My Long Coming Rant on our Current Government Situation

To say that I am frustrated with government right now would be a gross understatement. Whether it is the idiocy of the Jefferson County Commission, whether it is the inability of that Alabama Department of Corrections to hold prisoners, or whether it is the Congressional Leadership's inability to understand the realities of economics and this world, I am blown away.

We are continually told by the Obama government right now that we are in the worst financial shape this country has seen in a century. Since the economic stimulus bill that spent $787 BILLION we have lost 1.6 million jobs around America while the Obama White House crows that the money has helped save or created 150,000 jobs. I know that this is insensitive to write, but I would rather have my $787 billion back and let go of the 150,000 jobs. (787,000,000,000 divided by 150,000 = $5,246,666.66 PER JOB.)

For years I have had my liberal friends tell me how ridiculous it is to believe in the theory of trickle down economics. They have talked about the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration lining the pockets of Big Business on the backs of the poor. My question today is, "Why are you not screaming about us handing out $787,000,000,000 to businesses with almost no results?" The answer is simple: Barack Obama is writing the checks. If the name Bush, or Reagan were on the bottoms of these checks we would be inundated with article after article and story after story about the Auto Bailout being about nothing other than trying to make sure that we consumed plenty of oil so that Bush's oil friends could get rich.... where are these stories? Why is no one asking why this money has had little or no effect on the economy?

Also, have you read that Congress is this week working on a bill that will tax health care incentives? Yes, the money will go to continue our ramp up toward socialized medicine. Nomatter whether you are for or against this, lets take a moment to think this out.... We are in the midst of the worst economic downturn in history (a line from Obama himself). We are spending $787,000,000,000 so that we can save jobs, take some burden off struggling businesses and get the economy on its feed. And in the middle of this we are going to put ANOTHER tax on these businesses and add ANOTHER cost to each employee that they have? How does this make sense? How does it make sense to make each employee more expensive? Can anyone else guess where this is headed? More layoffs? So you might ask, why would Congress to this? The answer is easy: THEY DO NOT CARE. They really don't. They are so focused in on making sure that they can pass through their agenda that they are willing to cripple the economy of the country to get there. If the majority of Americans wanted a socialized health care system and if we can find a way to pay for it, then lets do it.

But if we can't pay the bills already and we are in a state of economic panic, how does it make sense to be expanding the financial obligations of the government?

I hate to point to Jefferson Co., Alabama as an example of ANYTHING, but they are going through the same thing that the Federal Government is. They have overextended themselves with promises and services and now that revenue has decreased they are having to find a way to simply survive. They are not trying to expand their services. Quite the opposite. They are looking at every single department that they are running and they are cutting everything that is "non-essential". Why is the federal government not doing the same thing? Why are we not seeing Social Security offices being consolidated to save administrative costs? Why are we not seeing programs that, while worthy, are luxury things not being cut?

DEA, FBI, AFT- cut it in half. Drug enforcement and law enforcement is important, but at times like these you have to get rid of the fat and run on what is only completely necessary.

Post Office - Each town in America no longer needs a stand alone Post Office. Lets consolidate some of them, make the routes more efficient, and don't deliver the mail on Saturday.

National Parks - cut the funding. Protect the land, get rid of the crap.

NO MORE PORK - No more funding for local projects. No subsidies for the World Ketchup Museum. No more town parks or federal grant money for local non-essential building projects.

Each level of administration should cut staffing. Each Senator and Representative can drop 1 or 2 aides. Each Cabinet position can cut staffing by 10%. I know these seem like trivial cuts, but when you multiply this over the enormity of the federal government it adds up.

Why is this not being done? Because Congress can't run the risk of you realizing that you don't really need all these things. If we were to do well without all of those things we might actually demand smaller government.

Want to get upset about your personal tax rate? Go to your boss and have them quit withholding things from your check. You save it all in an account and April 15th of next year write one check for your taxes. All of a sudden it is going to hurt to realize that you made $50,000 and Congress took $18,000 of it. You don't care right now because it doesn't hurt. You don't miss it because you never had it. If tax day was about you having to write the whole thing you would have a stroke and their would be rebellion in the streets.

Please do not read this as a total and complete assault on Barack Obama or the Democratic party alone. I don't believe for a minute that the Republican's or John McCain would have done much of anything different. They would have used the same playbook and gotten the same results. I am not against the government helping people, but we can only do those things when we have the money to do it. This idea that we will just keep spending and hope for the best is idiocy. Anyone who has ever balanced their checkbook knows that at some point you have to make some decisions about what is the most important. Sometimes that means cutting things out of your budget that were worthwhile, and even important. But you have to first keep the lights on and keep the house paid for. When things get better we will start adding in the other stuff again .