Gas Prices Crippling Small, Rural American Communities

For anyone of the middle class, the economic stimulus checks did nothing to help combat the housing crisis, credit crunch or the rising cost of fuel. This "recession" that we're not in, a "recession of choice" as some economists are calling it, is being felt hard among the middle class, especially in small rural areas. Economic aid was too little and too late, questions need to be answered as to why we are continually being let down by the political heads of this country; it doesn't seem we will ever get these answers we so rightfully deserve.

Bailey, Colorado, is your typical "American Dream" community. A small rural town tucked away in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Bailey is like so many other small communities in the region with good schools, community oriented people, a low crime rate, a safe place for children, a place where everyone knows everyone. At least that's how it used to be, before President Bush, before the "War Against Terror", and before fuel prices started climbing daily. Now, it's a shell of what it once was. Bailey, Colorado is now a place where you can drive down any street and find that every third house is either for sale or a foreclosure, a county with poor road maintenance and where the few small businesses that were once here are rapidly going out of business.

In a town where, like surrounding towns, the economic basis is made of up of small commercial and residential contractors and excavators, truck drivers, and small business owners, the fuel prices are felt like nothing else. A town where tourism catering to the spring and summer months of traffic traveling along the small State Highway 285 corridor, on their way to enjoy the wonderful fishing along the Platte River, and camping in and around the majestic National Forests, the fuel prices are causing such a steep decrease in tourism that it's crippling the small businesses in the area. People who have lived in Bailey for years, are now attempting to sell their homes so that they may move closer to Denver, rather than spend money to commute back and forth.

Mixed in with the "Moving Sale", "House for Sale by Owner" and "Notice of Foreclosure" signs there are campaign signs for both Clinton and Obama littering yards. As if some small glimmer of hope offered by these two Presidential hopefuls will save us from this dying economy. Let's hope that someone will be able to turn back the hands of time, and take the small town of Bailey, Colorado, and other towns like it, back to a better place. We want to work, we want to live in our homes, we want to know our neighbors, we want to spend our hard earned money in the community that we made it in, we want to know that our schools and our children are safe. That is the "American Dream", and we want it back.