Greene Publishing, Inc.

By Emerald Greene

I figured it up and I have attended 15 years of school – kindergarten through 12th grade and two years of college, obtaining my A.A. from North Florida Junior College.  I feel like I paid my dues, and then joined the working force of America.  I’m still paying my dues (and taxes, mind you).

But sometimes I ask myself, “When do I get to QUIT going to school?”

You see, when you have children in school you never really get to quit going to school — the quizzes, the tests, the homework and the projects.  They just never quit coming.  This year I am attending the 11th grade and I am beginning to re-live college, through Cheltsie’s first year at NFCC.

Proofing English papers, calling out science terms, solving math problems and attending class meetings; and the school year has only begun. But, oh, just helping with the homework is NOTHING compared to if I had to actually TAKE/DO all of these tests and projects. I try to remind myself often that no matter how bad, or hard, it is for me to stop what I’m doing to help with that homework, that at least I’m not the one actually HAVING to do it.

The thing that tickles me the most is “You’re not going to understand it.  You can’t do it.”  This is always said when referring to math homework.  Mind you that I LOVE math and my children know that.  I’ve even heard (a few years ago), “You won’t understand it. My teacher even said you wouldn’t understand it.”  FYI, I did.

However, I am finding it harder to remember all the math equations; Algebra II and College Intermediate Algebra are the two courses “I’m” taking this year.  It’s been 24 years since I graduated high school. However, it’s been 26 years since Algebra II.  I’m doing well, however, considering the circumstances.  The problem is I need time to sit, read and remember. Given time, I can remember. But, the girls don’t seem to like waiting on me to figure it out. I have found that they prefer to just skip me and go straight to their aunt for help. This is fine with me, for she helps them understand far better than I can.

The thing I’m the best at, I guess, is proofing English papers and/or projects. My mother was an English teacher and I feel like she taught me a thing or two through the years. It really bothers me to see how many young people are not being “taught” correct grammar. I understand grammar is primarily taught in the elementary grades, but shouldn’t it be enforced throughout their high school years? I truly don’t feel that it is. I feel that more and more teachers are putting emphasis on reading books, doing projects and looking things up on the Internet, but yet these teenagers do not know the proper way to make a subject/verb agreement, don’t know the difference between “there” and “their” or “to” and “too,” and not to end a sentence with a preposition.

So, I try to read/proof most of the girls’ papers before they turn them in. Cheltsie has never minded my help in this department; in fact, she wants me to proof her papers.

Brooke, on the other hand, has always seemed to think she can do it without my help, thus the arguments begin. “I don’t need you to proof it.”  “Yes, Brooke I am going to proof it.”  Then I proof it, hand her back her paper with all the red marks, and then she has to correct it and reprint it. New day – same argument.

But this is the life of a mother.  And I would not trade this life for ANYTHING in the world.  The life of a mother is second to none.  No man will ever understand that and no mother will ever argue that.

Being young is not easy.  I think a lot of us “old” folks forget that.  We look back and know that it (being in school) is easier than working, paying bills, being in debt and raising children.  But before you laugh at your child’s problems, please take a step back and actually remember what it was like to be that age.

I remember tests, quizzes, homework, housework, after-school work, peer pressure, pimples, teachers, rules and the hormones.  Life is not so grand at 16, when you are 16.  Just remember that from time to time when dealing with your teenager.

Have you hugged your child today (and told them you loved them)?

Until then….see you around the town (or schoolyard).

By Joe Boyles

President Obama has said on more than one occasion that he has “a laser-like focus on jobs.”  I’m going to try to explain why this misses the mark.

More jobs and reduction in the unemployment rate is the result of economic growth.  If you get this economy growing once again, instead of the stagnant rate (less than 1 percent) we’re seeing now, jobs which result in meaningful, productive work will naturally occur.  But a focus on jobs is similar to treating a symptom rather than a cure.

