national budget – Shortwoman.com

Time’s Wasting

Congress is officially out for the year. It’s the earliest departure in over 50 years, and the least productive Congress since World War 2. But there’s no point in beating your head against a wall to do nothing. Besides, by adjourning early, Harry Reid gave Scott Brown no excuse to miss his debate with Elizabeth Warren!

However, I must point out that Congress left a number of things undone before leaving town. Sure, maybe they’ll have better luck in the new Congress come January but I doubt it. Here’s just a few things:

They refused to vote on a bipartisan compromise farm bill that would have reformed agricultural subsidies and “food stamps.” Now we revert back to a bill from 1949.
They didn’t do anything about the massive looming cuts in public health and science.
They may yet find a way to weasel off the “fiscal cliff” by delaying it. And of course it’s easy to delay it again. And again….
They saved trade with Russia for later.
They haven’t passed a long overdue transportation bill.
They didn’t pass a budget, despite the fact that the new fiscal year starts a week from Monday
They have yet to do the will of the people and completely drive a stake through the heart of SOPA.
They have not extended the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act — one of the good pieces of legislation to come through on GW’s watch.
And as they say on the infomercial, many many more.

Remember Come November. Register to vote NOW.

In Closing: radical Islamic cleric almost foils FBI terrorist sting; way to report “news,” CNN; didn’t Jesus say something removing the plank from your own eye first?; hope she got the job; 30 years of emoticons; now he says it; ha, if they had a clue I would still be driving their cars; and desert blooms.

A story

The President keeps talking about making the hard budget decisions that families make around their kitchen tables. Let’s turn that table.

Once upon a time — ok, long about 2001 — there was a family that was finally coming up for air. Once they paid off their bills each month, there was actually money left over. Of course, they were still making the minimum payment on all their credit cards, and they still had mortgages and car payments and all the little expenses of suburbia. And like most Americans, they didn’t have nearly enough money saved for retirement. Nevertheless, this little budget surplus was a big deal!

They thought for several months about what to do with this extra money: Pay down the credit cards? Put it in the retirement account? Buy a boat? In the end, they decided to cut back on their hours at work so they could use the extra time to pursue a dream: an online business selling homemade wicker baskets. (A real basket case!)

Years passed.

The economy went sour. It turned out that not only did they really not have enough patience to spend all their free time making wicker baskets, but few people wanted one for the price. After all, cheap, Asian made wicker baskets are available lots of places. They had a couple babies. A raise they were expecting didn’t pan out. They ended up underwater on their house — thankfully not New Orleans style. One of the cars needed a new transmission, and it wasn’t under warranty. The water heater at the house had to be replaced.

And not surprisingly, their debts went up. Finally, those debts got to the point where they got alarmed and decided something had to be done.

So they got a free consultation with a financial adviser down at the bank. “Free” was a price they could afford!

The adviser confirmed that their situation was completely unsustainable, because at some point they would reach the limit on their credit cards. Visa and Master Card were unlikely to extend them more credit at this point, and there was no equity in the house for a loan. However, bankruptcy was simply not an option. So, the adviser asked, what have you thought about doing to get back on track again?

“Well,” answered the woman of the house, “We’re thinking of getting out of the house and renting a cheap apartment. And we might get rid of the cars. Cable TV has gotta go, and even though the kids love Sesame Street, we’re going to have to stop giving to PBS.”

“Let them get commercial sponsors like everyone else!” the man of the house interrupted.

“Actually we’re going to have to stop all donations, even giving clothing to Goodwill. After all you never know when something’s going to be handy. No more discretionary shopping, of course” the woman of the house continued.

“Oh, and one more thing,” the man of the house announced, ” she’s gonna stop taking birth control pills. That’s another $20 copay every month!”

“Um, ok,” said the adviser, and he looked down at the notes he had been scribbling while they talked. “Let’s think this through. I don’t know if you’ve priced apartments lately, but I think you’ll find you won’t save very much. Particularly once you figure in the mortgage interest tax deduction. Plus a foreclosure will show up on your credit report and could make trouble for you at work.”

“Nobody said foreclosure! Just send the bank the **** keys!” the man shouted.

“That’s called deed in lieu of foreclosure. It’s pretty close to the same thing. Now, about the cars. Why do you want to get rid of them?”

“Well, there’s the payments of course. And gas is so expensive. And then there’s repairs and oil changes and things like that,” the woman answered.

“I see,” said the adviser. “If you sell them, how will you get to work every day?”

There was a silence. The man and the woman looked at one another for a moment, and stammered something about walking and the bus.

“Let’s move on,” the adviser suggested. “I think you’re on to something cutting cable, but that’s still not much money. So, uh, what other shows do the kids like?”

“Oh, our oldest loves Pokemon!”

“Bugs you to buy cards for him all the time, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes!”

“Do you really want Sesame Street to have commercials?”

“Well, when you put it that way, I guess not.”

