This just in: The slow pace of progress is one of the top problems with our government.

In WWII, the aircraft carrier Yorktown entered Pearl Harbor needing about 6 months worth of repairs. It was so damaged that just getting rid of it was an option. However, in 4 days, it was back at sea, launching aircraft. This one event was a hidden turning point in the war in the Pacific. The Japanese saw the Yorktown and mistook it for the U.S. fleet since they were certain it couldn’t be the heavily damage Yorktown. This made the Japanese go in one direction while our actual fleet moved in for the kill. You may be familiar with this as The Battle of Midway.

The point is that we made a decision to do 6 months of work on an aircraft carrier in just 4 days. We had to do it so we did it.

As a country, or even as a species, we are capable of great things. All we need to do is make up our mind to do it.

This long preamble brings me to the topic of “pace.”

Let’s start with immigration.

If you were in South America and wanted to come to the United States, would your (a) file your paperwork and wait 10 years or (b) cross the border illegally. These are basically your two decisions. Our immigration system is so slow that it took my wife 2 years to get a green card AFTER we were married.

We need immigrants. We need the diversity they offer. We need the labor they offer. We need them at every level of our economy. Today there are about 2.5 million more job openings than there are job seekers. These openings represent lost economic growth.

To fix this, all we need to do is streamline the immigration procedure. Democrats aren’t really interested in fixing this because when Republicans are in control, Dems can blame them for being inhumane. Republicans don’t want to fix this because immigrants aren’t white.

What about White Collar crime?

Congress is filled with inside traders or people that misused campaign funds. If they were prosecuted quickly, this type of behavior would end. Instead, we get, “We are looking into it.” Trump commits one crime after another. He is personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths ranging from the Kurds to the people next door that died needlessly from COVID. And what do we get? “We are looking into it.”

The slow pace of immigration causes immigration problems.

The slow pace of justice fuels injustice.

These are problems we can solve if we chose to. Right now, we are not choosing to.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim