Out walking one night I came upon an alley, and when I looked down it I saw a bunch of thugs beating the hell out of my Uncle Sam. The thugs saw me and came toward me. I was way too much in shock and awe to run. One of the thugs reached into his pocket and handled me $600 and told me to get lost. I took the money and ran.
That’s what the Bush administration and congress did on Thursday to the people of the United States. The president thinks that borrowing an estimated 150 billion dollars and throwing it at the people will solve the economic problems of this country. How?
Well we’ll find out on January 28th with his last State of the Union address. Now like presidential candidate John McCain I can tell you I don’t understand economics, but I think I have some common sense.
Some of the details of the speech seem to involve households receiving tax rebates of between $300- $1,200 and $300 for each child that they have. Another part of the package involves tax cuts for businesses, giving firms incentives to invest in new facilities, development, upgrades, employment,…. Small companies will see lenient laws on expense write offs, and companies in financial difficulties will get rebates for taxes already paid.
If the expectation is that the average citizen will go out and buy more “toys” manufactured in China, who probably will finance the borrowed $150 billion, I truly hope they are wrong. The best thing anyone could do with this “one-time rebate” is pay off bills or sock it away. If we are in so much trouble as a nation, then throwing more borrowed money at it won’t work.
If we all go out and spend this “one-time” rebate on more consumer goods, who benefits? It’s not the person buying this stuff – it’s the corporations and stock holders! Unless you plan on going into a Wal-Mart or Target and buying products manufactured in the USA --- well, first off good luck finding something made in the United States.
That’s the point! That rebate money won’t even go back into your community! If there’s unemployment, housing, and infra-structure problems going on, the money should be put into programs to solve these issues, so people will have financial security to purchase more toys.
No wait – that’s a Franklin Roosevelt concept. This is an administration and congress that prefers Herbert Hoover. They prefer to sell off everything like a yard sale.
Maybe looking at it from a religious perspective would be better because our government loves that; you can give a person a fish to eat or teach him to fish.
Jake Drew
For All the News Fit to Cartoon - Come sign up at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
Showing posts with label State of the Union address. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State of the Union address. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
“Human Military Hybrids” January 2007
Every year in the State of the Union address the president tosses out something that makes me perk up. Last year there was “switch grass” and “human animal hybrids”. Through the course of 2006 switch grass came up, but I still keep looking for a human animal hybrid! That seems a lot more interesting than some weedy grass.
What hit me in this year’s speech was “Civilian Reserve Corps”. Huh? That’s what President Bush said.
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.”
All I found about this idea was something attributed to Wesley Clark from October 2003. He talked of Americans serving their country when emergencies occur. Civilian Reserve registration would allow Americans to contribute their special abilities to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy. Nah – that’s not it.
No way could the Bush Administration be talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was part of the New Deal to help relieve poverty during the Great Depression. This is the administration that despises and tries to remove anything related to Roosevelt, but cuddles and pampers the Ronald Reagan legacy.
Just for fun I looked up the Nazi stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung. Basically the Brownshirts were a bunch of thugs that Adolf Hitler would use in the 1920s to squelch out dissidents at Nazi speeches or gatherings. Later on when Hitler took power in Germany they were good at busting up Jewish businesses and homes. Maybe? Nah.
Let’s meander on down the trail of the Military Industrial Complex. Bush was talking about Americans without uniforms to define our greatest struggle. It sounds like privatizing the military to me. It eliminates the financial burden of the military, and not so long ago we had hired guns watchin’ over the cattle on the plains.
It’s already here, so it’s not a stretch to get to the Civilian Reserve Corps. In the Iraqi and Afghanistan War we have our military operating side by side with civilians or “private contractors”. Can you imagine what it’s like to work next to somebody making $100,000 a year while you risk your life for your country for $20-24,000 a year? That can’t help morale!
Financially it makes sense to take misguided youths out of their bedrooms and away from their Mp3 to let them act out all their video gaming in a foreign land. The best part is now a company doesn’t have to pay exorbitant salaries, and these employees aren’t held to any of the rules of warfare. Heck! If this works out, we can do away with police departments too! That’s taxing on our cities and country too. Oh, oh, can you say – Sturmabteilung?
Write your congress people because this is one really bad idea.
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
What hit me in this year’s speech was “Civilian Reserve Corps”. Huh? That’s what President Bush said.
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.”
All I found about this idea was something attributed to Wesley Clark from October 2003. He talked of Americans serving their country when emergencies occur. Civilian Reserve registration would allow Americans to contribute their special abilities to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy. Nah – that’s not it.
No way could the Bush Administration be talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was part of the New Deal to help relieve poverty during the Great Depression. This is the administration that despises and tries to remove anything related to Roosevelt, but cuddles and pampers the Ronald Reagan legacy.
Just for fun I looked up the Nazi stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung. Basically the Brownshirts were a bunch of thugs that Adolf Hitler would use in the 1920s to squelch out dissidents at Nazi speeches or gatherings. Later on when Hitler took power in Germany they were good at busting up Jewish businesses and homes. Maybe? Nah.
Let’s meander on down the trail of the Military Industrial Complex. Bush was talking about Americans without uniforms to define our greatest struggle. It sounds like privatizing the military to me. It eliminates the financial burden of the military, and not so long ago we had hired guns watchin’ over the cattle on the plains.
It’s already here, so it’s not a stretch to get to the Civilian Reserve Corps. In the Iraqi and Afghanistan War we have our military operating side by side with civilians or “private contractors”. Can you imagine what it’s like to work next to somebody making $100,000 a year while you risk your life for your country for $20-24,000 a year? That can’t help morale!
Financially it makes sense to take misguided youths out of their bedrooms and away from their Mp3 to let them act out all their video gaming in a foreign land. The best part is now a company doesn’t have to pay exorbitant salaries, and these employees aren’t held to any of the rules of warfare. Heck! If this works out, we can do away with police departments too! That’s taxing on our cities and country too. Oh, oh, can you say – Sturmabteilung?
Write your congress people because this is one really bad idea.
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
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