Cooking with Dee

Entries tagged as ‘government’

A Political Exercise

January 29, 2009 · 1 Comment

How about if we get every elected congressional representative and senator in the USA to agree for a week that they are out of work (no accessing your bank account except for $100, and no trust funds, preppies).  You have no clothes except what you’re wearing and no toothbrush or shaving kit.  You must to go through the paperwork of COBRA/HIPAA, fill out your state’s unemployment forms and realize what a paltry sum you’d receive if you really had to be on it, also food stamps and AFDC.  Effectively you have no health insurance so will have to go to a public hospital with a sore tooth or a heart attack.

If you agree to do this, you could stay in a one-star motel room on your dime. No car, no staff, no cell phone, no house keys or golf clubs.  You would have to find a public phone – good luck.  On the fourth day a down-on-his-luck constituent will drop a ten-dollar bill on the sidewalk in front of you and count the seconds ’til you pick it up.  He’ll do it because we’ll pay him $20 to do so.

After this experiment is over, it’s on to the next one, working in a factory, but that’s not mine.  But you will have to answer to your constituents and make things right after the regulatory debacle that has allowed our banks and manufacturers to fail and your constituents to be out of work.

Today I made the fourth meal out of one $6 chicken (there’s another left).  We had soup with most ingredients from our pantry.  We are not wanting government assistance, only good work.  We are being judicious, I am as head of the household pantry and such, frugal and not profligate.  I’m sure we can afford a bit more but it pays to work our way through the pantry if we’re to move quickly to another city and job for my loving husband.

I would like for the people who claim to represent us in government to do more than make speeches.  Live our lives.  Know what life many of your constituents lead who have lost jobs and can’t find new ones in this depressed economy.  Thanks for listening.  ‘night now, Dee

Categories: Editorial
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Transparency

January 29, 2009 · 3 Comments

Our money, $750 billion of it, went out without a thought about how it would be spent or how its use would be reported back to Washington.  Hopefully when reports got to D.C. they would share that information with the people who paid for it.  Those people are us, the U.S. taxpayers.

Now we find that billions have gone out in bonuses to stock traders, and it is lamented that they couldn’t pay more of our money out to buy Ferraris and other minimal luxuries for these workers while others are laid off and the banking industry is in chaos and has to depend on taxpayer money to survive.

This is an insult to tax-paying Americans.  Billions in TARP money (our money) was used for bonuses.  Please, new Administration, get your priorities straight.

IF more aid to banks is needed, there needs to be transparency, a cause for any funding and quarterly reporting to their lenders (us, the US people).

A real plan for jump-starting our economy is required.

No funds should be expended for insurance companies – AIG was a huge mistake – unless they agree to be regulated federally (as are the banks). Insurance companies don’t exist to pay out when someone hits your bumper, they are investment companies who invest our premiums for money and never reduce premiums when we reduce their payouts (witness seat belt laws).  Same for reinsurance companies.

As to the Big Three auto-makers, they should have made themselves more competitive in the 1970’s.  Forget about the give and take of fuel prices, look to the next step and do it!  They deserve to fend for themselves and not have any more bailouts.  Management blames it on unions, unions blame it on management.  Let those folks on the board earn the perks they get, for once, and make things right.  And let the engineers and workers do what they do best, build cars.

You’re spending our money here, Mr. President, Senate and House.  We elected you and expect you to act in the best interests of your constituents, not your lobbyists.

Perhaps the White House and House and Senate cafeterias should start offering only franks and beans or the stuff that’s in their freezer or walk-in frig.   That way they can feel like we do when we’re laid off.  Cheers, Dee.

p.s. We thank the banks that didn’t invest imprudently and didn’t need taxpayer assistance, same to the auto manufacturers.  May you continue your prudent work and investments in the future.

Categories: Editorial · Recipe Ideas
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