Social Service Stimulus
This part of the package is aimed at increasing the number of workers in the field of social services. Again, money will be funneled into scholarships and school programs that focus on social work, i.e. school councilors, drug and alcohol abuse councilors, child protective services workers, prisoner rehabilitation specialists and so on. Like the healthcare stimulus the ultimate goal is to get services to everyone who needs them. Feeling unusually down at school, there are always school councilors available. Experienced a period of rage aimed at your child last night, a councilor at your hospital takes walk-ins.
There are currently too many forgotten people in our country. They are the addicts, the homeless, the hungry, the hopeless, sometimes the lazy and the mentally ill and more often than not they end up costing the country a lot of money. Since they have no insurance they use emergency rooms for healthcare, they end up in jail, they live off of disability payments and welfare but most vexing it is these forgotten who become criminals. It’s the lady with untreated schizophrenia that stabs a stranger in downtown Sacramento , the hopeless and depressed teen who takes a gun to school and kills 4 classmates and so on. By reaching out and helping the lost instead of following our current course of inaction, it’s my hope that we can save money and save lives.
Up next…Education Stimulus
Showing posts with label stimulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stimulus. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Social Stimulus
Recently the government has thrown a lot of money at our collapsing financial institutions. Right or wrong, I can’t say, as the problem is just too big for me to grasp in any real sort of understanding. They say without the money our business infrastructure will collapse, but I can’t help but feel that by propping it up we’re keeping an innately flawed system in business.
Anyway, in thinking about all the money flying around I couldn’t help but question where else it could be used. Hence, I’d like to introduce the Will's Social Stimulus Package!
Here’s how it works, money we dumped in banks and lending institutions will instead be used on people. This social spending will ultimately result in a better educated and more responsible populace and a more stable economy that is based in social service and not irresponsible consumption.
We begin the package with a focus on healthcare, starting with more doctors and nurses. Money will be funneled into medical schools and scholarships for students pursuing careers in the world of healthcare. Students will be encouraged to intern in neighborhood clinics, schools and social service centers. The ultimate goal of this package is having enough doctors and nurses that anyone in need of medical attention is able to get it at a variety of different locales. Public schools will have a nurse on duty at all times, if a workplace has over 200 people at a site they’ll be encouraged to have a doctor or nurse visit once a month or even more often and grocery stores and drug stores that have clinics will see some kind tax incentive.
I’m convinced that this healthcare stimulus will also lower healthcare costs by providing more supply thus meeting all the demand. Sure, drugs and treatment will still be expensive but not as much so because we’ll have eliminated examples like this which increase everyone’s insurance premiums.
Up next…Social Service Stimulus
Anyway, in thinking about all the money flying around I couldn’t help but question where else it could be used. Hence, I’d like to introduce the Will's Social Stimulus Package!
Here’s how it works, money we dumped in banks and lending institutions will instead be used on people. This social spending will ultimately result in a better educated and more responsible populace and a more stable economy that is based in social service and not irresponsible consumption.
We begin the package with a focus on healthcare, starting with more doctors and nurses. Money will be funneled into medical schools and scholarships for students pursuing careers in the world of healthcare. Students will be encouraged to intern in neighborhood clinics, schools and social service centers. The ultimate goal of this package is having enough doctors and nurses that anyone in need of medical attention is able to get it at a variety of different locales. Public schools will have a nurse on duty at all times, if a workplace has over 200 people at a site they’ll be encouraged to have a doctor or nurse visit once a month or even more often and grocery stores and drug stores that have clinics will see some kind tax incentive.
I’m convinced that this healthcare stimulus will also lower healthcare costs by providing more supply thus meeting all the demand. Sure, drugs and treatment will still be expensive but not as much so because we’ll have eliminated examples like this which increase everyone’s insurance premiums.
Up next…Social Service Stimulus
Thursday, January 22, 2009
California Dreaming
Well, we have a new president. It’s all pretty exciting, but I’ll spare you the echoes of my jubilation as the event has been covered extensively. I’ll only say, congratulations and good luck President Obama. You have your work cut out for you, but you have the hope and dreams of an entire world behind you.
