A real chance for positive change in 2009

2008 has been a year of change for most Americans. It has not been change for the good as President Bush (Bust) winds down eight years of control by the Republican Party we can look back with a clear vision over the past eight years and see just how bad uncontrolled free enterprise can be for our country when it is a society all about me. When CEOs live in a world where workers have no value and companies are only there to be milked until the last dime is in exclusives officer’s own personal bank accounts and yet as the year comes to an end they are still taking their profits from the bank accounts of American voters who can ill afford the price. Where bailout is a word used to reward people who clearly have no idea of how to build or run a national company. Where middle class families face becoming homeless and unemployed all at the same time and yet the CEOs of the auto industry drive high priced new vehicles to ask for $17 billion in more bailout money. We have yet to find out where $700 billion in bailout money from the taxpayers has gone that should have been used to free up credit and save homeowners. More money our children and grandchildren will have to pay to the government in future taxes. This was the year where Americans learned that we have a world of the haves and the have not. Where the percentage of the very rich is small in compares to the working economically distressed yet the lions share of income is being diverted by the Republican controlled government to that small percentage of our population. Where has the middle class gone in this country? Will we ever see it as strong again or is this the beginning of the end?

Although not a petty picture to paint we still have hope for the future. The American voting public took to the polls in record numbers in November to provide this state and this country with real leadership that only wants positive change for the future. The people who take office next year will bring change to this country but it will not be without pain for many. They will need to stand up to major corporations and say fire your current leadership and find people who will bring about responsible and visionary leadership. Reward them only for success and punish them for failure. Bring their compensation packages back to earth and require accountability for their actions in the future. Homeowners will need to take responsible for paying their own mortgages and yet the government will be responsible to make sure the terms of those loans are reasonable and that people have jobs that enable them to have the ability to make monthly payments. Americans will be faced with reeducation into the field of green jobs and will not be able to fight change in the way they make a living in this country. We will be faced will driving smaller more environmentally friendly vehicles. Education will need to reduce the major amount of administration costs in order to pay teachers and educational employee’s higher wages and some will need to realize that education is a field where you work not for the administration or the person you hire to run the system but for the people you educate. Students and parents will need to look deep within themselves to find the respect for instructors and the process of education that made the system work in past generations. Government official will need to demand that the educational system make reductions in cost at the administration level and hold the frontline workers at current levels. Classroom space is far more important then giant towers for the administration with luxury board meeting rooms that are only used a few days out of the month. It is now time that educators should have to take a pay cut in order to become administration within the school system. We can not afford rich CEO types in the administration of the field of education. No one should ever dream of becoming rich from a job in the field of educationally administration. In the field of education the educator should be the primary employee which will be the way you improve the current educational system for the betterment of all Americans.

In New Mexico a good number of our national representatives are going to be new at the job and some good representatives will move on to higher jobs in the federal government. New state representatives will all take office in Santa Fe and all will have to find their way in a field that has little training except for on the job training. The one good thing about this is that they all have a positive vision for where they want to move our state in the future. This will clearly not make the old guard happy but just maybe our state will be better off in the future. So we all face the end of this year with the great hope that 2009 will be a better year for all Americans including New Mexicans. Americans are now faced with the chance for positive change so do we have the heart, passion, and courage to bring about that change?