I just wanted to put in my two cents about the stimulus bill, what was removed, and what the Republicans apparently consider "wasteful spending"- such as updating and replacing volcano monitoring equipment.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of complaining about construction projects such as bridges and roads. Large infrastructure projects are OK to work on. There is no question in my mind that construction crews and engineers need work. These salaries pay for homes, for cars, for consumer goods that keep an economy chugging along.

But what about the salaries of historians? Other scientists? Highly skilled factory workers making sensitive scientific equipment? Teachers? Do we really think these salaries don't pay for homes and goods as well? Do people really think these jobs aren't disappearing, too?

In fact, with the downturn, fewer people are donating to museums, parks, and other quality of life projects and sites. As we scale down to survival-only, the greater infrastructure, things that widen our children's horizons and make people creative, thoughtful, and appreciative, are set to the wayside. Being able to think critically, to learn from the past and look into the future, to think outside the box by seeing how others thought beyond the limits of their own time and culture, these are the skills needed to be truly competitive in a global economy, to innovate and stay on top.

However, it is items like historical preservation and funding  Head Start which were pulled from the bill- the kinds of programs suffering severely (and even being eliminated) from the economic downtown. It is items like volcano monitoring that the Republicans apparently would have preferred to have removed from the bill. These items bring in jobs and prepare our country for the future.

The blue-collar worker isn't the only one suffering. Historians and special-ed teachers do not make huge salaries to begin with, but those salaries pay for mortgages and cars and washing machines just as much as any comparable construction job does. In fact, many of the folks who work these jobs have additional student loan debt to pay!