What happens when all the money runs out?

A wallet

What happens when your government runs out of money?  Well that’s a good question and one that has already happened in some US cities.  It’s going to take some real Draconian measures to fix, and you can be sure they won’t please you.  A better question might be how did we get into such a fix in the first place?

Since at least since 1932 our government federal, state and local has been dominated by a series of men who have a “D” after their names.  For almost the past three-quarters of a century the Democrats have been looking for Utopia.  Just as you cross the Whitestone Bridge from the Bronx into Queens the first exit is marked Utopia, but you can never get to Utopia.  In their latest incarnation the Democrats are looking for something that is even more unreachable, namely equality.  This really means that everyone will be dragged down to a common denominator.  You’ll be living on a diet of rice and beans!

Here's a bill you don't see very often for $100,000

How did we get into this mess in the first place?  Truth is it was a result of pandering to the voters by both parties, but it was the Democrats that led the pack by buying voters like hogs on the open market. This has been the way American Politics has worked from day one, but in recent years the Democrats spent more money on hogs then we could afford.

The consequences of this are going to be a belt tightening like America has never experienced.  It’s going to be rice and beans for everybody!  Already in Scranton, Pennsylvania they are already calling for a 80% hike in taxes.  That isn’t going to work because the tax payers will vote with their feet and abandon Scranton.

Voting with their feet has already occurred in the United States as according to statistics in the past year more then 8,000 people have already denounced their citizenship and moved offshore beyond the taxman’s reach.  The taxman is going to get all of us, and it’s going to be right in our pocketbooks.

Washington on Partisan Politics

George Washington the first President of the United States

This is what George Washington had to say about partisan politics in his farewell address to Congress.  What he said then still stands almost a quarter millennia later.

“The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

The trouble with Politics and Passing Laws

Otto von Bismarck wearing a spiked helmet

It will happen great site During the 19th century Otto vonBismarck became the Prime Minister of Germany at one point during his ministry he stated, there are two things the ordinary person should never see; making sausages and making the laws. This is what this blog is all about; we may include the occasional recipe for making sausages, but this is really about politics and passing laws. Both of these processes are very closely related to governing the peoples of the world. At best they are an evil necessity without which we would be living in a state of complete anarchy. A favorite pastime of the human race seems to be complaining about our leadership; yet very few of the complainers stepped forward to take unto themselves the reins of leadership.

Cholla cactus
Photo by Poco O Poco

It kinda reminds me of the story they tell about Tex riding down trail on his favorite paint horse in the good old days of the Old West. In the process of clattering down the trail on his horse Tex saw a patch of cholla cactuses. Now this particular brand of cactus is probably the worst of all having all kinds of barbs and stickers, and is generally unpleasant no matter how you look at it.

Tex immediately stopped his horse, rolled himself is there a cigarette, and just sat there on top of a horse hypnotized looking at the signed patch of cholla cactus right before his wondering eyes. The longer he looked the better looking that cactus became until finally after he finished smoking he got down off the horse after throwing the butt down on the trail, and proceeded to take off all his clothes. It came to him that the best thing he could do was be to dive headfirst into the cactus patch.

cowboy on a horse in 1888

Just about that time his pal Slim came writing down the trail, and when he saw Tex thrashing around bare naked in the cactus patch. He stopped and rolled himself a cigarette and watched his pal whooping and hollering and carrying on in that patch of cholla cactus. About the pain he finished his cigarette and had thrown the butt down onto the trail Old Tex finally gave up on the cholla cactus and came crawling back up onto the trail all covered with all kinds of stickers, lumps and bruises making quite a sorrowful sight. When he had vainly regained the trail Slim looked at him and said, “Tex what in tarnation ever made you do such a fool stunt as that?

Text replied, "Well Slim it sure seemed like a damn fine idea at the time."

Often the doings in politics and passing laws also seem like a damn fine idea at the time!