While You Were Sleeping

Imagine the pubic outcry if groceries were to come pre-grouped. Anyone wanting to purchase bread, milk, meat, or vegetables would also have to buy a bunch of over-ripened bananas, five pounds of dark brown beef, a package of tripe or hog brains, a dozen dented cans without labels, and a jar of toddler turkey and dumplings. I can’t see American shoppers accepting this without a huge fight.

Nor can I picture the special-order fast food crowd agreeing to pay for a prune turnover with each burger and fries or liver and onions on each pizza order. I can hear the screams if the cashier at the movie rental counter automatically adds a porn flick and a copy of the McConnell family’s home video of static cling removal tips with each check out.

No, American consumers only accept pre-packaged crap from the cable company and the Republican Party. Minutes ago, in a straight party-line vote (Republicans for and Democrats against) a Defense Spending, Hurricane Relief, and Flu Preparedness Bill that included tripe, porn, and static cling comparable garbage having nothing to do with defense and everything to do with forcing unpopular crap on the American people passed while most American’s were sleeping.

Once again, the bully party has taken advantage of their political muscle, and their loyal, muscles-for-brains-we’re-too-busy-sleeping-to-care supporters. Through carefully crafted sound bites and erroneous language, they misrepresented the bill as a boost for the poor people they’ve suckered into fighting their war while losing benefits, played down the parts where they cut funds for first defenders here at home, clean water, education, food stamps, Medicaid, and all social programs across the board, and outright lied about the tripe they included (all language concerning Anwar drilling has been removed – ooops except those forty-one pages added back in during the middle of the night).

I don’t hear any screaming yet, and doubt I will in an hour or so when the permanently sleeping open their eyes and shuffle through another day, pretending they actually know what they’re doing. They won’t scream until I try to tell them that while they were sleeping, their good friends stuck grandpa’s blood pressure medicine and their morning coffee in the bottom of the grocery cart under the tripe and hog brains. Then, on script, they’ll cry for me to stop whining.

Was It Really About Morals?

The War President is flitting around the country trying to sell a pack of lies about social security this time. Does he not have any work to do? If any of you happen to catch him, maybe you can ask a few very important questions, since this plan is so vague that no one else seems to know the answers.

I know this is a trick question, and probably unfair since it is sure to confuse his face into a painful grimace, but I think we deserve to at least ask for the answer. How does adding personal accounts to Social Security solve the perceived problems in the system? I realize it might keep congress’ paws out of it (does the word lockbox cause flashbacks for anyone other than me?) but think it might be easier to teach the government and to “just say no” instead of setting up new departments and hiring thousands of people to oversee this personal account project. Anyway, if you could ask him that question, and to explain the actual numbers so we can see how this is going to work, it would be nice.

You might also ask him if he realizes the average disability check is around eight hundred dollars a month, which isn’t enough to cover the average rent and pharmacy bill for the average disabled person. I’m sure he doesn’t know that, or he would surely work to increase benefits, not decrease them. And while you’re on the topic of disability, will you ask how this personal account will play into the picture in his future plan? If someone becomes disabled before their personal account reaches that magical level of eternal self-sufficiency, what happens then? And will the disabled person be expected to drain their personal account before receiving any benefits? Will their benefits be based on previous work record, and adjusted according to personal savings? Will those who saved the most be penalized in this case?

Oh, here’s an easy one. Ask this one first since it only requires a two-word response. Since this new plan can’t possibly change the fact that he has used the surplus for other things, and soon the program will be paying more than it collects, which will he do – raise taxes or cut benefits?

How is the plan personal or private when the government is going to tell people what they have to do with it? For example, low-income seniors would be required to purchase an annuity that guaranteed poverty-level monthly benefits until death. Will we hire psychics to predict dates of death? And workers will “automatically be invested” in a fund that becomes more conservative as they approach retirement. Hmm… seems like freedom, choice, personal, private are all changing definitions these days.

What if an emergency came along, like an expensive life-saving surgery for someone who was out of work and had no insurance (can’t help but think of this when we have so many in this situation right now)? Wouldn’t it just plain suck if that person had to die while they had money in a personal retirement account that couldn’t be touched? Or wouldn’t it suck even more if they were allowed to use the money and then had to die in the streets later because they had nothing to fall back on?

What if the stock market crashes? What if our creditors call in their markers?

If he answers all of these questions, you might ask the big one. Wouldn’t it be easier and fairer to just take back that tax cut, since that amount alone would solve the problem?