Kick the Can

One of my great grandkids got two hockey sticks and two hockey pucks for Christmas. Ohhh. I remember when I was a kid my brother got me a hockey stick and a hockey puck for Christmas and they were awesome. All the rest of the kids had much shorter homemade hockey sticks and no puck at all, they just used a crushed tin can. I remember being so afraid that I might damage my hockey stick and lose my puck that I rarely used them. They are likely in pristine condition in the attic of the farm where I grew up yet today. Dumb!

Congress is playing its now common game of kick the can with the budget and debt. Obama is back early from his Christmas vacation which shows he is willing to try and work of the budget with the House but it is not going to happen. Boehner may indeed want to sign the bill Obama proposed, after all he and the Republicans would get more than they ever dreamed of at piddling cost of a tax raise for a few folk. But his , Boehner's, whacko contingent will never agree to it. They will play chicken for as long as possible over a stupid ideological principle than makes no sense and an economic process that has proven disastrous over 3 decades.

I’d just as soon they go over the cliff. Taxes would raise so we could keep needed social programs, except that it will likely lead to another recession caused by hysteria and histrionics by the power brokers.

But what is likely to happen is that they will kick the can down the road again; keeping the tax cuts, lift the debt limit and push the whole mess down the road for another year.

In the meantime I saw of GMA this morning the new speed rail train in China that averages 186 mpr and see the development of their infrastructure as ours continues to crumble. Cut the budget, cut our own throat.

So all this posturing is going on by congress which seems totally out of touch with an electorate that complains but can’t think. A goodly part of the electorate still clamors for tax cuts, sees the government as an enemy of the people but won’t vote the big money backed politicians out of office. Polls show while calling for tax cuts they want all the social programs left in tack. 

It all goes back to stimulus programs that get the economy moving and strengthens the middle class with good jobs. But they are like my old hockey stick and puck, hidden away in pristine condition or maybe the mice have eaten them by now.

Merry Christmas. Peace on earth and good will to all folk.