Hello World

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Added: Thu. Feb 26, 2009 12:20pm
Posted in: Politics

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It's taken days for me to decide what my first blog post on growingbolder.com should be about, and I finally decided to start with a general rant about politics because that's the hottest topic on the web today. I'm a Democrat. I imagine a lot of people will jump on that because you'll perceive it as being for stuff that you're against. You're probably right, so jump away, I can handle it. For the record, I don't really want to talk about abortion. I think the abortion issue is a way to control people and garner votes through emotion by demonizing Democrats. It has no place in the presidential arena. Whether or not women are forced to bear children they do not want does not impact the things I want politicians to address, namely, the economy, the infrastructure of the country, the environment, warmongering for no good reason, education, health and foreign policy. Abortion is religion wearing a political party hat, blowing on of those noisemakers with streamers attached to distract you from the real issues.

Now that I've gotten where I stand out of the way, I have something to say to my President.

About this stimulus package. I see what you're trying to do. I have been saying for a long time that our social, educational and moral infrastructure is crumbling. We need to give people hope, especially poor people. We need to educate them and make sure that the children eat properly so their brains will grow properly. We need to get them off welfare and allow them to regain dignity and self respect. They need to be able to find jobs that will provide support. And anyone who thinks I'm only talking about black people is out of touch with the youth of today.

I see a lot of grumbling about the strings attached to the stimulus package and I have a suggestion. I totally agree that the money needs supervision. We've already seen what happens when there is none. The bank bailout, where top management got raises and junkets and company jets? Yeah, that's where I wanted my money to go. I was really, really hoping the tax I'm STILL trying to pay off from last year would send some bank president and his mistress to Fiji on a private jet.

But allocating all of the money to specific causes seems a bit overdone and controlling, so I offer a moderated scenario. If I want to borrow money from my 401K, I must provide the reason why I need it and documentation supporting that reason. Why not make the stimulus money structured in a similar way? Let's say that the money is deposited in an interest-bearing account, overseen by committee, and that each state or institution must apply for the amount they need and define and document the reason they need it. I'd like to see this as a transparent process, with the documentation available online, perhaps with a poll to see if the people approve. Poll answers would not determine the outcome, but at least you'd know whether we felt it was a good idea. Let the people cut the pork (or at least mark the cutting lines).

Here in Florida, our schools are failing. We just can't afford stupid kids. Stupid kids make for stupid adults. I think we've had enough of that. We need to combat the selfishness and greed, and make good use of where our money goes. I have faith, Mr. President, that this is what you want as well. I don't know if you can be effective over the dull roar of outrage from Republicans who had no problem with throwing hundreds of billions of dollars to the war while allowing our economic structure to collapse here at home for eight years. This is a tweet from a self-described conservative follower on twitter.com that simply blew me away:

"funding and fighting wars is an enumerated power. Can u show me where it's the function of the federal govt to educate our kids?"

Really? REALLY? I hope I'm not reading that the way it sounds, and if so, I hope this person is alone in that belief. But it would explain so much.

If you're interested, I am @sherisaid on twitter.com. Please join me in the quest for entertainment and common-freaking-sense. My agenda is not strictly political, and my blogrants will be all over the map. I just want to entertain and BE entertained.