Dear Mr. President Obama,
It has come to my attention that America has progressed itself into an economic recession. Although there are many issues that have caused this tragedy, it is important that we first find a way to solve our economic problem before we learn from our mistakes. There are three key ideas to fix our economy. First, is to make jobs for the unemployed and put them back to work under government planning. Second, is to put money back into the people, not the rich wealthy business owners, but to the average Joe American. Third, is to find a solution to the fruitless war that we are in. America is in need of brilliant minds to fix the problem it has been put into.
During the Great Depression of the 1930's, unemployment had skyrocketed into its highest in American history. Banks failed, jobs were lost, and houses were foreclosed. By March, 1933 there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. (United States Government) In March, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office. He promised that he would fix everything in a New Deal. The first days of Roosevelt's administration saw the passage of banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs. (Library of Congress) Today we are nearing the same problems that President Roosevelt had to face in the past. The best solution to our problems is to create government funded jobs and projects for the unemployed to work and receive pay upon.Under president Roosevelt, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Social Security Act marked the origin of modern American social policy. (Amenta 2000, xi) In the United States roads need to be repaved and public buildings need to be rebuilt. Their themes, determined by the commissioning body, ranged from health and safety to public housing. (Pillen. 2008)For our economy to be revived everyone who can work will work to bring food upon their tables and money will flow back into the economic cycle.
Many people believed that a trickle effect would be the best way to fix an economy. The theory is that when the government gives money to the business owners, they will, in turn put money back into the workers and they will buy consumer goods, thus putting money back into the cycle. That however, is not the case, business owners are greedy and hold onto the money for their own wealth and the money never even moves down the first branch of the theory. So, the proper solution would be to directly put money into the lower and middle class workers who need financial weight taken off of them. George bush attempted to do this by giving money to only a certain number of people, and that failed miserably. The fiscal hole is deeper than ever, with Uncle Sam sporting $50 trillion in unfunded health care and pension liabilities. (CNNMoney)
Although jobs are a necessity for the American economy, tax cuts and stimulus packages are also a necessity to give the American people a chance to spend money on something other than paying taxes. Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives unveiled an $825 billion tax cut and spending bill on Thursday they hope will help President-elect Barack Obama reverse the steep decline in the U.S. economy.(Reuters) Americans need to spend more money on consumer goods, such as food, entertainment, and even houses. Current federal income tax should be increments of 1% per $10,000 in income, up to 90% of income over $900,000. Above that, maybe we let them keep it. Estate tax and capital gains, same scale. Then adjust the income increments according to some legitimate inflation/deflation index. (Paul Spencer, The Robert-Reich's Blog, comment posted October 17, 2007). The rich, higher class already have the money to survive and even more to buy whichever they wish. Deficit spending is needed to help revive the economy from recession, but trillion-dollar deficits for years to come would sink us in debt and risk a collapse of the currency. (Sachs, 34)Since our society is technically a capitalist one, we need to have a strong middle class to survive and spend a good amount of money for purchasing consumer goods.
The war in Iraq, which we are currently involved in has turned into a confusing and bloody mess. A good solution for what to do in such a crisis is hard to come across. Many people opposed going to war in the first place, knowing it would bring nothing but trouble. Iraq is a nation now under United States occupation and terrorists continue to fight and kill our soldiers. With such high costs of war, it is easy to know where the tax payers' money went. It is the best solution for the country is to establish a government, train Iraqi troops and pull out all American forces, slowly but surely. What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II. Stephen Retherford, Sisyphus, comment posted on November 10, 2008)During the Great Depression, it took a war to put the United States back into a powerful economy, now we have to get out of a war to fix our economic issue.
The economic crisis is something we have seen before and it is something that also can be fixed. Humanity, though, will surely overcome adversity. (Brinklin 2008, 99-102) Humanity has always been ingenious, and we are designed to adapt and overcome any obstacle or challenge that we face. Humanity has faced harder obstacles in the past, but the crisis we are in currently needs to be handled with care and determination. The American people have been stalwart in their abilities to revive themselves, and all we need, is one to lead us to achieve our success.
Resourse List
Amenta, Edwin. 2000. Introduction to Bold Relief, by Edwin Amenta, xi. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. Briklin, Malcom. 2008. Future Cars and the Jetsons. In The Way We Will Be 50 Years from
Today, Edited by Mike Wallace, 99-102. Nashville: Nelson. Cowan, Richard. House to seek $825 billion in economic stimulus.
The Library of Congress. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1933-
1945.
Miller, Matt. How to love trillion-dollar deficits.
Pillen, Cory. 2008. See America: WPA Posters and the Mapping of a New Deal Democracy.
ebscohost.com+pdf?vid=4&hid=117&sid=8311090c-05d4-4d05
-a45e-df0e69cf8826%40sessionmgr104 (Accessed January 14, 2009). Robert-Reich Blog, The. http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2007/10/logic-of-taxing-
rich-and-why-dems-are.html.
Sachs, Jefferey. 2009. The Case for Bigger Government. Time, January 19. United States Government. Franklin D. Roosevelt. The White House.
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