Thursday, December 09, 2010

Free Money?

All government programs malfunction; that is inherent in the nature of government. In the Record Herald of 12/9, Sen Sherrod Brown laments the fact that citizens voted down the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act of 2010 saying “It seems Republicans are living in some alternate universe where people aren’t having trouble making ends meet or finding it hard to put food on the table every night.” With a tear jerker title like that and Sen. Brown’s weepy analysis, I wonder how can reason ever win out over emotion? Could it be that citizens are realizing that all government program are dysfunctional and designed for continual manipulation by grandstanding politicians?

As we all know, Social Security was long ago hijacked from being an insurance program to being a political football. Social Security is mis-designed, manipulated and broke. To a politician, like Sen. Brown, 13 billion of additional outlay for this “Emergency” measure is only part of a day’s work. To get ‘Brownie’ points for giving out $250 checks, the senator ignores the question, “Where is the money coming from? My guess is that to give senior citizen ‘A’ $250, some other citizen ‘B’ must cough up $350. That is normal government math. I can only say, “Stop helping us, we can’t afford it.”