Friday, November 05, 2010

political-pictures-michele-bachmann-crazy1_43760A couple of days after the election and the loonies are coming out of the woodwork. The latest insanity is the story about President Obama’s trip to Asia that is supposedly costing 200 million dollars a day. The bad part of all this is that loonies like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are using this to bash Obama which doesn’t surprise me. And of course Rep. Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota can’t think of anything else to talk about to Anderson Cooper of CNN but this story.

One look at this and anyone with some intelligence will see the $200 million figure doesn’t make sense when it it costs $190 million a day for the war in Afghanistan. Why would the Navy divert 34 warships to protect the president? We do have people to protect the president and they do trips like this all the time.

But what is most upsetting is that our Congress people, the ones that will fix our economy in the next two years, are jumping on this like stink on shit. I shiver to think that Bachmann will get on some committee directing funds here and there and she doesn’t have the brains to check out this Asia trip story before she opens her mouth?

This is scary folks.

Monday, November 01, 2010

bfw_397Tomorrow is election day and it looks like it’s going to be interesting. We might end up changing the change. It’s not paradise with the new guy we brought in in 2008, so let’s bring in the good ole’ boys!

First thing, I predict that even with a big change in Congress things won’t change anytime soon. Since the Republicans were such gracious players these past two years, I expect to Democrats to be just as nasty. A little tit for tat. Even if enough “Tea Party” people get elected, there is still enough entrenched BS in Congress that will stymie any grand ideas the tea partiers might have.

The big hot button in the election has been taxes. We’re taxed too much and we’re spending too much. So pretty much every politician is spouting the “cut taxes” drivel. And Americans want to hear that because nobody likes paying taxes. Which brings me to the 60 Minutes piece last night with Dave Stockton, Ronald Reagan’s budget director. He made the radical statement that cutting taxes won’t solve the problems we are facing. In fact he is proposing that ALL the Bush taxes cut expire meaning that we all pay more in taxes. Perish the thought!

If you rationally think about it for a moment, he might have something there. How can we run a government on less revenue and expect the government to do what we want it to do, like national defense, social security, Medicare, fight terrorists, etc? The old saw is brought out all the time about putting more money in the pockets of consumers that helps prime the engines of growth. Well, since many more people since the great depression are out of work, they can’t spend because they don’t have anything. So how is that helping to prime the pumps?

He did mention something that I’ve suspected for a long time and that is that the top 5% of Americans in income hold over 40 trillion dollars in wealth. The other 95% has somewhat less… a lot less. Just imagine if we were to tax them just 1% more how much that could help our situation. I know that smack of socialism but continuing like we are now is not working.

Talking about raising taxes is deadly to politicians, but maybe the new GOP and Tea Partiers will have the courage to do the unthinkable. I doubt it.