Monday, June 27, 2011

Tell me again why I should share?

The next time I hear a politician talk about "shared sacrifice", the likely sacrifice will be my flatscreen when the remote flies through it.  The elected class loves to talk about everyone pitching to clean up the mess made, in total, by the elected class.  Medicare and Social Security are not on the verge of implosion because of me.  I did not offer up hundreds of billions of dollars to bankers who made bad decisions, nor did I take your money and use it to thank campaign contributors.  Further, I did not enact a prescription drug benefit during dual wars and I have not used your money to subsidize any number of businesses.  No, folks; the sacrifice needs to come from Washington.  It's called leadership.  Look into it. 

Establishment DC has collaborated on making such a colossal cluster of the nation's finances that it hopes you are so dizzied by the numbers that you will not notice neither side has a claim to the high ground.  For six years, Republicans had both chambers in Congress AND the White House, and spending went up.  Then Democrats had both chambers plus the White House for two years, and spendint went up even further.  We have the party of big government and the party of bigger government; the only difference is the things that each likes to spend your money on, whether you actually have the money or not. 

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan dared to, out loud, notice the elephant in the living room when he put forth a budget proposal that would overhaul Medicare.  The Democrat response?  Cheesy, not to mention dishonest, ads about grandma being tossed over a cliff.  The donkey party could have put forth its own plan, so could the President.  Neither did.  How come?  If you have no plan, then just say you have no plan.  Otherwise, stop bitching about the other guy's proposal. 

The folks in Washington believe you are their personal ATMs and they believe you can be tapped on a whim. Which, actually, you can, which should also make you mad.  When the government talks about investing, subsidizing, or anything else, it is talking about your money.  When it whines about the "cost" of tax cuts, it is also talking about your money while simultaneously saying that it can spend those dollars more responsibly than you can.  How's that working for you? 

The problem is not one of revenue, it is one of spending.  Too much spending on too many things that have little, if anything, to do with the role of the federal government.  Oil does not need your money any more than Planned Parenthood does or ethanol producers do or NPR does.  I am perfectly willing to be bipartisan is saying no to all these leeches who see the federal treasury as their personal playground.  If they want your money, they should have the good grace to ask for it through fundraising campaigns, delivering quality service that you want to support, and other traditional means, not through donating money to members of Congress who them become industry and non-profit bagmen.  It is a disgusting scenario, one created solely by the elected class and one that can only be fixed by the elected class sacrificing.  

Monday, June 20, 2011

Howling at reality

Thomas Wolfe was right - going home simply does not work.  I tried it with the best of intentions, both personal and professional.  The need for a Master's Degree was coupled with two dying parents who could not live independently.  So, we moved.  And learned the hard way what happens when good intentions meet incomplete information and reality.  I'm not griping; if the option were to come up again, I would do the same thing.  But, it is doubtful the outcome would be any different. 

Sixteen months later, two dying parents became two parents who have passed on, a lifetime of things and memories collected in their house has either been stored (for the important keepsakes) or swept out (for the calendars from 1985), the Master's has been half-earned in an effort that was one-third fun and two-thirds frustrating, and a lot of people I used to consider friends are no longer people with whom any communication is necessary.  Again, not griping, just saying.  

The town of my youth is no longer; it has been replaced by something bigger, something less inviting, something more impersonal, populated by people who are of other places and/or heading to other places, with little use for natives.  I tried to stay, applying for numerous jobs that would not only keep me in school, but further tie me to the community that was such a formative part of my upbringing.  At least two dozen applications; not a single interview.  Not one.  Not even a phone call. 

It is not about qualifications; I am old enough to apply only for jobs that call for my skills set, in this case 20 years of communications and marketing experience.  Near the end of my time in town, I found out I was hardly the only one.  The attorney who helped with the closing on the folks' house, a native who graduated a year ahead of me, had the same issue and the man has a law degree.  He recounted tales of other locals similarly rebuffed.  I'm not sure if this made me feel better or worse.  Of course, I was glad to hear it was not just me; a lot of rejection and you start to take it personally.  On the other hand, that an institution would ignore people who grew up in its shadow and wanted to return was depressing.  It does not say much about an organization when it refuses to consider its own graduates for employment. 

The upside was the football season and the chance to see, in person, a once in a generation athlete and a magical season.  Saturdays will be different this fall; I won't be attending games this time.  I just can't write checks for tickets to an institution that wrote me off, so while I retain an allegiance born of a lifetime of cheering for one set of colors, there will be a new team to pull for, one emblematic of a new set of colors, the one that will adorn the Master's to be completed.  And, it will be completed.  The folks would have insisted and, in some way, they still do.  It will just be a little different.  The remaining ties are gradually being cut - a storage unit to be emptied out in the next few days, a bank account to be closed down, license plates to be changed, and old hopes to be retired.  It's not the way I had wanted it to be but, apparently, it's the only way it could have been. 

Do they want to win?

The economy is a shambles, we remain mired in two wars with POTUS getting us into a third, health care costs continue spiraling, and the education system is a disgrace.  And Republicans?  They are racing to see who can claim the high ground on an issue that, for most Americans, ranks 316th on the kitchen table priority list.  The country is divided about abortion and no one sees it as the pressing priority of the day, week, month, or year.  Perhaps someone can remind Republicans that the idea is to nominate a candidate who can defeat Obama, not to see which candidate can out-demagogue the others by signing a meaningless pledge disguised as litmus test. 

Like most Americans who understand that the sun rises in the East, I get that Republicans are typically pro-life while Democrats are typically pro-choice.  Therefore, what is the point of the Susan B. Anthony's List pledge beyond yet another opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate why Libertarians and a good many other independents -- whose votes will be crucial in 2012 - are made uneasy, if not queasy, by the self-righteous wing of the GOP, the section that preaches about limited government unless that same government can limit things it dislikes. 

Whatever your position on abortion, there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to change it and that is irrespective of which camp you are in.  That is why even the US Supreme Court cringes when yet another abortion case comes before it.  It is why the Roe decision has gone virtually unchanged it became law.  And, this national ambivalence is also why anytime a pregnant woman is murdered, the state only files a single charge of homicide.  

We waste time debating a phantom "right" to abortion while scores of children who are already here languish in the foster care system, while Americans go abroad to adopt because doing so domestically is a bureaucratic nightmare, and while government rewards serial pregnancy through a system that only perpetuates poverty.   The real shame is that poll after poll already shows the United States to be a center-right country (hint: this means the majority is already receptive to conservatism, at least the fiscal kind), but instead of speaking to Americans about the issues that impact their lives, many in this class of candidates are more interested in being Moralist-in-Chief than Commander-in-Chief. 

The incumbent president is a committed left-wing ideologue who is only unbeatable in the minds of his steno pool, or as some call them, the media.  Whatever "inherited" problems existed have only grown worse under Obama's watch, yet the Republican field wants to see which candidate can more closely align him/herself with the Almighty than with the average American voter.  I hate to break it to the field, but there are a lot conservatives who don't see the so-called social issues as the government's business, whose dinner conversations have far more to do with dollars and opportunity than pregnancy and gay marriage; and whose votes are more likely to be lost than won by piety.  To paraphrase Newt Gingrich, social engineering is no prettier when it comes from the right than from the left, and the field might do well to recall that James Carville's 1992 mantra is applicable in EVERY presidential election - it is always the economy.