The Village Idiots

There is an old saying that, “The village has lost an idiot”. Well, after the $700 (er, or $850 or whatever) billion dollar bailout, I submit that the idiots have lost the village.

We have now fallen and there is little chance we will ever get back up. With this latest “Super Nova” of boondoggles, we have reset the rules where we are “bailing out” states, auto makers, wooden arrow manufacturers, rum distillers, peanut museums and any other vote buying, pet projects needed to get an incumbent re-elected.

Between the “under the radar” granting of some $25 billion to automakers (under the guise of retooling for future fuels), while America’s attention was focused on the “idiots”, who were busy larding up the biggest bailout in history, and the current request by California for a $7 billion dollar “loan”, we are simply reducing ourselves to government-by-extortion”.

And how do I know this? Well, California just had a Federal Judge order them to commit $8 billion dollars to upgrading prison hospitals. So who believes that $7 billion will go to making the rest of California’s honest, hard working people’s lives any better?

And as for the auto industry, who doesn’t believe another strike is just around the corner? Just like the Big Three, state governments are being hamstrung by the steady march of employee unions extorting exorbitant pay and benefit packages that further widen the gulf between the public and private sector. But do we post the pay scales, or the insurance and retirement packages of these employees, when negotiations hit the fan….NO! We just merrily go about our way picking the pockets of taxpayers to pay the ransom.

So while government representatives are busy feathering the nests of their abductors, small business America is making plans of its own. Big Government and Big Unions have both outlived and outgrown their intention or mission. Time for “small business” America to de-claw, de-fang and otherwise clip the wings of government and unions run amok.

And maybe the unintended consequences of "small business" America losing money and not paying taxes for a few quarters will accomplish that very thing.