Here’s another analogy – a quarterback who looks at his pass rather than the receiver will throw an incompletion most of the time.  I’ve made that mistake plenty of times.  I’m so impressed with the spiral of the ball that I end up missing my target by ten feet.

So the question is: how do we get this economy rolling again?  First, let’s reset the predicate.  I’ve said on more than one occasion that the real economy is the private sector.  It isn’t government.  Government does not add any value to the economy.  Instead, government pulls money out of the private sector to fund its operations.  Some of those operations are important and valuable, but many are superfluous and wasteful.  The art of good government is to know the difference and defund those that have outgrown their usefulness or make no sense.

Business people, particularly small business that characterizes our local economy, will tell you that government “needs to get out of our way” so we can make prudent business decisions (investment, capital improvement, hiring) for the long haul.  We need to take that plea with a grain of salt because not all regulation is necessarily bad.

For example, last week I explained how a Democrat president and bi-partisan Congress removed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and set large final institutions on a crash course toward buying toxic mortgage backed securities that led to financial ruin.  But so many regulations and misguided taxes lead to business decisions that neither promote growth nor safety.  That’s where we need to begin deregulation and tax reform.

Last Thursday night, President Obama introduced his American Jobs Act to a joint session of Congress and national television audience.  It was fiery rhetoric that sounded like an election stump speech, but will it do anything to stimulate the economy?  Was there anything new and creative other than what has already been tried and failed with the February 2009 stimulus?  I’m going to address each of his proposals through the prism of enhancing economic growth.

The president wants to spend billions on “crumbling” roads and bridges and build new schools.  That doesn’t add anything to economic growth.  If it is well done (which government rarely accomplishes), then some needed repairs will be completed and some out-of-work construction workers will have temporary employment, but this kind of infrastructure spending invariably leads to waste, like a turtle crossing under a highway!

Obama wants to add jobs by hiring more teachers, veterans, and young summer hires, but each of these are temporary and none create any kind of economic growth.  Speaking of summer hires, a troubling anecdote sticks in my mind when we attempted to hire a teenager but failed because her Mother insisted that we provide transportation to the job as well.  That’s the tragedy of the entitlement mentality.

The American Jobs Act (which at this stage isn’t a written bill but instead, a speech) also calls for payroll tax cuts for small businesses and credits for hiring the chronically unemployed, but these measures were tried two years ago with the first stimulus and weren’t very effective.  Are we supposed to double down?  Isn’t the definition of insanity trying to do the same thing that has already failed but, this time, expect different results?

And let’s not forget extending unemployment insurance beyond the current 99 weeks for another year.  This is nothing more than a rolling welfare program.  Sure unemployment compensation isn’t very much, but what’s happening is that many of these folks are supplementing their income with other hidden money and getting by well enough to be satisfied with the status quo.

When journalists asked White House spokesman Jay Carney how these measures would stimulate economic growth, he trotted out the tired old liberal saw that more money in your pocket means more retail spending.  Anyone with a modicum of economic understanding (which excludes Carney) knows that retail follows core industrial work.  The only reason we have money to spend in stores and restaurants is because of industries like Nestlé’s, Tri-County, farming, Birdsong, the food processing plants, forestry, etc.  The secret of economic development in a place like Madison is to produce those things which people in wealthier communities desire and are willing to buy.

Remember when Obama said that “everything in my bill is paid for?”  What a joke.  First, he puts all of the responsibility (passes the buck) for finding offsets to his $445 billion bill on the joint debt reduction committee of Congress.  But second and more importantly, how can you suggest that half a trillion dollars in new spending is paid for when this year’s budget deficit (red ink) will exceed $1.5 trillion?  This is sophistry.

The real trouble with make-work jobs like the president proposes is that they don’t produce anything that will move our economy forward out of the doldrums.  While receiving a paycheck is good, working with little sense of accomplishment carries its own toll.  What we need is productivity that in turn leads to new and better jobs for more people.