Posted by Skip Miller
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Help for My America
SATURDAY, JUNE 7 2008
From my perch on the third floor of the A.P. Hill Building I can see empty storefronts on Davis Street. There are other empties directly below me, on Main Street. There will be more before the summer is over. The economy will see to that. What do the presidential candidates propose doing about it? Those symbols of hard times are what I look at each day when I sit at my desk. The symbols are my America. The ground being churned by Midwest tornados, the flooded coastal plains of Texas, the wretched slums and decay of the Northeast are America, but not my America. My America is much more personal. It houses me each day. My America is economically stressed and environmentally challenged and I want to know what the candidates propose doing about it. When I am elected your president I will begin the process of bringing our troops home from Iraq. That’s a good thing. The earlier you get started the better. When I am elected your president I will appoint a committee to study the health care issue. Too many people in this country are living without health care. That, too, is a good thing. I’m not too sure about the committee approach. It is almost impossible for a committee to reach resolution, especially when the television cameras are on. All of the issues they’ve yapped about thus far are important and worthy of any president’s attention. For me, however, they are not where the rubber meets the road. I want to know what has happened to the county’s middle-income families. I want to know why it costs upwards of $50 a day to commute to Northern Virginia jobs. I want to know why families that make reasonable incomes have to start cutting corners to buy food, why there is no safety net for farmers, why small business – once the backbone of Culpeper – is going the way of the $2 bill, and why every budget, from federal to local, has lopped huge portions from education. Those are the things happening to my America. We are a country at war. Why aren’t the oil companies guilty of war profiteering? Every survey done concludes 8-out-of-10 Americans want a healthy environment and accessible outdoor spaces. Why are so many government decisions moving us farther away from those goals instead of closer to them? In my America, a storefront shop on Davis Street is environmentally friendly. The stores to the north of where I perch are not. Walking from one shopping plaza to another – from Target’s to Chili’s – is a risk. Route 29 is no place for pedestrians. So we drive. Of every $100 spent in locally owned businesses, between $70 and $75 stays in the community, according to a study done in the Chicago suburb of Arlington. Only $35 of every $100 spent in a national chain store stays in town. It’s easy to see why my America, and all of the other parts of America, need local businesses. They are the shoulders on which our economy rests. I want presidential candidates who are going to address what’s going on Davis Street and similar streets throughout the country. Don’t tell me about trade partners and allies and world relief funds. Tell me about Davis Street.
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