Health Reform

        After watching the video clip on the vital, life-altering impacts that exercise can have on overall health, my previous opinions were only strengthened. I believe that an agenda promoting and rewarding physical activity would be really beneficial to the country as a whole. As mentioned in the film, simply exercising 30 minutes a day can have major preventative disease impacts. This means that if more people were active, many health issues, heart attacks and high blood pressure for example, would be deterred. This clearly could save taxpayers money. No matter what health reform is instituted and what its agenda includes, by having more active healthy residents, the state of the country can only improve. The improvements in metal health and depression/anxiety could really make a difference as well.

        

         All of this sums to my conclusion that, if I had the power, I would propose a policy agenda in which company’s would be rewarded through tax abatements to install gyms for their employees or to provide programs that standardized exercise. The simple tax abatements would definitely be outweighed by benefits of exercising. I do not think that government should be as involved as to punish people for not exercising, but rewarding businesses and companies that do promote/require exercising employees would be really effective.

         Most of the major concerns that I saw over the new health care reform were over administrative functioning of getting the reform started. One of the major concerns I read about was that rather than increase employment for medical professionals; it would require a larger number of administrative staff employees. I don’t see how that could be viewed as a problem. There are plenty of able-minded unemployed individuals who would jump at the opportunity to have an administrative position behind the medical program.  With baby-boomers aging, the medical field is currently one of the most in-demand fields and there is no evidence that the health reform would deter this from continuing, it simply says that it may not increase to more of a demand.

      

        Overall, it is disappointing to see that these major proponents to the health care reform don’t really seem to be concerned with the health of our nation’s citizens. It sounds like the economical and administrative portions of the bill seem to be more of a concern than actually improving the quality of life for women men and children all over the nation. Hopefully, these antagonistic views aside, we can work to instill more active healthy lifestyles into our nation. 

Portland's Economy

As the Portland director for economic development, I would be proud of the ingenuity and creative drive that my residents possessed. As mentioned in the film, Portland not only stayed strong during the economic recession, but also was one of the few cities able to grow and I strongly believe this is due to their Creative Class. Young, educated, and driven individuals who are motivated to see change in our society and also to work hard for it define the Creative Class. They are not simply artists, but work in many fields such as technology, science, and education. Portland can pride its success in its strong ability to attract the Creative Class. As mentioned in the film, companies are drawn to locate in Portland because of this strong pool of employees.

An additional economic development strength of Portland is that it has not had to deal with the de-industrialization that many Midwestern and East coast cities have. Simply by not having to deal with this, numerous problems have been alleviated. Not to say that Portland does not have problems that are seen on the East coast as well, because they do; they simply can focus more closely on these problems without the overbearing issues of deindustrialization.

I feel that Portland has done a pretty solid job of enticing business to their area. I do not feel that Portland needs an economic proposal addressed to the city, they are doing really well and growing as is. Technology and sustainability have meshed really well and feed off of each other.  The economy is set up for success if left as is. As mentioned, not having the burdens of deindustrialization helped tremendously; while other cities had to battle through these challenges and finally see the “silver lining” with post-industrial economies of service and technology, Portland was able to focus on this type of economy all along. These are all reasons why a huge overhaul proposal to the city about economic growth would not be needed. The only proposal I would consider would be for helping local small businesses start up easier. While it is not as difficult as some cities, it is always a challenge to start up small businesses and I think that a tax abatement program or start up cost leniency format would really benefit small business.

I strongly support the idea of applying for a HOPE IV grant. I think that providing mixed-use mixed-income housing is much more promising than designating a block of apartments as low income. This way, low income residents are surrounded with higher income residents and can see the possibilities and potential for growth. The whole system is designed to benefit human well-being much better.

I do not want this to sound like I have always supported all HOPE IV projects though. They must be designed properly and located well. Having experienced the aftermath of Cabrini Green in Chicage being torn down and replaced with HOPE IV housing, I had a sour image of this program for a long while. When they torn down the projects, thousands of these residents fled Chicago to my hometown of Lafayette, IN which is about an hour southeast of Chicago and much more affordable. My city had no where to house these residents, so quickly built cheap low income housing on the south side of our town. The majority of residents here were post Cabrini Green residents, and it was always my understanding that HOPE IV came through, tore down their projects and built a smaller housing system that could not fit them all. In effect, HOPE IV was helping Chicago to outsource their low income residents to my hometown of Lafayette.

Because of instances such as this, I would be cautious about proposing a grant for HOPE IV. I know that when carried out correctly, they can be beneficial to the area, but I would ensure that nothing like that would happen in Portland.