In response to this bit of government spending:
Community Youth Services in Olympia has been awarded $1.08 million to continue its YouthBuild program for three years. A few right wing extremist thoughts about this bit of government spending.
First: The federal government is on the brink of being insolvent if they don't raise the debt ceiling.
Next: For the past several years, in a yard near the intersection of South Bay Road and Sleater Kinney is a sign that goes up every summer. "Handy Youth for Hire" and a phone number.
As a teen of the 80's who had trouble finding a good summer job, I did the exact same thing with an ad in the Pierce County Herald and similar signage on bulletin boards. I did not get the idea from any government program and I doubt the young whipper snapper on South Bay road did either.
As a result of me putting my shingle out there, I was in business for myself at the age of 16 and making more at my little venture than any single employer was offering me. I was booked solid that entire summer. In fact, I had to bring on some of my buddies to help keep up with demand for my cheap labor. A few years later while using the same marketing to get work, a contractor saw my shingle and took me on. It was a pay cut compared to the hired gun work I had been doing on my own, but there I learned some of the carpentry skills I needed to go on to be a builder. That summer I helped build an apartment complex way down at the end of HWY 18. Note I really didn't know jack squat about framing or construction at the time. By the time I graduated college, I had to make the tough decision to go build spec homes or follow my actual degree. In fact, I had to take numerous pay cuts to go work internships in my actual field of study.
Oh how oh how did I ever do that without a government program?
Answer: I wanted/needed the money. If there had been a government program, I would not have been motivated to go figure that out on my own. Through a well intended program, the government would have stifled my innovation.
The answer to our woes is less government, not more.
Despite working part time I still graduated with 8k in student loan debt. I had serious skin in the game to better my lot in life. As a reward for this, I had the pleasure of repaying my student loan debt @ 8% interest and now have the pleasure of being among the 5% of Americans who keep this country solvent so I can pay for this generation of kids (for whom the public school system I also pay for has failed) to learn how to not be innovative while they put none of their own skin in the game. Damn, I feel victimized.
I'll end this on a little factoid from Dan Miller's "48 Days to the Work you Love." If you go around to a number of businesses with your resume, you have a 50/50 chance of being employed by the end of the day. Angry author's note: I bet if the government cut you off from unemployment benefits, those odds would go up to 70% in favor of finding work.
