Originally Posted by ijusluvit

vk,

Your scenario is thoughtful and thorough. I don't believe it is entirely real and I can think of a number of things I would do before casting my vote. So instead of concentrating on the vote, I'll suggest you've brought up a classic example of the current situation with productivity and employment in America and how it must change.

The first respondent to your post is actually correct. The postal service operates with a woefully outdated and costly model. We all know we are floating a boat which is incredibly wasteful. I believe the US could go to a three or four day per week delivery schedule and balance the USPS budget. Postal workers would be laid off and perhaps workers in other businesses would lose their jobs as well. But we fail to count the additional jobs which would be created in the electronic messaging industry, and for-profit delivery services which will pick up any demand the slimmed-down USPS can't meet.

There are parallels in many other industries. Every example of increased productivity has it's cost, almost always a reduction in jobs. It is the fundamental explanation why unemployment still hovers around 10% when the economy is growing again. A huge number of jobs lost in the last five years will not be reappear, no matter how much the Republicans fight to protect the "job creators".

So what's a Congressman to do?

Support infrastructure rebuilding programs; education K-college; job training programs; accelerated energy research and planning; reduction of medicare benefits and social security colas for wealthy persons; elimination of about $1 trillion tax breaks, (that's only the patently absurd ones); making large cuts in the defense budget, taxing banks and securities companies according to the amount of cash, above the required reserve, which they refuse to lend; controlling illegal immigration; and a return to the basic tax code of the 1960's.

Some may holler that a few of the above actions will actually increase unemployment, (eg. defense). But I think these actions are some of the necessary changes 21st century America must make to really move toward economic stability. If we are able to do that, we will be much better prepared for all the other rapid changes which will occur, like it or not.