I was not sure what I would write today.

I have strong opinions on the debt ceiling solution.

I had a long conversation at the laundry mat with the mentee.  It was scheduled to be brunch, but shit happens and it was nice to have someone help to fold my laundry.

I have a stash of blogs written but not published, but that would have meant gong back in and editing for relevance for now, and I did not have that energy.

So I eventually settled on – True Grit.

Apparently Hollywood made a remake of this not all that long ago.  Did not see it, nor the original – westerns historically do not appeal to me.

I don’t want to talk about the movie necessarily, rather about people in general, strength of character and what not.

I catch a ton of heat from my friends about my distaste for Obama.  Then things like this debt ceiling issue happen, they no longer like what they see, and I do not look as bad.  No they will not admit it out loud, but I don’t.

Just about all of them at some point would like to see the President do this to the Tea Party:

Not gonna happen though.  Not only are his legs a little on the ‘light side’, it’s not how he is built.

What “progressives” fail to understand on most days is that the intellectual capacity that it takes to understand compassion and humanity seems to also take away from the natural human ability to conquer.

The Tea Party can say – so what we will send the world into a depression because we are upset that too much money is being spent in Washington!  We are RIGHT!  So they Sparta kick us, because sometimes standing on principle means that you lose anyhow.

So you get a ‘bill’ that gives the President what he seemed to want the most – to not have to have this argument again until after the 2012 elections, and you also get a bill that is going to slow the US economy even more.

There is this Republican ideal that you reward money, you reward business, you deregulate and you shrink government and things will be okay.

For a movement called the Tea Party, they sure are not big on history are they?

The Great Depression was the result not of a stock market crash – but of a collapse of credit.

Banks stopped loaning money, credit ratings dropped, banks held on more tightly to money, the ‘average’ business without the ability to gain credit cut where the most money was – labor – unemployed people looked to the banks for credit – there was none, and it was a painful cycle that led to people jumping from windows on Wall Street.

Yet the Tea Party says!  We’ve spent enough! No Mas!

Small thinkers they are.

What pulled the US out of it’s depression, and turned the WORLD economy back around was government spending.  Lots and Lots and Lots of it to the point Paul Ryan would spontaneously combust.

When the financial institutions essentially packed up their balls and went home – it was the US Government that turned things around.

The US government went deep deep into the hole,  and eventually dug itself back out.

The US government is deep into the hole now, and we will have to dig even deeper if we want to get out.

The difference between 1929 and 2011?  This hole is not the result of Social Security and Public Works – this is the hole that George Bush dug with Iraq & Afghanistan.

Paying a US citizen to sweep the streets benefits the US.  He takes his street sweeping money and pays rent, buys groceries, takes his family to the talking show, buys a bike or a car, takes transit, hops in a cab, buys a pair of shoes, buys a pack of cigarettes….the money recycles BACK into the US economy and businesses are more profitable, and banks loosen the grip on credit and we slowly revert back to a moving economy.

Paying for the invasion, occupation, and participation of the military in foreign nations makes government contractors rich.  We are not all fortunate to work for a military or government contractor.

Yes this is a different world that in 1929, but the principle is still the same….spend the fictitious money HERE – so that it can be spent HERE – and we can turn things back around.
The Tea Party is not willing to do that though…..no more spending – no more taxes.

Okay simpletons….without revenue – TAXES how do we get anything done?  Seriously?

Spend less money!

On what?

Education?  That is logical.  You have a public school system that is ESSENTIAL to democracy that is eroded by vouchers and charter schools and you would like to take even MORE money from there.  Perhaps had a few dollars more been spent in YOUR district, you would see the fallacy in this.

Social Security!  Ummm until 2010 SS has not cost us ANYTHING.  NADA. ZILCH.  It was/is a self contained program, that has LOANED the US government money.  Social Security does not need reform.  It is a self correcting agency.  The people that collect Social Security die.  The people who pay into Social Security don’t collect for decades.  The system will right itself without our tweaking it.

MEDICAID!  Okay.  Let’s move availability for medical treatment away from those who can not afford it.  Sure.  If you do it will be another self correcting agency.  When people drop dead from not being able to medicate themselves, we will pay less.  Good Answer!

We can be a nation that thinks forward or we can be a nation that looks to the past.

We can be a nation of both actually, if we are willing to learn the lessons of the past.

I’m not taking trickle down, I am talking pebble in the lake.

But we should spend less right?

Interesting theory.