City fixing problems

Consolidating propeties and selling them as a block would only work if contiguous properties are available, and many times that is not the case. So, eminent domain would have to be used by the city. The city needs to stop trying to do things that it can not do. City government throws ideas at the wall and sees what sticks. They feel that they are succesful when they make an effort, however, the effort they need to make is to stay focused on the issues at hand, mainly public safety and infrastructure maintenance and repair.

Any investment that is not market driven is likely to be a bad long-term investment. The city needs to enforce existing laws and go after owners who do not maintatin their properties, whether it be the banks, HUD, corporations or individuals. The city should provide leadership and help each neighborhood help itself to enhance its quality of life. But the city, as well as real estate developers needs to stop pretending that they can create homeowners out of thin air. Instead, the message should be to citizens that homeownership requires a personal financial commitment, not just relaxed lending standards. If all of these homes are vacant and foreclosed, there must be a surplus of housing and in many cases, the homes and/or neighborhoods are not desirible. If so, no amount of government intervention is going to change that fact. The best that the government can do is to focus on improving the quality of life for the remaining residents and ridding these communities of domestic criminals and illegal alien criminals.

Lou Dobbs

I loved your comment in the story about the Mexican government complaining about our border patrol crossing the border while chasing criminals trafficking drugs was classic - Something to the effect that at least this is the first time that the Mexican government acknowledged the sovereign border. The two border agents that are facing jail time is criminal (this story should be in the mainstream press every day instead of the other stupid stories that they bore us to tears with at every waking moment. And what is more irritating is that people like me are called racist (my words don't reveal my complexion) when we ask that our immigration laws be be enforced. Even with total 100% enforcement, our immigration policies are very liberal, but no one wants to admit that. There are literally dozen of ways to legally enter this country, unfortunately for us, their is little to make many of them leave, because the immigration laws are not enforced.

Thank you for bringing this issue to light every night. Sometimes it feels hopeless that anything will change for the better. I recently finished reading your book, "War on the Middle Class." And the title says it all. By the way, the other books I am currently reading are "State of Emergency" by Pat Buchanan; "Take this Job and Ship It, by Senator Byron L. Dorgan and The Diposable American by Louis Uchitelle - Notice a theme.

While Ross Perot might have been a crazy little man, I voted for him, because I believed that he was right - that the giant sucking sound was our jobs being sucked out of the country.

Thanks again. I tell everyone I know to watch your show or get on your website.

Civil Rights Poseurs

IUPUI is going down the same patronizing path of most other large Universities, by beginning to give into the demands of a few. What the students should be demanding is that the University provide a rigorous learning environment for all students. Should IUPUI play a prominent role in providing higher-education opportunities to students from inner-city Indianapolis? Yes! Should these inner-city students avail themselves of every opportunity to benefit from IUPUI and the other colleges and universities found within the City of Indianapolis? Yes!

If the idea of a student union is for students to unite together, why would anyone request or provide a separate student union for one segment of the student population? It makes no sense. And if it really is that important to have a black student union, then these students should figure out how to start a building fund and solicit money from black alumni and others who would be equally supportive of this endeavor. They might find that if they tried to accomplish their objective(s) on their own, others might voluntarily help to achieve those goals.

The reality is that these students have learned, not from the real leaders of the Civil Rights Movement but from the poseurs of the post Civil Rights Era, to whine and cry for selfish reasons instead of fighting for the betterment of society.

The New Hoosiers

Your recent article. "The New Hoosiers," is the most recent and clear evidence that there is no reason to renew my subscription to your magazine. While pretending to be balanced, it does not begin to address the many problems nor offer solutions associated with illegal immigration. It was a typical "feelgood" article.

As a black American (not African-American), I am sick of people saying that immigration needs to be reformed to permit illegal immigrants to become legal. What needs to be reformed is our commitment to enforcing the laws we have and protecting our sovereigntry.

The whole idea that we should just turn a blind eye to people who have commited crimes is beyond ludicrous. Of course, the apologists for illegal immigrants never mention all of the criminals, gang members, druglords and terrorists who also cross the same border. That just talk about the myth of all the hard-working illegal immigrants doing jobs that Americans won't do - never mentioning that many legal citizens do those jobs, but are unwilling to do them at the pay being offered to illegals. Only after businesses destroyed the wage rate and work conditions with policies sanctioned by the national government did some Americans not want to do some of those jobs. And the businesses did not care since the national policies allowed them to either export the jobs overseas or import workers illegally.

It is not our responsiblity to solve the problems of a corrupt Mexican government, who refuses to provide for its citizens and who would rather export their poverty problems across the border with the complicit help of the American government. In the end, it is all about money, and the people at the bottom of the pyramid are getting crushed by these policies that breed unemployment, schools and hospitals crowded with non-english speaking illegals and heightened criminal activity.

Frankfort, IN

Recent news account about the issues that Frankfort, IN is having with illegal aliens did not address the main reason that these problems are occurring. These problems resulted from the recruitment of illegal aliens by the employers of Frankfort. Consistently, businesses get a pass when illegal immigration is discussed.

I remember the ridiculous 1986 amnesty by Reagan. I also remember how employers were supposed to ensure that the employees they hired were United States citizens. I also remember, in the late (80's) thinking that maybe the government was actually going to be serious about enforcing citizenship as it related to employment. But certain employers quickly found out that no enforcement would be forthcoming and they began recruiting illegal aliens throughout the Great Plains, Midwest and other parts of the country. Subsequently, whole factories and large portions of several industries began to be dominated by illegal aliens, at much lower wages. The importation of these illegal aliens has had an impact on many working Americans who find that the jobs that used to have been illegally taken from them. At the same time, they see that their government wants to reward the very companies and illegal aliens who took their jobs by continuously proposing comprehensive immigration reform. Same song, different verse.

