Editorial essay on the Washington Post article

¶ … recession is a topic of much concern these days. With no money to do anything and unemployment rates going up through the roof, it may seem impossible to even imagine the long-term survival of small businesses, especially those that are deemed to provide luxury, or unnecessary services to the people. This is the case with the Washington Post article titled, "Virginia house painter fights to keep business as recession becomes a way of life" (Saslow 2011).

This article depicts the life of a small business owner who climbed his way up the American dream ladder only to find himself broke, without a home, and barely making enough to survive as this recession continues. He emigrated to the United States from El Salvador when he was an adolescent and has worked hard since that day to make some money to support his family. He has a wife and two sons who all also work to make ends meet in order for them to even have food on the table. Their teenage son works not just to try to save up for the college fund that his parents had to use to get out of the hole, but also to be able to assist paying the family's utility bills. After losing the house that they worked so hard to attain, everything just started to go downhill for them. This American dream that this family was once living, is now gone, and in its place is poverty and disgrace (Saslow 2011).

Dear Editor,

The issue at hand here is whether the government and the economy have let its citizens down by not providing enough support throughout this recession to help not only small business owners who are now losing everything, to everyday people who cannot even find a job to support their own families. The answer is no. The government has not been thinking about the citizens inhabiting its country. It is instead bailing out large corporations who in the end, end up hurting the small people even more (Mandelbaum 2010). Bailing out banks who in the end are not doing anything to help out its consumers is not having the best interest of the people in mind. Instead of spending billions of dollars in trying to fix a corporation that is out to take as much money as possible from the people who literally have nothing, is not any better than going straight to the homes of these poor citizens and taking their food right off of their table.

Not enough is being done to sustain the morale of the American citizens. With unemployment higher than ever, and no relief in sight, how can one expect to keep on having the American Dream when little by little, this American Dream has become more of a nightmare. As the article states, the recession has become a way of life. No longer do people remember what it was like before this economy bombed (Saslow 2011). American citizens have gotten used to going to work fearing that they might hear that they will be getting laid off. There is no reassurance in anything. Nothing is set in stone. It is this fear that drives people to stop spending because there is nothing at all occurring that is of some sort of security for them. How can someone spend on things that are not really essential when someone could literally lose their job the next day without warning and then not even have a reliant security network on which to go to. The government even started to lower the amount of time allotted for unemployment check disbursements for individuals who are unemployed, leading to an even greater economic problem within families (Wolf 2010).

I agree with the editor who states over and over again that these people who have literally lost everything have nothing else to rely on. They got swept up in the idea that in America anything and everything is possible, but unfortunately that dream was sought at an extremely bad time. The idea behind what they wanted is no longer there. The structure on which every life goal was standing on, no longer has anything assisting in holding on to it. Small businesses are desperately searching for a crutch to hold on to, yet nothing seems to be to there to support them when they need it most. Government assistance is no longer being funded as much as it used to be, even though now is the time that people need that support to assist them (Mandelbaum 2010). It is a catch-22 when one thinks about the concept of government assistance. When the economy is doing well, these programs are well-developed and appropriately funded, however, when people need it the most, there is not enough money to be able to do anything for the people in dire need of this extra assistance.