The Chopping Block

On an extremely selfish note, I had high expectations for this past weekend and hoped to take my mind off of the seemingly relentless amounts of school work that I've had for the past 3 weeks. The aforementioned notion was dissuaded at 3 PM on Friday afternoon when I sat down to read, revise, and add a conclusion to a group paper. After 45 minutes of dicking around, trying to make sense of one person's segment, I shot an email off to a professor explaining that I hated to play the Judas card, but the bottom line was that people weren't pulling their weight. That situation was moderately resolved. At any rate, I eventually went out, had a decent time, etc. etc. but something was clearly amiss, as is usually the case.

Saturday morning, I wake up and had planned on going out to lunch with my mom. Both of my parents were present at this time and told me that they needed to talk to me later on in the day when they had time. Dinner time rolls around, and they lay the news out on the table. On Friday, President Obama named my father's program as one of the programs he was planning to cut by 2010, and the sooner, the better. What this means is for the next 7 months, my father has to literally go to work everyday thinking it's going to be his last day on the job. I'm not sure how to put the general mood in print other than it has to be akin to being an innocent man on death row the night before the execution with no chance of pardon. The exact phrase "well, we've been fortunate and have had a good run" came out of his mouth right after informing us that HR had him resign an agreement essentially acknowledging the fact that he could be let go at any moment, could not sue, etc. etc. from here on out. Needless to say, receiving this information carried a heavy weight on my mind for the remainder of the day, and I probably looked, felt, and acted like a the proverbial "buzzkill."

What's the point of all of this? Well, after reading the president's statement regarding his reasoning and reading the design of my father's program, I have to say, beyond a personal level, that there is an extreme short term, completely reactionist stance occurring at the governmental level which has the potential to be the final shovel full of dirt we so desparately need to put this damn social experiment behind us. In the short term, the cutting of my father's program will save the government on the order of 1 billion dollars it was going to spend over the next 2 years. While the notion that the government wants to stop spending as much usually pleases me, the cost of this action is significant. On one hand, you have a president stating that we have a "brain drain" in this country while stating the need to stimulate the economy. My father's program was started to create a competition between two gigantic manufacturers, designed to lower the price of the overall product because of competition, and most importantly, create new jobs as the product became more popular. The irony of cutting engineering jobs as a "beneficial" move for this economy and society is what shocks me. We need more people focusing in on math and sciences, but if those jobs are being cut, who in their right mind would want to walk that arduous path?

Oh well, I'm rambling. I remember sitting there on election day and saying "well, we've witnessed the start of something......" Now, it seems that's coming to roost.