In 2000 we had a budget surplus in excess of $200,000,000,000. I like writing it all out. It's more impressive. It it's that hard to write out correctly, imagine how hard it would be to spend correctly.Anyway, that's an impressive surplus (you'd think).
Mr. Bush took over and immediately began running a deficit. He started out slow, but for his grand finale we had a budget deficit of over $400,000,000,000.
Mr. Obama's budget deficit is scheduled to be over 4 times that amount! Or about $1,700,000,000,000 (edited to add more zeros -- surprised no one caught that)!
I decided this year that yelling about the government doesn't help. If they can spend the money and get away with it then they will continue to do so.
Does anyone trust their government? I try to avoid talking politics in public settings so I don't have a large sampling of Americans, but I haven't met anyone yet that trusts the government.
I'm not talking about blind trust. I want someone to say, "I can understand why Obama is doing what he's doing. I trust that he's going to make a difference. Maybe not today, but in the next 3 years." Why doesn't anyone say this?
Is it because the federal government is too large? Do you trust your state government? Do you trust your city government? Maybe we need to go back to a less powerful central government and allow the states to have more control.
When my wife lost all of her identification a few months ago, it was my state representative that helped me out. Representative Tan Parker. I called my federal representatives and they were fairly useless.
I'm reading an interesting book about Economics. It's called "Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science" by Charles Wheelan. I'm obviously not done with it yet, but he's already devoted two or three chapters to the government and economics. He's actually managed to give me a little more confidence in our federal government and I didn't think that was possible. I may have to do a book report later. Of course, I'm still reading my history book too. So many books, so little time.
Can we re-elect Bill? Taking full advantage of the oval office and creating a budget surplus. I love the man.
I think the key to peace of mind is to cease all reading. I have not missed reading a newspaper. Currently 2 books I'm reading have me cranky about the government. One is The Zapruder Film, all about how the FBI and other parts of the government botched the JFK murder investigation in jaw dropping ways. And When Giants Fall, all about the collapse of the American Empire thanks to the idiocy of the Bush people. Who really should be on trial by this point in time. Soon to be doing hard time in a federal prison.
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