NotBushies vs. NearDems

We tax all the others and pass the savings on to you

What would happen if the gummint stopped giving money to Chrysler and GM? Worst case, they might fold. So we're giving them enormous amounts of our money and ... they're folding. Best case, they might reorganize themselves in accordance with our bankruptcy laws and come back as companies whose continued existence will advance a healthier America, providing jobs and opportunity like they have for a century. Don't pretend that financial hand-outs are going to work for anyone but the bonus-men and the UAW.

Today GM tells us they may abandon Detroit. The undercurrent of much of the bailout discussion is that we pour money into some companies and one result is that major communities like Detroit are saved in the process. Not.

Detroit, to pick just one ruined community, is all but unsalvageable under any circumstances. 40% or so of the kids there don't graduate from high school. Crime is rampant and those who deny it will surely not walk around Detroit at night. If GM leaves or fails, as Chrysler surely will, then what? We will have squandered our national fortune only to make things worse.

Someone has always made cars in America, some darn good cars in tune with market demands. Hopefully they still will but if they don't Americans will still have cutting-edge technology cars to buy, and isn't that all we want at the end of the day?

There HAS to be more to economic rescusitation that dumping money into bottomless pits.

There is.

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What are our political choices today? The NotBushies think and act as though they have a mandate to fundamentally change America. The NearDems think maybe they do too, but they won't be re-elected if they identify to the home folks as NotBushies. The NearDems either cozy up to the administration or stay mum and enlightened bi-partisan debate dies. So do ideas.

Does fundamental change really include, as of today, the president of the USA working on Chrysler's advertising budget? That's a change all right, but it's not what we expected from our chief executive. Which party platform included that oddity and what might be its basis in the Constitution? More smoke and mirrors, that's all.

There's no guarantee against hard times, they're gonna come. That's the lesson of "The Ant and the Grasshopper". Remember that one? Remember how it ends? The grasshopper dies because he didn't put anything away for the inevitable hard times. Chrysler and GM didn't put anything away for the hard times and Ford did. Which should survive? Which deserves our support and our government's business? When the prez buys a new government car and truck fleet, to which company should he direct the purchases, all else being equal? Do you think he'll buy from the one healthy company? Nah.

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Time to re-focus.

It is a LOT of fun to write a current events blog. Really, especially when it's so easy to find absurdities to write about and the idiots who promote them. However...

This blog was supposed to be about tax collection and in support of a book that I still haven't finished editing. I think I should get back to my original intent. From now on expect to see more tax commentary and less political commentary. I don't know what the ratio should be. I'll tinker with that for a while.

It's not so much knowing when to speak as when to pause. -- Jack Benny