A Deficit of Common Sense

Reality to Earth . . . Quoting the great Gorilla Monsoon: "A pat on the back is only eighteen inches from a kick in the ass"

And now we come down to the wire and our politicians have decided to loosen a notch in the belt before the whole belly goes critical and causes us to "default".

"Default" is ours, ladies and gents. We elected them.

And make no mistake, the fight over whether to raise the debt ceiling is more about elections than finance; there's no greater evidence than the little fight which took place earlier in the process when the Republicans proposed a stop-gap which gave us a figure which would insure another round of gamesmanship occurred in 2012 while the Democrats proposed a higher number which would shove this mess into 2013. One side wanted to throw this mess into the view of the voters again just before the next presidential election and the other side was hoping to shove it under the rug until afterwards.

Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something. Somewhere the ghosts of political machines past on both sides are shedding tears of joy over the way their descendants have used the lessons of the past to screw over the voters of the present and call it statesmanship. And while a deal is in the offing as of this writing, the deal isn't done yet and they're dislocating their shoulders patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

This is what they're doing. They are their own bank and they've said they're raising their own credit limit to continue doing business while trying to figure out ways to undo mistakes both sides have been making since the Ford administration and stay in office . . . Mistakes like the one the Carter administration made by taking the only government agency which was firmly in the black at the time (Social Security) and turning what was conceived by FDR as an insurance program (Yay!) into what is now seen as an entitlement program (Boo!).

Only these yahoos could make old people getting the benefits they spent a lifetime paying for seem like wastrels for actually having the stones to ask for their benefits to be paid when it's their turn. (Dirty rotten baby boomers turning 65 and asking for their money . . . For Shame!)

The lot of them want you to forget little details like this when it's the last thing you need to do. Let me make this plain. There are no winners here. There are no heroes here. There are only politicians here, doing what politicians do best and then calling it rain. They'll fix things now alright . . . Just ask any dog or cat what the term 'fixed' means to them and you'll get a good idea of what's coming.