Stimulus or national suicide?

Today the house of representative passed President Obama’s $825 billion dollar stimulus package. The 188 Republicans (which are in the minority in case you’ve been living in a cave since 2006) with concerns that too much money was being spent on stuff that had nothing to do with stimulating the economy did not cast a single vote in it’s favor.

To most human beings $825 billion dollars is simply too enormous an amount to even comprehend. Let me give you a visual. The thickness of our paper currency is .0043 inches. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/DeneneWilliams.shtml. If you divide 825 billion by say….1000 (like in a thousand dollar bill) you get 825 million $1000 dollar bills. At a thickness of .0043, that of stack of cash would be 90,106.5 kilometers tall. Divided by 1 foot it would equal 295,635,000 feet. 1 mile is 5,280 feet. 295,625,000 feet divided by 1 mile equals 55,989.5833 miles. The distance from the earth to the moon is roughly 250,000 miles. So…at sea level, that stack of $1000 bills would reach roughly 1/5 of the way to the moon! Do the math for yourself if you want to…I may be off by a couple thousand miles but any way you stack it, that my tax paying friends is a huge pile of money.

Of course, this is already after we’ve given (and I say that very sarcastically) our government permission to spend $850 million last October to rescuing the struggle financial giants on Wall Street.

So…how is it going to be spent? And most importantly…is the government mortgaging our children’s children’s children’s future to fix an economy that (if history repeats itself ---which economically it usually does---would likely right itself in 6 months or a year or 18 months at the longest…worth such a tremendous national debt that might NEVER be paid off?

I suppose part two of that question is…who do you trust to get our economy back on track? The government? A term of service for a member of the House of Representatives is 2 years. On the day they are elected, the start fund raising again for their re-election, the majority of them saying and promising just about anything to you (and more importantly to the special interest groups who give them the most money) so they can be re-hired again in two years. Do you trust President Obama? Who at a bi-partisan meeting the other day to discuss the stimulus package said to a republican representative, “I won. I’ll trump on this. Get over it.” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/23/obama-says-view-taxes-prevailed-won/

OR…do you trust the free market, one of the basic, fundamental systems our country was founded upon? That system has carried us through 233 years, a civil war, spring boarded the industrial age, survived two world wars, an arms race with the Soviet Union that bankrupted their socialist economy and caused their communist government to collapse, a great depression, and has endured numerous peaks and valleys of recessions and economic booms. It’s a system where companies either change and grow or fail and close, and it is continually renewed by competition to improve or invent new products or services to sell a planet full of consumers who are always on the hunt for a newer or better or faster or cheaper or more convenient “do dad” or “widget” or automobile or….whatever.

In nature, the strong survive, the weak either learn to adapt or they perish and die. If you interfere with that process, (even from compassion or caring or a desire to “help” because it might not seem “fair” that bee’s work their stingers off but don’t share their honey with the grasshoppers or the cheetah eats the gazelle because he’s faster or the mean ol’ seagull swoops down and gobbles up the helpless little turtle as it struggles across the cold, wet beach) you screw up the system.

When the government steps in and hands Company X a pile of cash because their “do dads” are no longer are what the consumer wants, but they employ 10,000 hard working Americans and it just “don’t seem fair” for them to loose their jobs because their managers they were too stupid or not competent enough to invent better, faster or more convenient “do dads”, they are screwing up the free market system. I don’t care if it’s Joe’s Crab Shack, or Acme Widgets Inc., or General Motors failing, the government has absolutely NO business, mucking with the process. Like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and government of “We the people…” the free market is part of the soul of our nation. When a man or woman compromises their basic values to take the easier path, it changes who they are at the very core of their being. They may rationalize all they want to convince themselves otherwise, but it doesn’t make it right. Our government is fast changing who we are. President Bush (before he left office) said he was forced to abandon free market principles to save the free market system. In any language, that just doesn’t make sense. President Obama and our elected representatives are driving us recklessly down the same path. We have one last chance to shout “ENOUGH” and that’s when the senate vote’s on their version sometime in the near future.

If they pass it, and President Obama signs in into law, one day soon, perhaps with this trillion dollar bill comes due, we are doing to wake up and realize we are no longer who were we the day before. What saddens me is when that day comes, I fear there will be no one left with the strength or wherewithal to change us back. For me, that day will mean I have wasted the last twenty five years sweating, and freezing, and bleeding and sacrificing for a country that no longer exists. That day, you’ll likely find me weeping because the flag on my uniform no longer has meaning or standing in line with the other zombies waiting for the government to hand me my cheese or stale bread. If you do see me, don’t stop, don’t say you’re sorry, just walk on by or get in behind me and wait for the government to take care of you, because you had the chance to shout “ENOUGH” and let it slip on by. And that’s maybe the saddest part of all.