50,000 homeless in New York City. 21,000 children. The lasting legacy of Bloomberg and Giuliani–an extraordinary waste.
Overall, the homeless shelter system has grown 61% during Mr. Bloomberg’s three terms, raising questions about whether the city’s remarkable turnaround in the past two decades has benefited the poorest New Yorkers.
The Mayor tries to blame everyone other than his own sycophants and extraordinary ego, perhaps where it lies.
Yes it’s a good thing. Yes it’s a chance to lock in the gains on healthcare reform, perhaps a chance to move past some of the ridiculousness of tax policy. But three distinct caveats:
Pretty much exactly summed up:
“If things look grim in Afghanistan, they hardly look better in Iraq. And it’s terrible to think that this is the meaning of all those years of war, all that death and heartbreak. It’s even more terrible to wonder if that was the only meaning they ever could have had, though history will take longer to write that one. In a couple of years, probably faster, we’ll have vanished from places like Panjwai, as we’re gone today from Haditha and Mahmudiyah. And since we’re Americans, we’ll have soon moved on from the decade in Afghanistan just as we’re well on our way to forgetting about the nine years in Iraq—except for the Americans who fought, who have a harder time forgetting.”
Finally there comes an official end to the war in Iraq. In a way, to say the ends is way too late is to forget what a misbegotten waste the whole endeavor has been. .
1. Stop the war!
2. Fix the economy!
The first item was clear, and it was ignored…
The second was interpreted to be fixing the big-picture economy and thus came propping up Wall Street and the Banks, then health care reform. However, since jobs went away and never came back, and all the people who bought houses for too much money are underwater, the economy doesn’t appear fixed.
What to do now?
1. Stop the war!
2. Jobs!
Is that clear enough?