Interesting discussion with my sister's new boyfriend (R) [View All]

He's actually quite a nice man and we had an actual discussion about our feelings about the direction of the country with some emphasis on health care reform. No yelling. No argument. Just listening to the other talk and asking questions of the other.

He likes Palin. He asked me what I thought of Obamacare. We talked about HEALTH CARE REFORM and many of the reasons I don't like it, largely that it does not go far enough to help people and hurts quite a few. He used lots of the talking points and probably thought I did too.

I said I felt that most people don't want to sit on unemployment and would like to have a job and are willing to work hard. He disagreed. Part of my argument was that when unemployment numbers were around 5%, the consensus was that most people who wanted a job had one. I reminded him that was during the Clinton years. If one assumed the worst case scenario, that ALL of those 5% just didn't really feel like working, the remaining 95% were working their fool heads off and loving life. That 5% was in all probability not a real number, but I don't know for sure and he admitted neither did he. Now that unemployment is hovering at 10%, depending which figures are used, there are a good number of people who want to work and can't find it. Many more beyond the 10% are taking low wage jobs, just to be doing something and are UNDERemployed. He agreed. We talked about how those people wanting unemployment bennies after 99 months are unable to make ends meet with a job flipping burgers or ringing up gas and ciggies. He finally agreed with me on that.

Then he said the most remarkable thing: I wish the government would just start a jobs program like they did with the CCC in '30s and '40s. I asked him to repeat what he'd said and he stated it again, saying that getting people back to work would be the best way to improve our lot and the economy. I was floored. He was serious.

We found some common ground. Not sure I changed his mind on anything else, but he seemed to agree that people want to work and that is the entrepreneurial spirit of this country.