Meanderings

COVID Relief Bill: OK, two relief bills have been signed into law totaling $3 trillion dollars. However, another bill is needed to restore COVID relief dollars to unemployment benefits. Major relief is needed to fund state, county and municipal budgets pummeled by COVID (loss of tax revenues from a depressed economy, homelessness and evictions, unemployment, and healthcare emergencies). Economists are begging for a financial package that will prepare the economy for a return to health after COVID. Yet congress is unable to act because of gridlock among republicans and democrats. The former are acting stingy; the latter are overly generous. A compromise in between the two positions is needed. The amount? Probably something around $2 trillion.

Climate Change: Deniers of climate change be damned. Horrendous hurricanes and tropical storms attacking the eastern and Gulf coasts is one indicator of a climate run amok. The strength and number of those storms is yet another. On the west coast we have wildfires. Forests are ablaze from Canada to Mexico all along the coastlines of Washington, Oregon and California. Droughts and arid winds turn vast areas into tinder. Lightening ignites the tinder. The rest is an inferno. Smoke covers the entire continent. When cooler weather arrives, so will rains. Then flooding and mud slides. This is the cycle. It is larger and more frequent now than ever before. Markedly so. This is the face of climate change. In the middle of the nation we have weather swings quite abnormal than long-term patterns. That is climate change too, although much more survivable and pleasant than the other coastlines of America.

MidEast Peace Agreement: What agreement? What peace? An agreement between Israel and one or two other middle eastern nations? How does this affect Palestinians? How many other middle eastern nations are there? What does it take to have peace in the region? A rogue state or two does not spell peace. Besides, Netanyahu does what he wants, when he wants, and with American dollars just to stay in office. He is not doing the bidding of America or is he building peace in the region. Israel is one of the largest perpetrators of violence and anti-peace efforts. Jared Kushner needs to actually work out a deal that brings peace to the entire region and humanitarian resolve to the Palestinians. Anything less is just playing a game. Trump has not accomplished one twit in the region as much as he wants us to believe.

These issues are huge and important. Inaction is intolerable at times such as these. Elected officials do your jobs and quickly. Your people are relying on you. So far you are all a disappointment.

It would help if we kept our eyes and minds on defining desired outcomes. Do we want peace in the Middle East? If so, what would that look like? Who needs to be involved in the process towards agreement? How can we make that happen? For climate change, what are the primary problems to be eased, improved upon? How can we as a nation collaborate and cooperate to make this happen? What should be happening to ensure we arrive at the best, desired outcome? And COVID relief bill, for God’s sake, bail out the government units from cities to states so they can continue to do the work on the ground required of them. The feds fund but don’t do. The actual work is performed by others locally. With regards to COVID, collaboration and cooperation has been absent between the feds and states. That bodes ill for all of our other challenges.

Get it together, people!

September 17, 2020