I am however still going to drop a note on politics, but on those that aren’t happening in the state. Yes, aren’t. The California legislature, the governor, the state controller, the attorney general, pretty much every elected state official currently in office has been unable to pass an emergency budget needed to keep the state fiscally solvent. Still, they’ve been huddled over a mediation table feverishly trying to hammer out an agreement that will save California …or have they.
Of course, they took off for at least a few weeks for the holidays. No big deal right. I mean firefighters would do the same if a raging wildfire fell over Christmas. Oh, and the main players, including the governor and the speaker, recently left for a week to visit DC. They took in the sites, attended the inauguration and hit up a few of the parties. Good for them, when I was in the military and I was confronted with a crisis but someone was throwing a really good party, I’d often hit up the party (especially if I thought the attendees might be people that could further my career).
But I’m going to be careful about blaming just our elected officials. I think they’re totally inept, selfish and lazy but our citizens aren’t that much better. State employees are getting ready to take a 10 percent pay cut, schools are looking at cutting their hours, colleges have sliced enrollment, and on and on. Still, in my department, we really haven’t been asked to find anyway to cut our costs. Instead, managers are angling to keep their perks like the student assistants that answer their phones and file their papers. We just had four brand new flatscreen televisions put up in our office. (We use them for work, but we already had regular televisions.) People on public assistance are marching around the state capital decrying possible cuts to their respective programs and then going home and watching premium cable that costs them $100 bucks a month.
So not only are we doing very little to help ourselves currently, I’m sure will continue to do the same when we, the citizens of California, vote these politicians that have been working so hard on our behalf, back into office.
Clickity: http://www.iousathemovie.com/
I just saw this movie tonight. Maybe one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen!
I am however still going to drop a note on politics, but on those that aren’t happening in the state. Yes, aren’t. The California legislature, the governor, the state controller, the attorney general, pretty much every elected state official currently in office has been unable to pass an emergency budget needed to keep the state fiscally solvent. Still, they’ve been huddled over a mediation table feverishly trying to hammer out an agreement that will save California …or have they.
Of course, they took off for at least a few weeks for the holidays. No big deal right. I mean firefighters would do the same if a raging wildfire fell over Christmas. Oh, and the main players, including the governor and the speaker, recently left for a week to visit DC. They took in the sites, attended the inauguration and hit up a few of the parties. Good for them, when I was in the military and I was confronted with a crisis but someone was throwing a really good party, I’d often hit up the party (especially if I thought the attendees might be people that could further my career).
But I’m going to be careful about blaming just our elected officials. I think they’re totally inept, selfish and lazy but our citizens aren’t that much better. State employees are getting ready to take a 10 percent pay cut, schools are looking at cutting their hours, colleges have sliced enrollment, and on and on. Still, in my department, we really haven’t been asked to find anyway to cut our costs. Instead, managers are angling to keep their perks like the student assistants that answer their phones and file their papers. We just had four brand new flatscreen televisions put up in our office. (We use them for work, but we already had regular televisions.) People on public assistance are marching around the state capital decrying possible cuts to their respective programs and then going home and watching premium cable that costs them $100 bucks a month.
So not only are we doing very little to help ourselves currently, I’m sure will continue to do the same when we, the citizens of California, vote these politicians that have been working so hard on our behalf, back into office.
Clickity: http://www.iousathemovie.com/
I just saw this movie tonight. Maybe one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
homeless
It’s been busy at work and at home with the holidays and all, but overall it’s been a good time. At work we’re moving to another office on another floor and there have been lots of holiday photographs to shoot and things to write.
Thanksgiving was awesome. The Scotland crew came into town and my brother visited with his wife and new daughter. We had almost a week to spend together and I honestly enjoyed every moment of it. Thanks all.
Broadening the focus a bit, the Sacramento Bee ran an article last Wednesday about the area’s homeless and the ridiculous dance they do with local police. It seems that every few weeks the police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp A. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles away to Homeless Camp B. Fast forward a few weeks: local police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp B. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles back to Homeless Camp A…and repeat ad nauseam.
The Bee estimates that about 2,500 homeless call Sacramento their home, with 700 hundred of these having been on the streets for a year or more. There’s no estimate on how much money or time city services, to include police and health, spend on them or the cost of the blight that trails them.
