Tax cuts and a contemporary Christmas Carol.

(I took this picture of my Hubby looking at Cape Blanco Lighthouse just this morning, during our walk on these rocky shores I've come to love. The lighthouse is situated at Cape Blanco, the westernmost tip of the contiguous United States-for the geography geeks out there.)


There are certain stories that guide us, year after year, lighthouses, like the Cape Blanco Lighthouse pictured above, a government built structure, still operating on Cape Blanco, to keep ships from crashing on the rocky shores.

If you have been following the news, you've caught the new Scrooge Story: Let the Rich keep their tax cuts, or nothing will happen in Congress.

Today, on Hardball with Chris Matthew, Matt Kimble from Freedomwors said: "...unemployement benefit is junk... The trouble with unemployment and economic stagnation... is a spending problem..."

I'm just a pensioner. Both my pension and my Medicare benefits were part of my wage package through a lifetime of work. Talking about eleminating these programs because they are costly, is an ethical and moral problem, the one Mister Scrooge had to deal with.

 To balance the budget on the backs of seniors and people on unemployement is an ethical problem, when Wall Street and millionaires insist on keeping their bonuses and being rescued when things go bump in the night.

Greed is governing right now!
A lighthouse only for those with big yachts!


"Less Government" is a code phrase for get rid of all programs, all regs, all things that make good govenment, including unemployement benefits. It's a code phrase for, every man to himself. Women and children and unemployed cost are rocking the boat, will make us drown. 

What is a nation to do?

Let's keep the Lighthouses, the regulations, the programs that give people a lifeline. In a Democracy, we have a moral imperative to save everyone in a storm, and to give education and protections to prevent crashing on the shores.

Then, let's have a conversation on how to become the great nation we think we are, the nation that shone like a lighthouse to the world at war, to the world in poverty. Let's have our conversation on how we can afford to do all the things we need to do, in a smart way, in a fair way, even in a humane way, Right now is the time to start. Right now, for Christmas.

My vote

Today I will vote, finally. The ballot and the pamphlets have piled up on the dining room table, and it is time to clear the mess and committ. Not that I had to think much about any of the choices on this year's ballot. The choices were obvious, and no amount of mudslinging or pimple finding was going to distract me.

I enjoyed the charade, the attacks, the twists and turns and word=coinage necessary to convince people. My test is to look at who is sponsoring the measure. People have motives and histories. And it is not hard to Google and get facts and sources.

We go back to our basic instincts when we vote. We look at a candidate and his/her history and form an opinion, an impression of how that person lived his/her life and whether he/she would understand the needs that we have.

And then, there is the way we all express our needs. Some of us are more selfish than others. And, at election time, we don't hide it too well. Look at who wants to save whom. And who needs to be saved. And who has done the saving in his/her past.

I don't need government's help. But I know lots of people who do, not because of anything they did or didn't do. Their circumstances in life became demanding. Most people have worked and struggled. And we had compassionate people help us on the way. Government is the ultimate expression of that compassion, of people looking out for each other to do things they could not do on their own.