get ourselves on the right track.