This might well be my third post in the 2 years that I've been blogging that pertains to politics. I do try to purposefully avoid the subject. I am a very intelligent, sharp, quick-witted individual, but there are a few things that reduce me to a level of steaming pea soup: door-to-door evangelists and politics. As far as the latter is concerned, I'm not quite sure why my brain feels this need to shut down, but it does. Everything in Washington just seems so ... outrageously ... complicated! After watching missed episodes of The Office on Hulu last night, I turned on ABC (my news station of preference -- I like Charlie and George for some reason) and settled down to listen to President Obama's speech. Don missed the entire thing, having had to go to a meeting, but when he came home at the end and asked me how it was, I replied, "If nothing else, this man is a pleasure to listen to." Indeed he was -- clear, articulate, graceful in his language. That's no surprise, why that would be appeal to me -- the written, and spoken word, done well.
But about halfway through, my brain took on its usual mushiness. Granted, part of it -- a lot of it -- had to do with the fact that my sinus medicine was kicking in. But as I was listening on that elementary, over-ripe banana level, I kept thinking to myself: this is all about spending! Spending, spending, spending ... granted, it sounds like it's for our common good, to get us out of some horrific mess, but my goodness! So much spending!
And at the end, in a state of full mush by that point, my only question was: where is he going to get the money? If we, in the 95%, will not see our taxes raised ... if we, who make less than $250,000 a year (I snorted, I think), will not see our taxes raised ... then where is it coming from? Did he even say anything about that? I tried to think back, through the haze, to some mention of where this money was coming from, but no ... I didn't hear anything. So ... what's the answer?
Is there an easy answer to this? Maybe not. Maybe it's just too darned complicated. My dad told me that they stuck something in the accepted stimulus package about gathering all of our medical records and information together in one centralized database, and the articles he read about it were enough to shock your socks off. But ... what the heck? What does that have to do with the stimulus package? Why does everything have to more strings than a plate of spaghetti? What are these elected leaders doing? A part of me wants to just sit back and trust these people, because what in the world do I have to say about any of this? Just not knowing all of the complications, just not knowing what goes into all of this stuff, seems so appealing to me.
But maybe that's just my sinuses talking.
Ah, I don't know ...
I just don't know what to make of all this.
I just don't want to live in fear.
Any ideas?
3 comments:
You can visit recovery.gov and watch where the stimulus money goes....that's one possible option to sticking your head in the sand and enjoying the lyric quality of Obama's speeches! It's true--it's a complicated circumstance. I've had the privilege of working with a number of economists at the University in the past few months, and they have uniform support of spending in the interest of kick-starting the economy. But it's also true that no one seems to quite understands how that deficit is covered over time. The infrastructure projects, the centralizing of medical records, the "greening" of our homes and workplaces is supposed to be about job creation (and I can see a number of options for Matt in these areas, so that's a plus!), but we'll see! Get a little bit of information, consider the lilies, and let go of the fear! It doesn't do much for us anyway. :)
Don't get me started (but you already did!). :) It makes me crazy that this thing was presented to congress late Thursday night and they had to vote on it Friday; it's thousands of pages long; who actually read the thing? For some reason, he refuses to cut capital gains taxes, which has been shown historically to stimulate business growth. The "stimulus" package includse a LOT of stuff that is just hand-outs, not stimulus, and much of the infrastructure spending won't happen for YEARS. He even rolled back the welfare reform issue that Bill Clinton passed when he was prez. He is not pro-business at all, and that's what the economy really needs right now. All I know is that everytime treasury secretary Tim Geitner opens his mouth or Obama passes a bill, the stock market tanks!!! I really think the dems are giddy with having complete power in DC for once, and are taking advantage of the "crisis" to ram through stuff they've been wanting for a long time. Obama's chief of staff Rom Emanuel was quoted once as saying somethng to the effect of "You never let a good crisis go to waste." Oh bring back Ronald Reagan: "Government is not the answer to the problem; government IS the problem!" Obama is an amazing orator, but I sure don't like what he's doing so far...
By the way, I was glad to see your post; I hadn't seen one since Monday morning and was getting worried about it you. :)
Interesting! When I do manage to shake the sand off of my head, I find it pretty fascinating that there are so many different ways of looking at something like this -- some applaud it, like Jen's economists, and others rake it over the coals, as pointed out by Sandy.
But my goodness, "COMPLICATED" is certainly the operative word!
I was just thinking this afternoon about a movie from the '90s, I believe -- "Dave," with Kevin Kline. Remember that one? I recall really loving this movie, making complicated matters so uncomplicated, plopping a clear-headed outsider in the middle of the mess and BAM! He's got it figured out just like that. I know, I know -- it's Hollywood. But wouldn't it be nice if life could imitate art ... or "art" ... or, in this case, a little cozy, unrealistic, simplistic, idealistic, grab-the-popcorn kind of movie.
Ah, yes ... hear that sound ... whoosh ... back in the sand ... :)
Post a Comment