Dave Berry says it all here. I laughed out loud. Go the the link if you want to be amused or bemused at the state of our union.
Justin Bieber? The White House having security not as tight as a Dunkin' Donuts'? a state dinner for French President François “Le Muffin de Stud” Hollande, who arrives at the White House driving a red scooter with two women riding on the back and three more chasing on foot? And those are just the highlights of the first eight weeks in 2014.
Really, just read it. The cartoons are great.
credit for illustration goes to Charlie Powell seen here
After almost nineteen years in the restaurant business, the last two in which she co-managed a restaurant of 120 employees, our younger daughter was laid off this week. And are there any new jobs out there in the marketplace for her? According to The Washington Post:
The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims rose by 2,000 to 414,000 for the week ending Sept. 3. The department said last week that no net jobs were created in August.
(picture courtesy of CBS News)
Last night's speech, in which President Obama said "PASS THIS BILL" (the $447 billion American Jobs Act proposal) more times than I bothered to count, was disappointing and disingenuous. In less than 45 seconds:
Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today’s Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.
Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.
So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.
... then provided a joint session of Congress with a broadly ambitious list of goals that sounded to many people very much like a lot more spending, like, say, the $787 billion economic stimulus bill of 2009 that didn't stimulate much of anything except that national debt.
I am so disheartened for my daughter Heidy. She is a hard worker and I have been told by many of her co-workers that she rules fairly and with a velvet hammer. Hopefully, she can obtain another position she likes and in which she will prosper.
My thoughts are with all those seeking work.
"It's recession when your neighbor loses his job, it's a depression when you lose your own." Harry S. Truman
