Problems? What problems?

Mmmm, let’s see:

We have a trade imbalance with the Chinese and others that is totally unprecedented. It appears that even though there are rules that would allow us to legitimately address this problem the Administration is so far unwilling to employ them. We wouldn’t want to upset the Chinese, you know, they might decide to stop buying and holding our bonds, which, of course, would doubtless lead us into a double or triple recession.

Then there is the immigration problem. With some ten million plus illegal immigrants living in the U.S. and more arriving any day you might think we would want to do something about it. Bush has a plan that would encourage even more. Our borders are virtually unprotected, both north and south, and Bush and company are unwilling to provide more funds for border patrols, I guess we will just have to live with it. After all, those Corporations that depend upon cheap immigrant labor are so vital to the American economy that they cannot be interfered with. Besides, if they didn’t have the cheap labor they might have to raise the minimum wage. Heaven forbid! Why should anyone in the U.S. make a decent wage when we can import (however illegally) cheaper labor? Besides, why shouldn’t anyone be able to get along on $5.25 an hour? After all, our CEO’s work for peanuts, don’t they? This is so sick it is unbelievable.

How about the national debt, now the largest by far in all of U.S. history? When Bush/Cheney took office we had an enormous surplus. Now we have the largest debt ever. This is actually Clinton’s fault, because if he hadn’t run up such a large surplus the current debt wouldn’t look so bad. And he did it by imposing somewhat higher taxes on those who could afford it the least – the already filthy, obscenely rich. What was he thinking of? Now that he is all buddy-buddy with the Bush’s he probably realizes what a mistake he made. I bet he wouldn’t do it again. And neither will Hilary.

We also have a little problem, it appears, with our infrastructure. The Civil Engineers, or whoever they are, have reviewed the U.S. infrastructure and reported that at best it rates a “D.” For those of you who are not familiar with such grades this means barely above a complete failure. Somewhere I saw that the projected price to remedy this situation is somewhere in one and a half trillion dollar range. Sorry, we just can’t afford it, what with tax breaks for the rich, expenses in Afghanistan and Iraq, war profiteering for Halliburton and others, and what have you. Besides, who needs infrastructure when the Rapture is imminent?

In all fairness, the degeneration of our infrastructure cannot be blamed on the Bush/Cheney Administration, even though they are trying to hurry it along as fast as they can. This is an absolute national scandal that goes back through several administrations. Where in the hell were our Congresspersons and Senators while our country was falling further and further behind and ignoring these obvious problems? Why were there no funds for our schools, highways, bridges, hospitals, airports, railroads, lakes and rivers, national parks and so on? Why were all of these necessary and indispensable institutions allowed to just wither away until it is almost too late to fix them? Where in the hell was our “government” all of these years? This is not something that just happened overnight. It’s not as if we haven’t paid our taxes all these years. Oh, yeah, I forget, we had to spend more on defense that the fifteen other largest nations on earth, and bombs and stuff are expensive, especially when you use them indiscriminately around the world. Empire costs money, and you do want Empire don’t you? We have to make the world save for Exxon, General Electric, Halliburton, Shell, Enron, Pfizer, and all those other noble enterprises who are only interested in the public good.

And so what is our illustrious chief nitwit doing about all this? Why, he is spending 60 days visiting 60 cities to spread his concern about the crisis confronting Social Security, a perfectly sound program that is funded at least until 2042. Oh, I forgot about Medicare. Well, never mind.