Slave Wages in Washington County

When our local officials and managers talk, it sounds as if one is passing gas and in fact that is what they are doing. Have these people ever had the intelligence to give a candid and honest assessment of what this community and its local organizations have going for it. Have these people ever spent time outside of this community and wondered what assets can be used for community wide improvement?

Or is it a case of small minds leading everyone else down the wrong path? So instead of perpetuating the economic vibrancy of a community it is better to create low wage jobs and lack economic improvement? Why is it that 20 percent of the youth in Washington County, Indiana live under the poverty level? Why is it that for a family of four the poverty level is slightly below 20,000 dollars per year when that is a very low figure? Why hasn't the city produced more in the way of tangible economic and educational opportunities for its citizens. Is this all that we can do as a community to impove the lives and well-being of the citizenry?

Or is it another symptom of 30 years of failure and a lack of vision in this area? 30 years of industrial decline and increasing debt obligations. 30 years of lacking proper planning and development procedures. Lacking results and concrete plans to improve the community through education and jobs. Yet, when we hear these education advocates we never seem to hear how we are going to improve the education system and the curriculum. Instead, it is focused on generating a new building and constructing new facilitiies. Which hardly improves the school but rather puts ill-educated students in a new building. Why has the educational hierarchy failed in this where so many kids have to take remedial classes in a wide variety of subjects. Where is our local officials in producing substantial economic gains and improvement in incomes, job stability, and the like.

Creating low wage burger flipping and retail jobs is not the way to the future but a return to leaner times. Not an Army inspired saying of "Be All you can be" but rather a return to economic slavery and despondency. Instead of promoting self sufficiency and hard work, it promotes economic dependency and a lack of ambition and constructing the conditions that promote economic empowerment. Why is it that our local officials lack understand and education to see where these trends are going?

A Bonafide Retirement Community

Salem, Indiana is making progress according to local officials. Rather than being a community of diverse industries, employment, and a community one can take pride in, it has become a retirement community. Investment and new business into the city has been nil over the past few years. The economic development of the community has been lacking for years and the town has a lot of disrepair. When are the local officials going to realize that your community has to be much more than a town full of fast food franchises?

Or do they want a retirement community that way they won't to worry about too many of the youthful people running the town and changing too much. After all, a little competition would hurt the local merchant class and the low wage economy here. Salem lauds itself as a city of progress but is instead a city that is regressing in economics, education, and basic civility. Instead of bringing up the community to modern US standards, it is woefully lacking in economic opportunity and industrial and business diversity. Why is it that the community continues to talk about educational opportunity and improvements yet little is ever done at the local level to address economic development.

Does the town actually value increasing tax revenues from an influx of small, medium, and large businesses or would it rather become a low wage retirement community full of low wage servants, idlers, and people with little going. Why don't the locals spend a little bit of time encouraging and promoting economic development? Is it because it would conflict with their own pocketbooks and therefore upset the proverbial apple cart?

Why has there been practially no new industry come into the county for 15 years? Yet major employers have closed or moved or even downsized. The local community brags about its educational system yet little is ever generated that is produced locally. I guess when you have low ambitions and low standards for education, conduct, and behavior, you can expect that. After all, in America it is increasingly against the flow to expect more or better from society and individuals at large.