Soapbox: Vision plus votes equals jobs
By Tom Loret
Twentynine Palms | Hi-Desert Star opinion page | Posted: Saturday, February 26, 2011
In a Yucca Valley coffee shop, I recently heard a young unemployed man moan over the 14 percent unemployment rate in San Bernardino County. It is not the highest in the state, but it is enough to contribute to the general ennui, loss of pride and forsaken opportunities among its residents, especially the young who have so little on the horizon, nothing near the hope enjoyed by the boomers. He asked me what I would do to solve the problem and pretended to appoint me Commissioner of Jobs for San Bernardino County.
I first thought about the budget concerns that have decimated the state’s resources, but soon put that aside when I came to realize that money is really not the issue. For example, San Bernardino’s most abundant resource is solar, wind and geothermal — so why are we not the world’s leader in green industries?
Industrial hemp production is also a viable agricultural staple that is drought- and pest-resistant and has nearly infinite applications when it comes to products that include biofuel, clothing fiber, building materials, paper products, lubricants, nutritional oils and feed. So why did the Republican governor veto the Industrial Hemp Bill in 2006? If Californians can spend over 50,000 taxpayer dollars to imprison one inmate per year, why is the state unable to pay 50,000 taxpayer dollars per year in salaries to public-sector workers who manufacture environmentally sound products that further raise both tax revenue and our standard of living?
If the federal government can quietly spend 10 billion taxpayer dollars a month in war that includes one million taxpayer dollars per soldier per year in Afghanistan, why are there no million or more taxpayer dollars to build a wind turbine engineering and assembly plant in San Bernardino County with programs for technical instruction? Who or what is stopping it? As a progressive Democrat, I am proud of our very-well-time-tested and effective means to create full employment with high-paying jobs, full medical benefits, paid vacations and paid job training. We saw how FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps uplifted our grandparents and gave backbone and meaning to what became the Greatest Generation. Are we any less deserving? One dollar invested in public spending always multiplies into ever more dollars in return.Whereas every taxpayer dollar taken by the private sector in subsidies, grants and tax relief hasimpoverished America and left us with nothing to look forward to but more joblessness and rising costs of living. We are made destitute and defeated as now even family health centers are on the chopping block of these corporate-backed legislative butchers — and the more we give, the morethey take.
The pity is, 75 percent of San Bernardino County’s eligible voters do not vote at all and the 15percent of Republicans who carry the elections seem to vote for no reason other than to defeatDemocrats. It is not a lack of money but a poverty of public spirit, a lack of common purpose, a collapse of civic and moral leadership and above all, it is a shame that need not be. If we are to become more than our own worst enemy, men and women of San Bernardino County must begin to register to vote and need to vote for candidates who represent the interests of America and we, the people by putting public dollars to work for public good and not for the benefit of multinationals, their CEOs and the family friends of bogus politicians.