Cut The Frappe

Where the hell is Washington, DC? On Main Street we still have to go to the store for groceries, watch TV on our 60″ big screens and head out to our favorite office supply store to start the “back to school” stock up. Does anyone care about what is going in Washington, DC? Not really, because it’s politics and a media circus as usual.

Last year we got all hyped about the arm twisting regarding the passage of Obamacare. A few weeks ago, we were about to shut down the government. Miraculously, the political genie waved the magic wand and disaster was averted. Now, the boys are back at it again – they even gave it a playground name – “gang of six.” Get real, Americans pay millions of dollars in taxes to fund these shenanigans in Washington.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want to deal with the reality of the situation. We are up to our eyeballs in debt and the only real way out is to start cutting. The conundrum is that we see private business hoarding cash and generally doing anything and everything to hold on to some semblance of a profit margin. Why is the government sinking in debt, yet many private businesses holding on? Why has the unemployment rate been stuck near 9% and small businesses been unwilling to expand and engage in greater investment risk? Because businesses can’t afford to end up like our government – bloated, overburdened and trying to move forward while grinding in neutral.

Something has to change and it has to change fast. Like businesses, the government needs to stop spending and trim its own payroll. It needs to look to private business to provide cost efficient solutions to rein in health care, Medicare and other operational costs, instead of cutting defense programs and contractors as the first line of cost containment. The President praised the new commission that was set up just this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. While the Bureau is tasked with looking out for the best interests of the consumer, why did the government have to set up another new Agency for this, with additional payroll, benefits, facility costs, etc.? How does this Agency differ from the little known website www.consumeraction.gov? Or should consumers go to the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer website at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/consumer.shtm? Or, maybe we should head over to the FCC and their information on how to prevent unwanted telemarketing to consumers? Worried about your food, go to the consumer protection information at the US Food and Drug Administration. There are so many Federal, State and Local agencies tasked with our protection, do we really need another one?

The government is so worried about our protection they forgot that the most fundamental element of protecting the sovereignty and dignity of this nation is to watch our dollars and cents. Now that we’ve spent it all on propping up the financial industry and the car industry and provided who knows how many loopholes to the gas companies and whoever else has a strong lobbying group, those in our government in the pretend world we call Washington, DC, now face the reality of what many of us face each month when we pay our bills: I think I better cut the frappe, because I have to pay the utility bill. Lights out.