I often wonder how political “leaders” can look at a problem and see such divergent paths to remedy the situation. In my adult life, this period is the worst that I have encountered. I don’t care that pundits say that the “recession is over” because it doesn’t feel that way to me or my wallet. Author Arthur Laffer 
The dictionary defines Chutzpah as:
Synonyms: audaciousness, audacity, brashness, brass, brassiness, brazenness, cheek, cheekiness, effrontery, gall, nerve, nerviness, pertness, presumption, presumptuousness, sauce, sauciness, temerity
“Chutzpah,that quality which enables a man who has murdered his mother and father to throw himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.”
– Oscar Levant
“Top Democrats and Republicans in Congress prepared new proposals to avert a government debt default and a potential global financial crisis.”
That’s the lead paragraph from a story in today’s paper. What should scare you is when Democrats and Republicans agree on something the public generally gets screwed. I believe that both sides realized that they set up this “battle” and now that the public is watching they are not sure how to get out from all of the rhetoric that they have been spreading. What both sides agree on is that they both want desperately to get re-elected and regain power. Even a little power is better than none and they are more than willing to squander our money, our children’s money, and our grandchildrens’ money to maintain their power. Here are few facts as I see them:
We were blessed on Valentine’s Day with the release of the Obama Administration’s 2012 budget proposal. The cover of the document perhaps should have been red, but give him credit Obama is coming out swinging in defense of his vision for our economic future (sound of toilet flushing in the distance). It is an interesting tactic to produce this and immediately have his lackeys and media dogs go on the attack because the Republicans have not given their proposal for the 2012 budget. Perhaps that is because they are working to cut from the current budget before taking on the next one. The 2011 bloated Democrat budget is not a done deal.
We’ve all sat through long, boring speeches by nameless people who are on their way out of office, high school, the working class, etc. A timeless tradition is to bequeath something to those who will follow in their footsteps. These “gifts” are sometimes funny and often touching and depending on the closeness of those assembled accompanied by a good dose of tears followed by hugging.
President Clinton’s White House staff has the distinction of perhaps the pettiest actions of an outgoing office holder. It was widely reported that his staff stole everything that wasn’t nailed down including all of the “W” from the computer keyboards. His successor, in case you didn’t know, used his middle initial to differentiate himself from his famous father. You can still see many cars with their “W” stickers.
This posting is a quiz based on recent news stories and will test your ability to discern the correct answers to the questions. Good Luck!
Are you smarter than politicians?
Question 1: Senator John McCain and Senator Tom Coburn recently released a report, Summertime Blues, detailing some of the worst cases of wasted tax dollars. We have almost become immune to these types pet projects that scream WASTE! I don’t know where Sen. Coburn stands on the issue of earmark, but Senator McCain has been steadfast in his fight against them and has refused to participate and we should celebrate his efforts. One of the items on the list was a mere $712,883.00 to build a machine that tells jokes. Here is the test. Which of the following is the machine?
News briefs are a collection of interesting news stories and this volume is chock full of stories from an upside down political world…
Brief 1: The Keystone State (Pennsylvania) has recently announced that they are making changes to their appliance rebate program. Pennsylvania budget deficit projects are not good so you would expect that a rebate program might be on the chopping block. Not in Pennsylvania’s upside down world. It was announced that the rebates are actually INCREASING, some by more than 100%. In all fairness this is “stimulus” money (federal tax dollars versus state tax dollars).
Emboldened by the folks who released the data and e-mails creating the Climategate scandal (except for the United States) someone has accessed White House computers and has found President Barack Obama’s Christmas List. Rumor is that Obama is still a Christian even thought he had to be guilted into putting up the White House nativity 
scene. The list was partially released to The Garlic web site who leaked only one of the items on his list.
Based on recent Rasmussen presidential polls, most Americans are thinking he is more naughy than nice so the jury is still out on whether he will get this gift.
Personal Finances: My wife and I have amassed some decent credit card debt by spending more money than we had available, or deficit spending. Since we are blessed with a good credit rating, the banks are always willing to raise our credit limit. They are just so nice about that. Rather than take advantage of those nice folks’ offer, we are in the process of reducing that debt through a number of means. We are going to have to spend less, sell some investments, and restructure some debt, but should have it eliminated within the next three months. Although it will be hard, but we feel that there is a need to eliminate this debt.
Once again, I could not make stuff up this good. This series is all about Joe Biden, arguably the smartest vice president in United States history according the the main stream media.
Joe on the economy:
December 2008: Joe Biden gave a speech after the election and spoke about the economy. Now faced with actually doing something rather than just campaigning he made this statement:
