Tuesday, April 28, 2009

I'm An American Citizen

And I'm mad as hell!



But here's the thing. I'm not just mad at my government, I'm mad at myself as well. I'm one of those who has sat by and let the government just do as they please. Now we're in a huge hole and, to be honest, I'm having a hard time seeing the blue sky for the steep walls. I regret not getting my butt in gear and down to one of those tea parties, but believe you me, I will be there next time!

And for those of you who voted for Obama...wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. He has done NOTHING to help this country thus far. His first 100 days in office have been one failure to represent the citizens of the United States of America after another. Don't try to defend him to me, he has failed. You should have gotten nervous when people started hailing him as a savior...believe me, this man does not walk on water.

And don't try to make this a "liberal" vs "conservative" thing. Don't try to tell me that there isn't a huge group of liberals out there who are mad as hell also. I don't have to be conservative to be pissed off about how my government is spending my money.

Pull your head out of the sand, America, before our government completely buries us in it.

2 comments:

Kate said...

Woohoo! *applause* Very well said! I wanted to go to the tea parties but I was driving to Baker to watch your kiddos, also a worthy cause in my book. :-) I found out yesterday that Fox declined the president's request to air his 100 day press conference or whatever (will this guy never get out of our faces?), and Fox is apparently just going to play regularly scheduled programming. Yay Fox! And yay Lindy!

Tobias said...

Wow, mighty prescient that Thomas Paine...

I'm sorry, but aside from looking at the whole video with a sense of bewilderment from an across the big pond, there are several things which I'm gonna have to disagree with:

- Balancing budgets in the middle of a recession, the biggest by several measures since the Great Depression, is insane. It would withdraw aggregate demand from the economy precisely at the time when it is needed most. I've studied this stuff for 6 years and there are few things in economics as undisputed as this. But I'm not asking you to believe me, just read a bit more widely on the issue. Pick up an issue of the Economist, read an article or two in the FT or the WSJ or read one of the many excellent blogs on the issue.
- Does that mean I'm particularly excited about the stimulus? Nope, far from it. Loads of it strikes me as ineffective, the equivalent of digging holes and filling them up again. But I think that (a) it's likely better than nothing and (b) any stimulus that deserves that name would be even more unpopular and therefore politically untenable.
- Do you really think that members of Congress should read every bill they vote on in detail? Do you have any idea how huge the stimulus bill, let alone the entire volume of all legislation passed by Congress each year are? That's why every bill has sponsors and Congress has committees: to specialize!
- "American jobs [for] American workers"? May I ask what would be so bad about me coming back to the US and working there?

Cheers,

Toby