Political Rant

What has this country come to? Politicians can raise 9 million dollars in one night, but the average family is paying outrageous prices for gas, if they can find gas at all. But I digress. Familes are losing their homes, but companies are getting government bailouts. Don't worry our economy is 'strong'! They're kidding right? Average people are trying to find decent paying jobs, while politicians vote 'present' on meaningful legislation and don't feel at all bad about spending their time talking about who they are going to pat on the back. Do you really need to pass a bill that says John Doe was good man? Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter's pregnancy is open season for the political pundits, but how many people know that Joe Biden's son is accused of fraud? Hm, which says more about character: making a personal mistake of having presumably unprotected sex out of wedlock, or defrading people out of money in a hedge fund? Granted, neither candidate should be judged on the actions of their children. Oh, and why is the government telling us what kind of TV we have to have? Seriously, we have to take our country back. Sadly, I have no faith in Obama, McCain, or Barr (the liberatarian candidate) in that venture. And don't even get me started on Cynthia McKinney (is she still the reform or green candidate?).

The headlines have me rattled. AIG is getting an $85 billion 'emergency government loan' and I'm guessing that their executives are still going to get their big fat bonuses or a lucrative 'exit package'. There was a terrorist attack on our embassy in Yemen. And Barack Obama had a fundraiser last night that cost attendees $28,500 a head, plus and additional $2500 for a Barbara Streisand concert. Must be nice to be able to shell out more money in one night than many people make in one year. Hm, I wonder how much fuel was consumed just to get to the event? I hope their tires were properly inflated so they could do their part for the environment. This is the person we think is going to bring change? I'll admit, Barack Obama has an impressive story, but so do John McCain, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. You don't get that far in politics without something to back it up.

We pay outrageous taxes for 'services' that are there IF we need them. The only government service I can think of that I benefit from right now is the highway system, ok and at a higher level the Armed Services. I have private health insurance, have never taken advantage of unemployment, fortunately have never needed to call 911, and I'm not naive enough to think I'm going to see a penny of the money that has been withheld from my paycheck for Social Security. Quite frankly, I'm beginning to get bitter. I wish I could be a stay at home mom, but there is no way we can afford that. We live, dare I say, comfortably, that is we don't have to watch every penny like we did when we first got married. We don't have a lot of extra money to throw away on big screen TVs, new cars, new phones everytime one comes out. We can afford to go out to eat, and we go out much more often than we should. We used to love to go to movies, but I cringe at the thought of spending $9.00 per person just to see a movie. It seems that it doesn't pay to live within your means. So many people out there buy homes they can't afford, with the willing assistance of mortgage companies who will do anything for a buck. Seriously, they really need to reassess how they determine how much house a family can afford. When we were looking for a new home, we got approved for way more that we 'knew' we could afford. This practice has resulted in the bailing out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (3 of the board members that are on Obama's campaign, one of them made $9 million). Families are losing their homes (granted they should have budgeted and planned better), but I don't see these companies who helped put those families in that position having their business 'foreclosed'. Must be nice to be able to get a good government bailout.


Ok, that is a lot of complaining. What would I do to change things?

- Healthcare - I don't know about you, but it seems that healthcare plans are a little too broad. For example, why do men have to pay for maternity coverage when they are covering only themselves? Why are fertility treatments covered under so many plans? More companies should offer 'Catastrophic' plans. Coverage that would only be used in the event of an accident or some unforseen circumstance. Why pay thousands of dollars a year for coverage you likely won't need? I don't know about you, but if I was single I'd much rather have a plan that I pay a lot less for IF I need it, than pay for coverage on everything under the sun knowing that I won't need 80% of it. Most people would probably really only spend a few hundred dollars a year. That is probably contributing to the skewed number of the 'uninsured'. I'd rather the government not get involved in private industry, but I don't think I'd be opposed to legislation that set some baseline requirements of offerings that should be made. Those of you out there that are actuaries feel free to dispute me here. It may not be economically feasible to offer the kinds of coverage I suggest and still turn a profit.

- Earmarks - easy enough, instead of introducing bills that are hundreds if not thousands of pages long with hidden texts. Let's vote on individual pieces of legislation. This would allow us to clearly understand what our elected officials believe in. Honestly, I feel bad for politicians, sometimes they have to vote for legislation that they don't agree with 100% in order to pass something that has significant meaning for them and their consistuents. Failure to do so would result in complete stalemates on every bill and even less would be accomplished. Pass legislation that says approved earmarks must be used for the purpose they were approved for, if not used within a certain timeframe it must be paid back to the US Government (did Palin really keep that $ for the Bridge to Nowhere?). Is there any accounting for funds? Maybe this is already done, but does the GAO or some other government entity look at budgets to see if ALL the money on a government funded/subsidized project is accounted for?

- Energy - do it all and do it fast. Sorry folks but we don't have cost effective alternatives to gas quite yet, so we may need to drill off-shore and in Anwar. For those of you that are 'drill-happy', there are other oil rich areas that have already been approved for drilling, but drilling hasn't begun. We need to start there. If the energy companies that own that land won't start drilling, this is one area where I think imminent domain should apply. The government should be able to force those companies to start drilling or sell the land to someone that will. Get busy folks, do we really want to be indebted to the Middle East any longer? That being said, oil is not a replenishable resource, so we have got to have other alternatives; wind, solar, hydrogen, and yes nuclear. We should be dumping funds into research to make these alternatives affordable. We have hybrid vehicles, but how many places can you really plug in to recharge? States should be given funds to add recharging stations (my immediate thought is to add to rest stops along the highway system). Give tax breaks to companies that offer work from home programs, or compressed work weeks, or have alternative energy sources.

Taxation - short and sweet - implement the Fair Tax plan immediately!

Sorry for my political rant, but I had to get this off my chest. My next post will be soon, it is about last week's Arlington football game among other things.