“Ok then. No donations doesn’t hurt anything, but it’s not helping you either. And remember, you can take a tax deduction on stuff you give away, so you might reconsider that one too.” The advisor took one more look at his notes before going on, “Have you discussed the birth control together, before today?”

“She’s my wife and I can make decisions for us!” The man announced.

“Well, that’s between the two of you, but have you considered how expensive it would be for her to get pregnant again? You could have thousands of dollars in expenses! It seems to me that $20 a month is a bargain.”

“That’s right, dear,” the woman said, glaring at her husband.

The adviser sighed, then said “Look, these are all very interesting ideas, but even if you add them all up that’s just a teeny bit of your budget. And we haven’t even talked about the fact that you don’t have nearly enough in your retirement accounts, and you have absolutely nothing put aside for your kids’ education.”

“What are we going to do?” the woman asked. Now she was starting to panic.

“You’re going to have to get some more income. Is there any chance of getting more hours at work?”

Sheepishly, the man admitted “My supervisor offered me more hours just a couple months ago. But I turned him down. After all, if I take those hours I won’t have time for our wicker basket business. I’m investing in the future! Someday those wicker baskets will mean I don’t need that job anymore.”

“That’s interesting. How long have you been in the wicker basket business?”

“Nine years.”

“Really? How much money did it bring in last year?”

The man started to stammer about the recession, but the woman cut in, saying “Net profit of $99.12.”

“Seriously? Oh come on, you’ve got to be kidding me. Nine years building a business and all you’ve got to show for it is a profit of $99.12? You know that at your hourly wage, you can earn that in a day?”

The man looked at his hands in his lap. The woman glared at him.

Finally the adviser spoke: “If you are serious about digging yourself out of this financial hole, you need more work. I’ll help you out, but not until you get those hours back. If you’ll excuse me, I have other clients waiting.”

In Closing: one more time, if your job requires you to do something that goes against your conscience, quit!; WI and more WI; middle class incomes going down; talk about the wrong guy to hassle; and about time somebody did the right thing.

Too Mad to Write about Politics

Seriously. If I write about any of the crap spewing from Washington — whether from Congress, Timmy Geithner, or our gutless President who is more conservative than Nixon or Reagan — I’m likely to say something regrettable. So here’s what some other people have to say. As it is, I use a little more salty language than normal, so deal with it.

Here’s something on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. You know, the group of fatcat businessmen that President Obama was begging to create jobs? What a bunch of “greedy fucks.”

Here’s what an 11 year old girl has to say about Gitmo. Notice where she admits that some of her information may be biased? I have hope for the critical thinking skills of the next generation, somewhat less hope that the War on Terror will ever end.

There’s a lot to be said about Egypt today. How about we start with a picture:

But really, this sums up my thoughts well.

There’s really a lot to say about the Anti-Woman forces calling themselves “Pro-Life”, but I’ll let Nancy start the parade. Remember, HR3 has a much wider reach than most people know. That’s even before we start talking about conscience clauses that would allow ignorant ******* to turn people away whose pregnancies can kill them. That’s before we talk about the fact that if these ******** had their way, women whose “babies” would be born with fatal birth defects would be forced to carry that corpse to term, endure dozens of well meaning people asking “Is it a boy or a girl? Have you picked a name??”, go through all the complications of pregnancy including the possibility of death in labor, all so some ******** can pretend he — and I do mean HE — is preventing abortions. People who think that is acceptable can rot in hell. Republicans want to cut family planning too, so we know they don’t really give a damn about preventing abortions.

Here’s something on states declaring bankruptcy to get out of paying people the retirement funds they were promised — and remember, state employees pay no Social Security taxes, so those pensions may be all they’ve got.

Speaking of bankruptcy, here’s something on how the bankruptcy “reform” of a few years back contributed to the foreclosure mess.

Nobody seems to remember that almost all regulations are put in place to protect somebody. Of course it’s dumb to say that regulations are automatically “job killing.” If the people whining about “job killing” gave a shit about jobs, maybe they wouldn’t be trying to cut and gut jobs programs! Here’s an urgent message for our elected officials: JOBS are still the number one issue on Americans’ minds. Put people to work, and some of the other problems — national deficit, social security, foreclosures — might start to fix themselves.

But this one really makes me mad. Ornery has it right when he calls the move to cut emergency funding for heating in the middle of a colder than average winter “so fucking tone deaf it boggles my fucking mind.” Heaven forbid we should raise taxes on people making, say, a million dollars a year when we can just freeze Granny to death! Who needs a death panel when you’ve got a blizzard? Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!

See how mad I am, and all I’m really doing is quoting other people? Over the weekend I promise to have something happier to say… about something.

In Closing: Kafka-san; tip of the iceberg?; junk fees and foreclosure; too lazy; secret air travel; pot of gold; is it snarky if it’s true?; the status quo is bad; on conservatives and the Bible; city-states; zero tolerance means zero thinking; vaccinate; the budget.