Looking Back – 2011 Edition
Well, 2011 has been an eventful year, both for me personally, the United States, and the world at large.
Super Failure
I usually never have the energy to write after a 13 hour shift at work, but today’s confirmation of the Super Committee’s failure made me too angry not to. Because a plan really isn’t that hard to come up with.
Life Update
Sorry things have been so quiet of late. It seems that I’m practically living at my station these days, and what little home time I’ve had is filled with errands, homework, and occasionally playing tour guide to my family. I’ve been following economic and political news as much as ever, I’ve just been struggling to find a time to write. I’m watching events in Europe in disbelief. How can the continent’s leaders drag their feet as things continue to look more dangerous for them? I think it’s possible to fix the Euro, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why the heads of state and ECB seem so determined to just muddle through. I’m keeping informed on the GOP primary season, but frankly I find the field rather depressing. If I have to root for one of them, I’ll root for Huntsman. He’s at least sane.
I hope to have an update when I get my next days off mid-week. For now, I’m going to keep reading The End of Wall Street for a few and then head off to bed. 5:30 a.m. comes far too early, especially this time of year, with dawn so late and dusk so early.
It’s Not Class Warfare
It was a predictable result of the President’s announced deficit reduction plan, which included higher taxes on wealthier Americas nicknamed the “Buffet Tax” for Warren Buffet, the billionaire who has called for higher taxes on the wealthy. As Fox News played in my mess hall, the term I kept hearing was “class warfare.” What bullshit.
Irene costs restart Washington budget battle | Reuters
Irene costs restart Washington budget battle | Reuters.
I find Eric Cantor’s assertion that any spending to recover from Irene means spending will have to be cut other places extremely disturbing. Perhaps if Republicans weren’t so preoccupied with constantly cutting spending, there would be sufficient money in the budget to respond to emergencies. But regardless, such a plan is short sighted and will place us in an even worse place than we are already, fiscally and economically.
Equally disturbing is Ron Paul’s opinion that FEMA should be disbanded. As readers of my old blog may know, I used to be a high school history teacher in New Jersey. I only got to be a teacher for 1 year, right out of college, because New Jersey readjusted it’s state funding model that year to bring costs down. That readjustment reduced state funding for schools and led to massive teacher layoffs, and I was right in the middle of them. So here’s my question for Ron Paul. If states have been cutting spending every year because they are completely broke, how are they supposed to pay for disaster relief programs as well? Disasters frequently span more than one state, and having a federal agency overseeing the relief efforts means that a rich state and a poor state stay on relatively equal footing, rather than the poor state being left to struggle through funding the relief operations.
