SamSaid!

Last week, the Prez signed the biggest check ever written by any human being at any time anywhere in the entire  history of mankind  —   $787,000,000,000. The Congressional debate  was over a jobs bill vs a spending bill. The magnitude alone provides enough room to call it anything. Rest assured, Prez Obama will declare it a success no matter how it turns out and he will cherry-pick the results to make his case. There’s gotta be some new jobs in there somewhere.

It is accurate to describe the Stimulus as the Mother of all Earmarks  –  something for all of his followers and contributors. Not surprising. But friendly media coverage will push such observations well beyond the back burner. We all have to hope that the stimulus and other factors will revive our moribund economy.  Then we have to hope that our “leaders” have the gumption to tackle Medicare and Social Security since those programs will not fund themselves.  It would be nice to view the dawn with optimism, but staking our future on funny money is a bit chancy.  Fancy rhetoric will only take us so far.

Living in a new age takes some readjustment,  like labeling $20 million as chump change
and resolving debt by borrowing more. Amazing what can be done by spending other people’s money  –  lots and lots of it.

Our country is in a financial mess with an uncertain future. We are daily bombarded with an assortment of financial/monetary terms that seem to defy understanding  –  deficits, foreclosures, forfeitures, bankruptcies, investment banks, interest rates, unemployment, borrowing, debt, capital assets, the economy, bailouts, stimulus, deficit spending, etc., etc., etc. The message seem to be that no one knows with certainty what is going on  –  far too complicated to explain to the non-accounting types. Too complicated?  ………. or is it?

Simple  –  our Washington wizards annually PLAN to spend more money than is expected. That’s right, they PLAN to run the government that way.  By spending more money than they have. It is insulting to taxpayers to call such financing a PLAN.  Don’t try that trick in your own household.

Deficit spending infers that the debt will eventually be re-paid. Over what period of time?  A thousand years? Don’t hold your breath when our national debt is in the TRILLIONS (1,000,000,000,000.00). When Chris Dodd connives to get a sweetheart $80,000mortgage, he must wonder about Congress fussing about chump change.

Obama rightly regards himself as a good word merchant. But it is hard to champion huge expenditures of money we don’t have and convince Americans that it is a good deal. Think of it another way  –  the day of the free lunch has arrived!!