Don't You Dare Forget!

Like the majority of retirees, we live on a fixed income, which doesn’t provide an excess of discretionary funds. Like death, taxes, and spam email, one certainty in life is that in the coming years, those flexible funds will shrink.

What I purchased at WalMart five years ago for ninety-five bucks now rings out of the register at one-twenty or thirty. If my math’s right, that’s over a twenty percent increase.

I’m lucky however in that I can control the spending. As many, I purchase items I can well do without, and eventually, I’m sure I’ll be forced to forego such indulgences.

While many of my acquaintances are in the same boat, there are some who have unfortunately compounded their problems by an injudicious use of the dreaded credit card.

The fees and interest they pay on what those innocuous slabs of plastic provides eats into what little discretionary income they might have.

And if you can’t guess where all of this is leading, I’ll tell you.

At this very moment, our country is in that same boat. As one, we are facing rising prices and an almost insurmountable debt. What is it now, thirteen trillion and counting?

Hey, the BP gusher is a dribble compared to the runaway gusher of additional debt Obama and his followers have slapped on our shoulders. And they’re still spending. They won’t stop!

According to watchdog, Bob Livingston, Congressman Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act was taken out of the Wall Street reform bill. An effort by House Republicans to re-insert the language failed, with more than 120 Democrats who had co-sponsored the bill voting against it. That’s something I can’t figure. If they’d co-sponsored it, why vote against it?

Heaven forbid, partisan politics!

There is only one way to stop this insanity. It is up to us, the common, everyday citizen who tries to follow all the rules that many in congress ignore.

There must be a change in the mindset of those in Washington. Look how the health bill was jammed down our throats. How much did the Speaker of the House truly know about the bill when she blithely remarked “We’ll have to pass the health bill so we’ll know what is in it for us.”

Such insouciance is not only appalling, but a stinging slap on the cheek of every American unless they’re too dumb to know she has insulted them. She doesn’t give doodly-squat about the American people. Her position is for her ego, just like so many up there. That isn’t the mindset we need.

I’ve had folks call me to task for some of the negative columns I’ve written about the problems the health bill will create. I hope by now they’ve opened their eyes as more and more worrisome details float to the surface like BP’s oil.

You know the bill forces employers to provide insurance for workers or face massive tax increases. Right? Did you also know those taxes would reach up to $52 billion? Result? Goodbye jobs.

American businessmen aren’t stupid. They’ll cut the workforce, adding to the ten percent unemployed. Some companies, like John Deere, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Verizon and even some ski resorts have already announced their intention to cut jobs.

Why didn’t Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and those others recognize this problem? They didn’t because all they care about is themselves and their egos.

There are still over three months until mid-term elections. You can bet those jokers will be filling the air with the lies of success and distortions of truth that unfortunately are part of the political game.

As an average citizen, you can’t let them fool you. That’s what they’re counting on, that we’ll forget their tricks.

If we can manage to wrest control of one of the chambers, the House or Senate, then we can refuse funding for the bill, effectively stopping it until it can be reworked, not in a smoky backroom, but in the open, with the media watching. Like the guy who said he would save America promised.

By the way, remember that provision that says insurers cannot cut your health benefits off at a certain point? That’s true. The catch is, it isn’t free. In fact, premiums will run—are you read for this?-- from four to nine hundred a month.

Now, you sleep well.