I understand that many of the homeless are there by choice and that the vast majority have drug and alcohol problems and are afflicted by any number of mental illnesses. In the Bee article they focused on one homeless lady, an admitted bipolar meth-head, who said she would like to get clean and live in an apartment. However, she also expressed an appreciation for the freedom being homeless offered. Another homeless person interviewed was downright hostile to the idea of living a “normal” life.
I can’t say that living the homeless lifestyle is right or wrong, but I really lean to it being wrong and here is why, it has a negative effect on other people. I’m not talking just about how uncomfortable homeless people make others feel, but the crime, blight, pollution and resources they destroy.
In Sacramento, the homeless have taken over large swaths of land that run along one of our nearby rivers. The human waste and pollution have devastated the area, stripped it of its recreational properties and left it in shambles. The area of the town near our homeless shelter is nothing but warehouses, recycling yards and a porn shop. It really can’t be improved or made habitable.
The Obama administration has expressed interest in pumping money into rebuilding our country’s failing infrastructure. Keeping in mind that some of these homeless want to get clean, straight and live a more “regular” life, I’d like to suggest that part of this budget stimulus being considered focus on building a humanitarian infrastructure. Let’s get many more drug counselors, mental health and social service specialists out to schools, police stations and homeless shelters. Let’s offer scholarships to students studying in these areas or pay for their educations outright for which they’ll be required to serve the public good for four or five years. This will help pump money into the economy by creating more consumers, in this case former homeless and students who now have degrees/certificates and greater income. Hopefully, with more of these specialists in schools and the community in general we can lower future crime rates, move many of the homeless of the streets and create, in general, a better world for all people.
Click: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/twilight.html
The trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine!!!
Thanksgiving was awesome. The Scotland crew came into town and my brother visited with his wife and new daughter. We had almost a week to spend together and I honestly enjoyed every moment of it. Thanks all.
Broadening the focus a bit, the Sacramento Bee ran an article last Wednesday about the area’s homeless and the ridiculous dance they do with local police. It seems that every few weeks the police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp A. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles away to Homeless Camp B. Fast forward a few weeks: local police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp B. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles back to Homeless Camp A…and repeat ad nauseam.
The Bee estimates that about 2,500 homeless call Sacramento their home, with 700 hundred of these having been on the streets for a year or more. There’s no estimate on how much money or time city services, to include police and health, spend on them or the cost of the blight that trails them.
I understand that many of the homeless are there by choice and that the vast majority have drug and alcohol problems and are afflicted by any number of mental illnesses. In the Bee article they focused on one homeless lady, an admitted bipolar meth-head, who said she would like to get clean and live in an apartment. However, she also expressed an appreciation for the freedom being homeless offered. Another homeless person interviewed was downright hostile to the idea of living a “normal” life.
I can’t say that living the homeless lifestyle is right or wrong, but I really lean to it being wrong and here is why, it has a negative effect on other people. I’m not talking just about how uncomfortable homeless people make others feel, but the crime, blight, pollution and resources they destroy.
In Sacramento, the homeless have taken over large swaths of land that run along one of our nearby rivers. The human waste and pollution have devastated the area, stripped it of its recreational properties and left it in shambles. The area of the town near our homeless shelter is nothing but warehouses, recycling yards and a porn shop. It really can’t be improved or made habitable.
The Obama administration has expressed interest in pumping money into rebuilding our country’s failing infrastructure. Keeping in mind that some of these homeless want to get clean, straight and live a more “regular” life, I’d like to suggest that part of this budget stimulus being considered focus on building a humanitarian infrastructure. Let’s get many more drug counselors, mental health and social service specialists out to schools, police stations and homeless shelters. Let’s offer scholarships to students studying in these areas or pay for their educations outright for which they’ll be required to serve the public good for four or five years. This will help pump money into the economy by creating more consumers, in this case former homeless and students who now have degrees/certificates and greater income. Hopefully, with more of these specialists in schools and the community in general we can lower future crime rates, move many of the homeless of the streets and create, in general, a better world for all people.
Click: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/twilight.html
The trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine!!!
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