But as long as businesses are singing a happy tune, we should too, right?

Health Care

Concern about the health care crisis seems to always miss the point; the focus is always on how to reduce costs and not enough attention is paid to the underlying reasons for out-of-control health care costs. A major part of the problem is that we, as a nation, feel that we have the right to abuse our bodies anyway we see fit. However, at the same time, we complain about the costs of procedures needed to treat diseases that mainly result from our choices.

Of course, our choices, with respect to food has been somewhat limited by the chemicalization of our food supply and the importation of food from countries with less food safety enforcement. While, one could argue, that our food supply will not kill us in the short term, most of it will definitely impair our health in the long-term, whether we admit it or not. The welcome, small but growing, trend of organic agriculture and more natural food processing techniques is a step in the right direction. However, due to the limited availability and expense (although, if we would eat less, the expense would be mostly mitigated) of this more natural food, many people do not have easy access to it.

Since people do not like to make choices, we should help them make a better choice by taxing the hell out of tobacco products, alcoholic beverages and processed food. The chemicalization of our food supply must be severely reduced or eliminated and replaced with natural methods of farming and food processing. Until we make these changes to our food protection system and our choice-making, any structural changes to the health care system will be meaningless. Our government needs to understand that we won’t tolerate them continuing to allow our so-called “free market” to continue to slowly kill us with bad food, dirty water, dirty air, poisonous tobacco and alcohol products and unnecessary prescription drugs (my restless legs are acting up again). Until we realize that there is a more natural healthy way of living, we are doomed to continue along the same path. I, for one, intend to focus on living healthy instead of living sick and complaining about the health care system. The problem with the health care system is us and the solution is within us.

Private Sector

The so-called "open market" has been bastardized by the illegal importation of illegal immigrants and the criminal "free trade" policies enacted by this government.

And when the private sector can not accomplish want it intends by suppressing wages, it reduces services, usually with the complicit help of those who "supervise" their contractual obligations.

The myth that the private sector is so much better than the public sector is an absolute joke. Many government employees move freely back and forth between both sectors and do not encounter this mythical private sector that can do no wrong.

Privatization

The privatization nuts always want to believe that there is this magical free market and private work force that solves all problems. Goverment workers do great work when they are allowed to follow through with their ideas and are given the resources to make change.

The privitization nuts try to pretend that competing for a contract is the same as competing against other companies providing the same service. It is not close to being the same, but we are expected to nod our heads and accept their propaganda. Day to day competition is not the same as the so-called competition to obtain politically connected gifts that have already been reserved to "special friends." Privitization is just a way to transfer large sums of the taxpayers money to the private sector. The customers of FSSA have no choice but to be served by the IBM cartel, whose only motivation is to increase profits and nothing else. The State of Indiana's mission, in theory, is to protect the public welfare (when not highjacked by megalomaniac leaders and their sycophantic followers. Even if there are penalties in a contract (are there any?) for poor performance, does anyone think they would be enforced. We will just be covered with the stench of another round of propaganda to explain why everything is better than it was - take my word for it!

Law Day - Illegal Aliens

To add insult to injury, the illegal aliens marched on Law Day. Law Day in the United States was established as in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower “to strengthen our great heritage of liberty, justice, and equality under law.” In 1961, May 1^st was designated as Law Day by joint resolution of Congress as the official date for celebrating Law Day U.S.A. Yet, we stand by and watch thousands of illegal aliens march in Indianapolis and throughout the country, thumbing their noses at the rule of law. Their attitude is akin to the famous line from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: "Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" Well, the illegal aliens are like the bandits in the movie who pretend to be Federales and believe that it should not matter whether they have proof of said claim. The illegal aliens similarly state that they do not need to provide visas, passports or any other authenticating document to visit, reside or work in our country. Additionally, when authenticating documents are desired, it does not matter to them (and according to them it should not matter to us) whether they steal information from American citizens to obtain driver’s licenses, social security numbers or any other number of untold benefits. The tolerance of this attitude seems very strange to me, as I am sure it does to American citizens, whom have to present passports to fly to Mexico or Canada and to be permitted to re-enter the United States. Clearly, something is terribly wrong and if we, the citizens of the United States, do not take a stand against this criminal behavior, we will forever regret it.

Subsidizing low-wage industries

This is not an investment in the city; it is corporate welfare to a billionaire. Investments by the city should be for public goods, not for the private good. Having the taxpayers subsidize 20% of the cost of a hotel (for the nth time) in the lowest wage employment category is beyond ridiculous. In fact, it is damn near criminal.

The tourism / hotel industry downtown is a minor portion of the total Indianapolis economy. Just because some big numbers are thrown around does not mean the numbers are significant.

The wage earnings (2004, US Bureau of Economic Analysis) for the category "Accommodations and Food Service was $846,174,000, which equates to 2.4% of the total earnings in Indianapolis, at an average wage just shy of $18,000. The total private earnings in Indianapolis in 2004 were about $31,000,000,000, with an average wage of about almost $52,000. So, yeah, let's subsidize an industry where the average earnings are little more than a third of the average earnings in the total economy. Good idea. Please don't stop!