I know it’s been a while since a new edition of this appeared, and I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Been lots going on since the weather has attempted to warm up, and I’ve been staying pretty busy.
On top of that, there’s just been so much going on the world that I’ve hardly known where to begin. The description for this blog reads “The View from the Bottom is just one working guy's opinions on what's bugging him at the time.” There’s a lot that’s bugging me of late, and it’s unbelievable how much nonsense is happening in Washington and in just everyday life.
If you talk about Washington, you can’t possibly look at what’s going on there without a mixture of amazement and horror, intertwined with laughter and disgust.
Take for instance, the ongoing budget battle. The first thing the American public needs to realize is that our wonderful Representatives and Senators are not wrestling with next year’s budget…they are still trying to sort out this year’s budget. I heard someone say the other day “well, this is only April, so that’s not so bad”. Yes, it is so bad. The fiscal year starts in October. They are seven months late with this budget, and guess what? They haven’t even started on the next one. What gets me is when the public starts wanting to rein in on government spending, the first thing they talk about is cutting Medicare and Social Security. Why is that do you think? Is it because that’s what’s causing the deficit? No…that’s the government’s way of threatening the public over meddling in their pork barrels. “If you make us stop spending from our slush funds, we’ll take away your medicine and retirement.” There are billions and billions of dollars of wasted money in government these days, and with very few exceptions, not a single one of our elected representatives is willing to even admit that it’s there, much less do something about it.
If you’ve read previous editions of this blog you’ve seen me mention “Wastebook 2010” which is a compilation of 100 programs and various other items that Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma put together. The things that he found and put in this report should be “no-brainers” when it comes to cutting costs. In really good years, some of these things could be considered luxury items that could be afforded. When we are struggling for survival, why on earth did we spend nearly a half million dollars of taxpayer money to study the number and social setting of male prostitutes in Viet Nam? Why did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spend $20,000 trying to identify a 2500 year old mummy? I doubt seriously he had anything to do with the things that BATFE is charged with doing.
Poopoo you say. That’s nothing compared to the trillions of dollars of debt we are facing. Well, how do you think it mounted up into trillions? It was by wasting a few million here, a billion there. The National Science Foundation spend $200,000 to study why political candidates make vague statements! Well DUH!!! They are practicing so when they get in office they can get money to spend on nonsense like this! (That will be $200,000, please). Lets put that in perspective. If your household income is $4000 a month and you spend $20 on something frivolous it’s not a big deal. But if you do that 200 times, guess what? You’re broke. It’s not that you can’t afford your house payment, it’s because you bought candy and rented movies and went bowling and all the fun stuff instead of paying your house payment first. That is exactly what our government has done. They’ve spent the house payment instead of paying it first, and now we’re in trouble.
Ok, lets look at the next bit of nonsense…gas prices. Now for all of you reading this outside the United States, I know what you’re saying already. “our prices are twice what yours are” and all that. Yes, yes, I know. Your governments have imposed a ridiculous amount of taxes on gasoline, so if you strip that off, you’re paying the same per gallon we are. Your government screwed you with that and you let them. We on the other hand, have allowed our government to screw us in a different way. You see, a car that gets 40 mpg in England will only get 15 or 20 mpg in the U.S. because of all the emission controls and all that. So yes, we pay less per gallon, and our cars get crappy gas mileage by mandate from the government. Obama got on TV the other day and said that no one who drives a big SUV or truck had any right to gripe about gas mileage and that $4 or $5 a gallon gas was just going to be something we had to get used to. While that may be true in some cases, there are a great number of people in this country that make their living out the back of a truck or SUV. I’m sure that crack sat well with “Joe the Plumber” who has to haul a tremendous amount of equipment and supplies around with him to do his job. Same with all the carpenters, truck drivers, heat and air guys, fence builders, roofers, tow truck operators, farmers, ranchers, and anyone else that depends on a vehicle or gasoline (or diesel) powered machine to earn the money to pay the taxes Obama and his cronies so love to spend. Just trade it in for a fuel efficient car…right. How many of us can afford to do that? If you have a car or truck that’s paid for, are you willing to stick your neck out to buy a new car with the economy in the shape its in right now?
What our President does not realize is that extremely high fuel prices will wreck this nation’s economy this time. It nearly did in 2008, and was a major contributing factor to the collapse we experienced. Food prices will sky rocket (they already are) because farmers will have to get more for the crops just to cover the fuel prices for the equipment they use. When you run thousands of acres of wheat, you can’t run down to the home improvement store and by a little garden tractor to work the farm with. You gotta use something that will get the job done. Then you gotta use fuel to get it to market, and to the processor, and to the store. Unless you are into home canning your own food, that can of corn you had with dinner last night did not grow in your back yard. Neither did anything else you ate. I can tell you this though. If we continue to allow Congress and the leaders of this nation to run amok, you’ll be growing your own food. You won’t have any choice if you intend to have anything to eat. If fuel prices crawl up over $5 a gallon, you’ll see an economic depression in this country that will make 1929 look like a picnic.
There are many people and nations in this world that would cheer when that happens. Believe it or not, we have enemies that are committed to our destruction, no matter what it does to them. They can’t defeat us militarily, but they can destroy our economy, and we will sit back and let them because “its just business”. Remember that when you’re digging through trash cans and trapping pigeons and blackbirds just to feed your kids. It was just business.
