Congresswoman Hahn and Small Business

Congresswoman Hahn commented on

1. Infrastructure

2. Education

2. Small business

in a recent address sponsored by the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce.

About infrastructure, she praised Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower for initiating the federal highway system that is not tottering on break-down. Still, she offered no real solutions beyond more money from Washington for more shovel-ready jobs, none of which were ready when the money was disbursed from the federal government.

About education, she demanded that the states stop cutting cutting, start investing. What they are supposed to invest, the Congresswoman failed to articulate. For all intensive purposes, the youth of the United States are receiving a thorough education, one which has exploded the myth once and for all that the public sector can remain solvent and grow off the wealth of the 1%.

Regarding economic issues, Congresswoman Hahn is the last person who should be commenting on assisting small businesses. Downtown San Pedro is still languishing, and the Cruise line industry has yet to roar back from its current tepid performance in the Port of Los Angeles. Having left so many loose ends untied in her former Council District, a large crop of contenders are now vying for the seat that she vacated in the midst of her third term on the Los Angeles City Council. Rancho San Pedro remains an abandoned ghost-town, Ghost Town remains a drug-infested eyesore troubling law-abiding residents in the region. The Port of Los Angeles Waterfront has been shuffled through one plan after another with no dramatic move to reshape it, and unemployment and crime are still a chronic problem in San Pedro, Wilmington, and Watts.

If Congresswoman Hahn had conceded that there is very little that the government can do, whether at the city, state, or federal level, to energize a stagnant economy, she would have served her audience and constituents by at least telling the truth. Yet with all the empty rhetoric and lofty exhortations and ongoing interventions of the federal government into our local economies, the voters are still reeling from the "Hope and Change" that has become "nope, and leave the change."