Have Any Spare Change?

In Doug McKelway's article titled,"GAO Report Highlights Wasteful Spending on Ending Homelesness," I gather that his intended audience are taxpayers. He provides information which supports the solution for the Governments wasteful spending, is to cut the programs and organizations that tackle homelessness. I get the feeling that he believes to help out with the nation's debt, we should just turn our backs and give up on helping the homeless. In the article is a statistic showing that the  GAO report founded in 2009, federal agencies spent about $2.9 billion dollars on more than 20 programs that targeted homelessness. The thing that bothered me was he followed that statistic with the statement," If that money were to be targeted toward the building of homes, at say, $200,000 per home, it could theoretically produce 145,000 houses."Really? Is $2.9 billion that much of a waste, not even considering that it is to help those in need, but yet the government can waste almost triple that amount on the war against drugs, which isn't improving. We can spend our tax money to convict and overfill our jails with petty marijuana charges, but we can't use it on those who actually benefit from it? Then to make the irrational idea of using that money to build more homes, when the nation is struggling to pay off the ones we already have. Yeah, that's a brilliant thought. Also, with the current unemployement rates, crappy economy, and all the layoffs affecting people everywhere, I have a feeling that all these programs that the government is "wasting" money on will come in handy soon.

Let us Prioritize...

When there was a nationwide telephone poll at the end of last month, on what should be the focus of the new Congress, it was reported that more than four in ten Americans felt that job creation should be the number one focus. Even though health care is a hot topic that has it's share of people talking, according to the 1,036 Americans, give or take, that took part in the poll only 18% felt that health care should be the primary focus.

The fairly recent poll conducted by New York Times/CBS News, reports that a majority of Americans do not really understand how the health care law affects them. It was stated that approximately 56% of Americans, don't truly feel that the law's impact was thoroughly explained to them. Therefore, making it kind of difficult for most people to express their concerns and opinions.

Working in a pharmacy as a technician, I have to deal with insurance companies first hand. As well as, I have to explain to customers, especially Medicare patients, on why their plans are leaving them out to dry. So, for me, health care is more of a touchier subject, but you can read more about the poll in this article: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/poll-congresss-top-focus-to-should-be-job-creation/