Right. But it's not hard to grow corn in the central valley. Lot's of it's grown there, along with many other crops. And Fresno is just one city that has a decent amount of airline service. A few carriers serv it. Bakersfield is also a city that has airline service. And, it's only a two and a half hour drive between the two. Thats from one to the other, not from the middle of the two. Neither of those two cities accept EAS money. I know this because I drove from Southern California (VNY) to Modesto(MOD) in 5 hours. People have accepted the fact that they live in California's Central Valley, and getting airline service isn't going to be easy. It's going to be difficult, but not impossible.
Now we look at Merced, about 45 minutes north of Fresno. They get EAS money. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Who paid off the government on this one? You mean to tell me you can't make a 45 miute drive to the freakin airport? Kansas isn't that bik. It's approximatly 400 miles across at it's widest point. At an average speed of 70mph, thats only 5 hours to get from one side to the other. But most people won't drive clear from one side to the other to get to the airport. Most will drive a mzximum of 2, maybe three.
The simple reality is that people have become lazy, and expect to much for to little in return. What happened in the days of not everyone can travel by air. This is all from the attitude of entitlement. You are not entitled to travel by air on the back of everyone else. What you are entitled to is to get your but in the car, and drive to the airport on roads funded by the government. Shall the government start paying for some of my fuel to get back and forth to work, because I decided to live out in the sticks, 2 hours from the nearest city? How is that any different that what EAS is?
Oh we're talking Valley, alright!
70 MPH as an "average" annual speed is a little auspicious. I'll bet you the average speed is much lower because of the seasonal fog and traffic congestion.
I think it all boils down to the country we want to live in. We can pick all of the low-hanging fruit like EAS and be conditioned to "overlook" the cable-news politicos that qualify for $150K-plus pensions
for life that serve as little as two years, or we can categorically dismantle our nation.
America costs money. If everyone lived in the city, we would have no one out in the sticks growing food or, like Wisconsin, playing the role of "population engine". We need to figure out where the baseline acceptable level of lifestyle we want to live is. Is it a Ayn Rand-ian survival of the fittest, which is in full play in parts of East Africa, or is a balance like Canada and parts of Western Europe. Before you say "Europe? Look what's going on in Greece!" I'll pre-answer, "America? Look how well Canada is doing through the "global" crisis, which isn't necessarily global - just that it makes us feel better when we think it is".
If we dismantle our infrastructure, divest out of rail, cut off the small towns, privatize everything except the military (for the most part, but I'm not sure where the billions to Blackwater went), that America isn't going to be America. It's going to be some random Central America regime.
Me? I want the America that my parents enjoyed. Prosperity. Hope. Passion. Innovation. Being the best of the best and kicking ass. ANYONE can succeed if they want it bad enough, not only just the well-coifed "born into it" wealthy like Donald Trump. The America where positive, constructive ideals prevailed, not just some "OMG! This side BLASTS that side" newsiness quips on a "readers comments" section of an online newspaper where we did was was best for our nation, rather than sign bull-crap "let's repeal the Scopes Monkey Trial" and agree that "Brown vs. Board of Education" was Communist Bias derp derp DEERRRRRRP drivel.
Ideologues are pressing for America to become a lawless, lassaiz-faire Somalia. Me? I just want to opportunity that my parents had and the bastards in DC and the boneheads on cable news are doing nothing but selling advertising space at the expense of America. The REAL America, not some unproven textbook version of what some Eastern-Bloc foreigner thinks it should be.
I still remember when I got sick, I went to the doctor because my parents were both in a union with good health care. It wasn't a matter if there was enough money saved in the HSA, or if the HRA covered the doctor or even if he was part of our HMO. I went to the doctor to get well. I had a nasty-assed car accident when I was a child and I was taken care of between our doctors and the insurance company and doctors. Holy crap man, if I get sick today, even making nearly in the mid $100's/year, it's a potentially bankrupt-able visit.
Oh hell, now I'm on a roll. Or the Medicare insurance than I put money into when I was a CFI and ineligible for, is targeted to be cut by some DC windbag that wants to cut my mother's health coverage so he can protect his $170K/year pension that he's eligible for, for life, after as little as two years of elected "volunteer" service in Congress?
We've being duped. Hopefully we will wake up before we do something really stupid and devolve into "Mogadishu with really REALLY good hamburgers"
