We Interrupt This Program to Bring You a Rant...

There are still several posts coming in the series documenting my Reformed Republicratic Party Platform, but I'm getting down to the hard stuff now, and have some more research and writing to do before they're ready. Fortunately, though, there is sufficient buffoonery going on in the news to give me plenty to write about while I finish off the other posts.

1. Between them, the fired CEO's of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will receive $23.9 million in salary payments. You can read the story here. The best part of the story is this: "Syron's (Freddie Mac's former CEO) package, Schmidt (an 'executive compensation consultant') said, is 'very unusual' because it allows him to receive $8.8 million in cash to replace stock grants and options that are now worth little or nothing. Representatives of Fannie and Freddie declined to comment." (Added emphasis is mine).

Now, let's make sure we all heard this correctly...the man fired for running Freddie Mac into the ground and sticking the U.S. taxpayer with an enormous debt is eligible for $8.8 million in cash because his stock grants and options are in the tank. And what about all the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stock that was in my 401k? I'll just bet that I'm in line to get my $8.8 million. I'm glad I still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and a government that cares about its citizens...at least, the ones that are already rich and powerful.

2. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that the budget deficit will grow to $407 billion this year, a jump of $246 billion from 2007. Read about it here. The story attributes the huge jump in the deficit to "a substantial increase in spending and a halt in the growth of tax revenues." Wow. What a surprise.

Yes, if you are running the government, you can cut taxes on the wealthy, spend countless billions on a useless war in Iraq, dismantle the regulatory structures that used to protect the citizens from outrageous economic activity, and rescue the greedy bastards who have ruined the economy...and still maintain the fiction that all is well. As Mel Brooks so well said in The History of the World, Part I: "It's good to be the king!"

If you're not mad as hell, there's something wrong with you. If you aren't letting your elected reprehensives know you're mad as hell, they'll keep right on ignoring the problems of the average American and running the country into the ground.

Do you have any idea what we could do with 407 billion dollars? What we could do with the 23.9 million dollars the disgraced CEO's of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting? The crumbling infrastructure we could repair? The schools we could adequately fund? The essential regulatory structures we could replace? The Social Security system we could keep solvent?

If you're not voting for Bilbo's Reformed Republicratic Party, vote for Nobody. Nobody is the real candidate this year.

Have a good day. Get mad. Really mad.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo