Time Flies!

Can it be late March already?  I made my last post about two weeks ago.  Where did St. Patrick's Day go?  It has all become so fleeting.

"Stabbed in the back." That's what I heard it called.  "It" is the Congressional budget bill, the 2173 page monstrosity.  I understand one opponent of it in the House piled a copy of the bill on his desk and it was almost a foot high!  The President, who should have shown some leadership and vetoed the bill, kept defending it by saying, "record" amounts of money for the military and for this and that......  That's not good!  That's not something of which to be proud.  What does this bill include--$1.2 or $1.3 trillion dollars of spending.  ($1.2 trillion or $1.3 trillion?  What's $100 billion among friends?  Esp when it's not their money they are spending.)  Not counting unfunded liabilities, the federal gov't's debt is approaching $22 trillion!

Doesn't logic tell us that sooner or later this has to end?  We--no Congress and the Presidents--can't keep spending money we don't have.  I don't see any courage to stop the ravenous appetites to spend, spend, spend.  After all, as I've noted many times, Nobelist Milton Friedman once wrote, "It's easy to spend other people's money."  (I think he should have received a second Nobel for that single sentence!)  If they don't stop, won't things just collapse?  Who knows for sure?  Will, eventually, the federal government default on its debt?  Look at Venezuela and Greece.  Closer to home, how about Puerto Rico?  They were all "bailed out," but who will "bail out" the United States?  My guess is nobody.

I will raise this point again.  Can't these politicians be prosecuted for fraud?  If not, why not?  The definition of "fraud" is "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain."  Can it be any clearer?  How many members of Congress, even the President, campaigned on the lies, er, promises of more fiscal responsibility?  "Oh, that's different......"  Yep, it always is, isn't it?

Seeing and hearing the glee from Pelosi and Schumer (and the newsletters) from my Michigan Senators and Congressman should have been a warning, should have been a clear sign to the President to veto this thing.  But he didn't.

I know a lot of folks will disagree with me, but I think Trump is part of "The Swamp."  He has and had no intention of "draining it."  It was just a sound-bite, one that caught on with many people.  And I understand.  I, too, want to get rid of the clown show.  But Trump is and has been part of the Establishment for years and years. 

And we are trusting, at least the executive and administrative parts, our federal spending/budget to a guy who made a lot of money off of six bankruptcies?  I know, I know.  It was all "legal."  But in the US, abortion is also "legal."  It doesn't make it right.

So, what are we to do?  We have little recourse.  The system is rigged.  Lying (fraud?) is rewarded.  Sometimes I feel like Diogenes, looking for an honest man.  Maybe there's nothing to do except enjoy the "bread and circuses" we are provided, enjoy them to the collapse.

When is "15" not "15?"  It's when it is "21."  A recent school district program was sold to teachers and parents alike with, among other things, a class-size of 15.  "15?"  Yes, but consider that those students are 4-year olds, with no aides in the classroom.  But the number crept upward, now to 21 because "that's the contract."  Gee, a school administrator (or administrators) who were deceptive ad deceitful?  I can't believe it!  BTW, imagine giving standardized tests to these 4-year olds??????  I don't think I need to write any more.  And people think I am too harsh on those who run the schools.

I listened to a California teacher who was suspended, er, "placed on administrative leave" for asking if her school/school district, which supported and encouraged the student walkout over the Florida shooting, would also be supportive and encouraging of, say, a walkout over abortions.  She didn't, at least according to her, advocate such a walkout.  She wasn't planning one for students.  She just asked the question, a legitimate one.  What "issues" are OK for walkouts and which aren't?  In condoning the walkout over the Florida shooting (and I'm not arguing there should or shouldn't have been one, not here), haven't school districts and administrators opened a can of worms?  What if some students want to walk out to support, say, transgender rights or the fate of illegal immigrants?  Would a school district/administrators allow that?  OK, then, what about, as this teacher asked, students who wanted to walk out over abortions?  Different issues/circumstances?  Maybe, maybe not. 

OK, it's early and I'm not going to proofread this.  Forgive any typos, etc.