The American Dream? Pfft.

I had the pleasure of reading an opinion article published on September 27th by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation magazine.(sarcasm) In her article, she expresses her idea that what America needs in order to salvage and recover from our current recession is "a movement to reclaim the American Dream".

I feel as though her efforts to invoke some sort of spirit to rally together against the government only make her look like a naive socialist. She doesn't use any effective evidence to support her argument that this is the solution to our economic problem. I respect the author for trying to inspire the audience, but in reality, a progressive movement led by Obama was what brought us to our current state. She fails to mention that we have a gazillion defecits coming from Obama, yet 1 out of 6 of us are drowning in poverty and it was "done to them". Her blame on the extremely rich for our poor economy comes off as immature.

The modern day American Dream isn't just about staying afloat; it's about buying things we think we need, despite whether we can afford it or not. We've handed out enough money and not enough encouragement to simply work hard and spend wisely. As ideal as it may sound that everyone gets a fair wage and a nice home and so forth, the reality is that this will never happen. Katrina lives in a progressive dream world and not trying to be brash or anything, but she needs to wake up.

2011: Year of the Penny Pinchers

According to an article I found on Time.com, the Census Bureau reports that one in six Americans now live in poverty. While a "supercommittee" is currently trying to decide how to handle where our cut from the federal budget should be, the portion responsible for covering child needs is looking to get smaller. A program called Building Futures in Washington was created to "promote "middle-skill" jobs that don't necessarily require a college degree." This program offers $10 a day per person to cover transportation and food along with teaching the attendees particular courses in order to get those better prepared and capable of landing a job, which would boost consumer spending and strengthen our economy.

I suggest you all read this because I find it almost appalling that even though we claim that 'children are our future', we have no problem firing mentors, making insane budget cuts in our schools, and now we're going to jeopardize the health and well-being of what could be the one finding a cure to a disease you have one day. There has to be another solution to all of this. Check out this jibberish here: Census Data Show Poverty’s Creep, Lasting Effects of Recession