America is becoming a third world nation

Don't believe me?  Many states, counties and communities are having to turn hard surfaced asphalt roads into gravel roads because there is no money to fix the asphalt. Camden New Jersey has just closed all its libraries due to lack of funds. Others are struggling to keep old water mains operational well after their time to be replaced. Many communities are shutting off street lights. One small town in Iowa put up four way stop signs and turned off their signal lights to save money. Many are laying off employees such as sanitation workers, street crews, police and firefighters. Some are closing parks and fencing them off because they can't maintain the grass and play equipment. Schools are forced to reduce the number of days the students attend to save money.

As the economic crisis that the Republican's Starve the Beast plan has caused deepens, more and more public services will be downsized or curtailed. This fits their goal of reduced public services. Our quality of life will diminish. We will be back to children playing on a dirt street in their subdivision, with the security of the community compromised because the street lights are turned off and no place to go because the parks, libraries and ball parks are closed. Kick the can will return as the game of choice by the kids.

American politicians showed photos of poorly maintained buildings, parks and roads in the Soviet Union as proof that communism was a failure. We will soon have photos to prove what the Republican's have done to America through their starve the beast campaign of the past 30 years.

At my age, I have enjoyed the best America can offer. In decades past, we had great new freeways, improved national, state and local parks and recreation areas, potable water, sewer and sanitation was great, energy was cheap, and life felt good, except for the Viet Nam war. Yes we had recessions, but they were generally short in duration and in depth.

But now is the Great Recession, if not a depression. We have not seen the worst of it yet. As infrastructure degrades, the cost will climb to repair it and we will be bankrupt and unable to respond. Taxes will have to go up on everyone just to keep the very minimal of services available. Unemployment will continue to grow until corporations return manufacturing jobs back on-shore. By the time that happens, wages will shrink, buying power will be lost, and consumer purchases will continue to decline, shrinking the need to build factories in this country.

Our only hope is that China will start to buy products made in the USA because they are cheaper than what is made in China. A reversal of what has happened in the past 3 decades. But we know they will do everything possible to not let that happen. They will impose high tariff on US Made goods to keep Chinese people working. If we regain those job and export to them, we can return as a dominant economy, instead of them.

It need not be this way if both political parties sought pragmatic solutions to these problems without regard to political ideology. Only when you look for logical solutions, do you find the right answers.