Reading the morning news I am riveted to the article about the defense budget’s final figure of $662 BILLION and how easily it passed the House. Really, aren’t we going through tough financial times? Times that we cannot possibly put people to work because we are hung up on ideological notions about frugality? Weren’t they all distraught about the shrinking middle class and lower class having health care just a while back because “our children are being saddled with all this debt”? Who is paying for that defense budget do you suppose?
We are hopelessly and intentionally detached from reality… To be blunt that defense bill passed because of the money it brings to the pockets of congressmen through government contracts handed out across the house floor in trade for election contributions from those contractors. That budget is as big as each of the stimulus bills the Bush and Obama administrations supported, and it will do less to protect us in the long term than putting people back to work and regaining a strong economy. It is as big as the health care bill that would have benefitted all of us except for the insurance and drug companies that propagandized it into failure. That budget is not full of protection for our freedom by any stretch, it is full of PORK to use a term the GOP controlled House stood on a year or so ago.
A slim number of my friends are convinced that big business is great and will create jobs if left alone to do it, and while that is certainly true to an extent, it statistically does not inject long term and sustainable economic impact like small business does, not to mention that at this time much of the big business is off shore and not doing any of us any good anyway. Except to stock our shelves with Chinese made junk we can all live without, most big companies are not doing a great job of helping us out economically because they blow with the winds of Wall Street, and in many cases they cost us heavily on the backside. Small businesses tend to grow more solid over time because folks who own them have all their eggs in that one basket and are inclined to nurture it with care; far more care than what was taken to cause this mess in the first place. Small business overall pays its way by injecting money locally and providing jobs locally that produce revenue that is spent or banked locally. The very loud noise we hear from some politicians these days is in support of big business, big coal and big oil and the “jobs” they will bring, and they take that stance because the aforementioned groups pay them to support them.
I personally cannot support big business buying our legislators. It is undermining a truly exceptional democracy and destroying this country from the inside out and supporting it from the top down. Probably the most ardent supporter of our government is me for it is the best there is on this planet, but having said that, with every government contract or subsidy out there comes control that we all need to take a really hard look at. If they are controlling our politicians, they are controlling policy. Government is not the enemy, the ones who control our politicians are.
Meantime, we are still vastly unemployed and under-employed and staring the end of American dominance and “exceptionalism” square in the face, not to mention another great depression. If we do not demand congress get to work on America’s Main Street soon and stop playing the fool they would like us to we are in deep trouble. They are holding out hope that Obama does not get re-elected so they can stand up and say that HE ruined this country and they will have won. While a few of you applaud that and it is agreeable to your politics, the vast majority of us could care less who gets this country on track because we are hurting individually and as a country we are teetering. While big business is taking our money and making bombs for thirty years in the future so politicians can enjoy their Christmas vacations in style Main Streets are empty and many will have no Christmas. Do we really want America to fail for the sake of those few who gain from our pain?
No comments:
Post a Comment