Opinion
Paddy Waggin'

By Paddy Notar

I spoke with a friend of mine back East. He lost his job two years ago and hasn't been able to find another one since.

He called up the bank to explain his situation, after tapping out his 401K and spending all of his savings. The bank told him he had 30 days to pay his mortgage or they would foreclose on him and he would have to vacate the property. He and his wife and four children.

I've never heard his voice sound so desperate and lost. It was as if he had nothing left to hold onto. All hope had disappeared for him.

He isn't a lazy person by any means. His family is everything to him, and he has tried time and time again to find any kind of work, but he was told that for every job he was applying for there were another 600 people applying as well.

So, he struggles on and his 83 year old parents are helping as much as they can with the bills. But, they too are going through tougher times, and budgets have been increased due to higher prices on everything under the sun.

The only reason I bring this up is because I had a friend of mine tell me that my column focuses too much on politics. That I pick on our representatives for not doing enough and for misleading voters during election season.

I don't pick on our representatives, I hold them to a higher standard and have no problem calling them out if they don't do what they were elected to do.

I have no doubt that our Senators and Representative have a difficult task. But that is the career they chose, and they should be doing everything in their power to represent the people of this state to the best of their ability, not make empty promises and then turn their backs on their constituents.

Jobs are crucial for many reasons. Just ask anyone who is out of work. Jobs allow you to take care of your family by paying the bills, buying groceries, saving for college, and keeping a roof over your head. Working gives people a sense of self-worth.

Our current congress wants to expand unemployment benefits. I have no idea how paying someone to stay out of work longer encourages them to find a job. My point is this: we need people representing us and the struggles we face, not people that are excited to wear a pin on their lapel and dance around Washington.

Sen. Stevens knew that and acted accordingly. He was a peoples Senator and was instrumental in putting Alaska in the financial position it once had. Talking about what caused our current crisis and setting up a commission to investigate it is a moot point. I think it's pretty straightforward.

Wall Street had a party for the past five years, with zero government oversight, and we got stuck with the hangover.

The solution for this mess has to be a combination of massive tax breaks for smaller companies who are hiring, a law requiring all corporations to pay their taxes (between 1998– 2005, a study found that 42 percent of U.S. corporation and over half of foreign corporations, doing business in the U.S. didn't pay federal taxes for two or more years. Despite doing $2.5 trillion in sales).

And no more bailing out companies. AIG just took $100 million dollars of taxpayer money and gave it to their executives for bonuses. That's approximately 1,667 jobs at $60,000 salary's apiece each.

I know a lot of people, including my friend who's out of work, could have used that income right about now.