The House did WHAT???

I guess the idea of fiscal management is all Greek to them.  In fact, the House is running up debt faster than the Federal Reserve can print the money, or even finance the interest payments by loaning us at interest (which we don't need to pay if we used Article I powers to issue it).

We have passed a budget that includes $Billions, make that BILLION$$$ for more of our overseas entanglements, more of our policing the world, more of our protecting the oil companies, and more nation building. 

You can find an article about it here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/house-representatives-passes-defence-bill

We are looking at $662 Billion for defense, which is a necessary thing for protecting our nation, but not at the levels we are paying.

We just "moved out of Iraq."  We are leaving an embassy that is larger than the Vatican, and the Vatican is a country all in its own right.  Yes, the Vatican has a defense program.  It's the guys in the multi-colored britches, known as the baddest boys in the Swiss version of Marines, and known as the Swiss Guards.  They are a formidable force, and not to be taken lightly, armaments and uniform included.

In addition to the Vatican sized embassy, we are leaving 17,000 contractors, known in earlier times as mercenaries (think of the Hessians in the Revolutionary War), and they do not come cheap.  They are the guys that get $90 for a bag of laundry, $25.00 for a can of Coke, and salaries that are quadruple what our own armed forces are paid.  And what our armed forces are paid is not enough.

We need fewer mercenaries and more self-reliance on our own Defense Department resources. 

We also need to stop spending more than the rest of the world combined.  We are broke.  Totally. We can't even dip into the oath office level of thinking on Capitol Hill and find a way to issue no interest money to buy what the armed forces need from American companies that create jobs.  We simply cannot do this, because we don't have the political will to take the tough stance and do what is right.

Ask the representatives you have in Washington these questions.

Are the bribes, campaign contributions, so valuable that you will trample on,violate, ignore the oath of office that requires you to attend at least to Article I of the Constitution?

Is a job that pays less than half a million so valuable to your financial future that you will continue on a path that is obviously directed at destroying the economy of the US, and the World, based on results of the past 25 years?

Do you really think that holding a job with less than a 10 percent approval rating (when lawyers are more approved than Congress), is so important that you will enrich your own self as your constituents starve or are rendered homeless?  Or, do you work for the Corporation, and only for the Corporations, perhaps doing your bit for Banksters thrown in to make your real constituents obvious?

Remember Congress, we the People are your real constituents.  We are sick to death of spending huge sums for corporations that take our jobs overseas, and a banking system intent on bringing back Weimar style inflation.  We are sick of foreign entanglements, and paying for mercenaries.  We are sick of corporations, existing only on paper, having more life in them than we can afford for ourselves.  The time is coming for investigations, to get information formally showing who you really work for.  It's time to work for us, because the record so far indicates you aren't working for us, the people that really vote.  Change that effective and recent will be viewed favorably after investigations commence.

Why hasn't anyone asked this question?

When, back in those nearly dark ages of long, long ago--when we were all either a lot younger or a lot less jaded, and the money seemed endless just as the stuff to spend money on seemed to be so necessary, there was lots of talk about American Exceptionalism. We can spend, we can spend, we can spend. And we did.

Yet we didn't ask one good question.

Then, administrations came and went. Republicans such as Reagan preached and speeched on and on about 'small government' and 'conservative' values. Democrats such as Clinton made the same speeches and balanced the budget. For a few months.

Even before that recent history, there were clouds in the whole budget issue. The biggest was never noticed. The question was never asked.

We went to war against a tactic, based upon an attack never adequately investigated, killing or maiming millions.

We bailed out the brightest guys in the room. We spent money on a program that Hank Paulson wrote on a piece of legal paper, striking a 'big number' because he knew he needed a lot of money to shift fast and $700 Billion seemed to be a nice figure.

We never asked the question.

We bemoaned 'entitlements' for grandma, education costs for kids, law enforcement toys for police that now look like Darth Vader's Raiders. Money, money, money.

We sent $8 Billion to other countries. Or was that $8 Trillion?* (I know, a B(m)illion here a B(m)illion there, pretty soon you're talking real money -- thanks Ike for the image.)

And, we never asked.

We shifted dollars from column A to column B so that Too Big to Fail wouldn't, well, fail. Again, no question.

Now, we hear that if we honor the promises made to people that paid good hard earned money into things, like pensions and Social Security, which is funded by those payments into Social Security, that Social Security won't have our own money available to pay us back on the money we put in in the first place. And, still the silence is deafening.

Here's the question.

Why didn't anyone ask where the money was coming from to bail out this, fund that war, prop up that banking industry filled with Too Big to Fail? And if it was taken from the accounts funded by workers, why aren't the people that shifted the money rotting in jail for stealing from one trust account to fund a speculative venture like propping up Too Big To Fail?

And, while we're at it, why are we fighting so many wars when no one is attacking us at home? Why don't we stay at home and take care of ourselves for a change? It's less expensive, and would bring a lot more peace to so many countries? Like our own.

But, when all those 'conservatives' were hailing their 'conservative' credentials, spouting off about small government as government doubled in size, just in this Century, why didn't anyone ask how we were going to pay for it, and if we were going to take away the contracted benefits we paid for, why aren't we getting a bailout for us. The taxpayers. The FICA funders. Get the money for the banks from the banks. they have lots of it, because they are too big to fail, and that means they have money. Leave the pittance for the little guys alone, and stop telling us you've stolen it, or plan to do so. Enough.

If we're going to fight wars, how about one against the tactic known as robbery?

Inquiring minds, and all that.


__________________

* http://rt.com/usa/news/fed-trillion-reserve-bailout-401/

As for size of government, budgets balancing and all that, a simple tour of the Google will bring up more links than you'll ever want to review. Honest.