Signs of our times

Everyone knows that this last recession hit the country where it hurts and hard. A recent drive around my town made this really evident to me. Along a particular road of downtown are the empty shells of factories and plants that once made up the industrial core of my town, a town that once was the steam engine capitol of the world. Some of those buildings are being used once again, but many stand in decay, ghosts of the past. The General Electric Rail division plant on the other side of town is a skeleton of what it used to be, with half the buildings from 20 years ago now gone and layoffs happening every year. Laid off workers from various plants around town stand on the interstate off ramps with signs pleading for work of any kind. A sign for a proposed shopping center still stands 5 years after it was announced, with ground still not broken and no tenants lined up. The unfortunate thing is that there seems to be no end in sight, at least not while current gridlock in Washington exists. The American's Want to Work Act is currently sitting in Congress, held up by Republicans not caring about the unemployed and Democrats not having the backbones to challenge the Republicans into filibustering the bill. Because of this the bill will be be put on the back burner and left to die out. How can anybody be against putting the unemployed back to work? The Republican's attitude is as un-American as it could get. Unfortunately those middle class people that elected them are duped into believeing that helping big business will help them, which has been proven by G. W. Bush as completely false. If we help them, we help the whole country. I urge you, contact your Congressmen and Senator, and tell them, plead them to pass the Americans Want to Work Act because we need to get this country back on the track to prosperity.