America.......A Failing Democracy

I have recently accepted that our country is failing. I also fear that in 20 to 30 years, we as a country will be in a completely different level. We will no longer be considered a super-power in world affairs.

I recently called animal control where I live because there was a dog running in the streets and I feared that it would be killed or cause an accident. After calling for about 15 minutes I was able to speak to an operator. He told me that he would not be able to respond to the call today. I did not understand why this was. I have never been in a situation where I was asking a government agency to do their job and had them inform me that they were unable to do their job. Come to find out, the county is essentially going broke and is unable to allocate adequate funding to animal control. For me this is the straw that broke the camels back. I have finally accepted that we are spiraling out of control down a path that only has bad endings.

Middle class in America needs to be put on the endangered species list. The middle class has been shrinking for years and the future does not look rosy. Middle class neighborhoods are also declining in America. While the super rich get richer everyone else is left to suffer.

Another sign is the paltry minimum wage we offer our workforce. After adjusting for inflation and cost of living increases, it has been over fifty years since the minimum wage was this low. This just means that the poor are getting poorer. With the poor and middle class getting worse, it can only mean that the rich are getting richer.

It is also getting even harder to buy a house these days. Lenders are now offering a fifty year mortgage to home buyers just to get them financed. Without this home sales would soon be falling simply because there are fewer people out there that can qualify for a loan to pay for a house. For many Americans this is the end of the American Dream. If you have to make house payments for fifty years, many people will die long before they actually own their home.

Look at Social Security, even if you use the most optimistic projections, there is a problem there waiting for us. The National Debt has never been higher. You can keep borrowing for only so long. Eventually someone is going to want their money back. Our seniors can't afford their medicines and our children lack health insurance.

Our roads need improvement and many dams across the country are degrading to the point that they could become catastrophes soon. A report was done in 2003 on Americas infrastructure and the country received an overall grade of "D-".

We are also the largest polluter in the world. As much as we would like to ignore this, it is true. It will only be a matter of time before the rest of the world makes us make changes. We will eventually be forced to curb our pollution. Many other countries are already doing this now, by joining the Kyoto Accord. They will end up having a head start and we will be hit even harder economically while we have to play catchup to the rest of the world. Other countries are having to make sacrifices and they will get fed up with us soon enough. As our economy and way of life decline, so will our influence in the world.

Stem cell research is a promising new direction in the medical field. Our country, for moral reasons, has chosen to abandon most research in this field. All this accomplishes is to drive scientists out of our country. The scientists who want to learn this will go to other countries that are pursuing this research. This will serve only to better other countries business and economies, and as they rise we will continue to fall.

It is time for some common sense in America. If not, common sense will tell you that in time there will be no America.