Bloom and Gloom

Tis the season of rebirth and beauty…..except for the economy!

This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week:

"It is difficult to feel the joy of Spring during this time of economic gloom."

It is springtime in Jackson County! Azaleas and dogwoods are starting to bloom and the world is transforming into a place of breathtaking flowers and beauty. It is the time I normally feel a lifting of my spirits as I grasp for my fishing tackle and visit my favorite fishing holes, hoping that this will be the year I capture another big monster bass for my wall. It is the time where a trip to the golf course is an enriching experience…regardless of your score. It is a time of joy and amazement over this wonderful world we inhabit.

However, it seems I am having great difficulty achieving this level of exhilaration this year because of a needling feeling of impending doom which is created as I read news reports and view commentaries on television. These accounts present a never ending series of reports of layoffs, plant closings, bankrupt businesses, foreclosures, failed banks, and new lows for the stock market. These are punctuated with accounts of our elected leaders shoveling never before heard of amounts of future tax revenues at these problems as they try to save the situation by covering it up with U.S. Dollars.

I am going to begin to try to look at the bright side of things and not let this environment spoil my spring! Springtime is too precious to spoil, especially when you get to be my age.

Thus I offer the following statistics:

● 92 % of all homeowners are in good shape on their mortgages and are making payments on time to their lenders.

● 91.9% of the U.S. Labor force is working and drawing a pay check.

● The stock market still shows the Dow Jones Industrials to have an index value of $6,500

● We are about to build a bunch of new roads, bridges, sidewalks, trails, buildings, parks, water systems, and public services. What a bright, clean, new world it will be.

● We will all soon be able to get health care free! We may have to go to some quack doctor we can’t stand, and we may have to wait for months for that operation we need so badly, but everything will be free!

● Our environment will be cleaner and cleaner as we enforce more and more environmental regulations on what industry is left, and on our power plants, and ourselves in the gasoline we burn in our cars. The world will be green everywhere…except for one spot, --there will no longer be any green in our billfolds.

● With the $1.7 million in the omnibus bill we will hopefully finally solve one of the most perplexing questions to plague men’s thoughts for many, many decades. We might find the answer through the funded research…What makes pigs stink?

● Those girls in California will no longer have those ugly tattoos on selected parts of their anatomies…we are paying $200,000 for their removal.

● With the $6.6 million we are spending on termite research in Louisiana we can be sure New Orleans will not rot away.

Anyway, why should I worry about our government spending all of this money? I might as well enjoy it…perhaps even qualify for a little of it myself. It will be my great, great grandchildren who will be working to pay it back…Let them struggle with it….I’ll be long gone!

I may just quit working and try to get my earnings down just a little lower so I, too will be part of the underprivileged, low income masses. It might be a lot better than working all of the years I have left just to pay taxes. I always kind of enjoyed sleeping in a tent when I was a kid, and beans and rice is one of my favorite dishes.

If I can just get my earnings down to Medicaid qualification level I will qualify for low income housing, food stamps, free medical care, church hand outs, educational benefits, free dental clinics, a free hearing aid I can’t afford to buy right now, earned income credit on my taxes for not paying any taxes or working, a bigger stimulus check, and a whole lot more free things. Also, if I can just get a disability classification from social security I’ll qualify for a whole lot more benefits and entitlements. I might even still be able to get a mortgage on a big house somewhere.
Sounds like a plan to me…. I think I’m finally "Getting It Right"!

Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning –

● A group of liberal social progressives from Sweden have a proposed treaty before the United Nations which would make it an offense for a parent to ever spank a child, or even put the child into "time out" for punishment. The agreement would also prohibit parents from choosing which church their children will attend. The U.S. is reportedly seriously considering signing this U.N. Treaty as national policy.

● Under the stimulus bill Obama’s old employer, ACORN, will receive $7,000,000 in funding from the government. This should help them register several thousand more ineligible voters.

● Circuit City has gone bankrupt, closed their stores, and several thousand workers have lost their jobs. The government apparently decided they did not qualify for a bailout….could it be because the United Auto Workers Union, which makes huge political donations doesn’t represent their workers?

● The government continues to impregnate every piece of legislation with extra costs related to the "green" movement against global warming. All of this green is making me see red!

● Locally, lets all go to the St. Patrick’s Day festival and do some "Green"!