J's Cafe Nette

We did this to ourselves. We can blame Bush, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter and so on all the way back to Noah. But the plain, simple fact is we are the ones responsible for this economic mess we are now trying to clean up.

Depending on your politics there is enough blame to go around in both major political parties, from the Republican Congress going spend happy and acting like Democrats to Democrats such as Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd insisting banks were failing and causing a run on them, to insisting banks grant loans for mortgages to people who did not qualify for the loans.

We can blame ourselves individually or as a group if it makes you feel better. I’m not going to take any responsibility for it because I know how my husband and I have lived our adult lives.

We bought our first house in 1971 for $18,000, and a monthly payment (including escrow) of around $150. That was high for us and my husband worked two jobs in order for us to afford it and for me to stay home with our children.

Our children got older and money was tight so I went back to work over my husband’s objections.

We built the house we now occupy in 1979 for $39,900 and a payment of somewhere around $400-$450 a month, including escrow.

We were told we could have afforded a house for twice the amount, based on the formula the bank used, but we knew that formula was too rosy for us and we opted to build according to what we could safely afford to pay. Our house has been paid off for several years now and we never missed a payment. Nor were any payments late. We even paid an extra $100 or so a month to reduce the principal.

When interest rates dropped we refinanced. We did this twice and reduced the amount of years to pay back to fifteen at first and then ten later. Still we paid it off early.

Now we hear Obama wants to spend at least $75 billion to bail out people who over-extended themselves and are now behind on their mortgages because they were only paying interest anyway due to the prices of the homes they bought.

People like you and my husband and I are now going to be forced to subsidize mortgages for those who wanted it all and wanted it all then. No common sense; just a sense of entitlement, and now Uncle Sam is going to bail them out.

Uncle Sam is you and me. We are the ones who will foot the bill, along with our grandchildren three generations removed from us.

Congress passed the biggest spending bill in our history and is even now saying it’s not enough. We have to subsidize banks, auto companies, housing, medical care and anything else we haven’t been subsidizing before now.

According to the polls some of you think that’s just fine because you think you will benefit from the largesse. But remember, what the government giveth, the government can taketh away and can put such restrictions on it as to make you think you have touched a hot poker.

I worked for the telephone company and I lived under an umbrella of uncertainty about my job security from the time of divestiture in 1984 until my office was finally closed in 1998.

Every single time rumors floated or management threatened to close the office we would go to the drawing board and see where we were financially should I lose my job. We always had a plan and that plan did not include the possibility of me working and bringing in income for much time.

Somehow we managed to put children through college, buy new cars, pay all our bills and have some money for recreation all without having to ask anyone to help us but ourselves.

This is why I have no sympathy for those who failed to use common sense and make sure they could afford what they were getting even if their income dropped. *note* I am not referring to the people who played by the rules but had something catastrophic happen such as illness or personal circumstances that could not be foreseen.*

Obama and Biden each flew to Colorado for the stimulus bill signing, four days after it was passed in such a hurry because we were in a “catastrophe” situation.

Planes the size of AF One and Two, 757’s cost $50,000 per hour to use. Then Obama hopped aboard and flew to Arizona, where Sen. Jon Kyle says it’s a ten hour flight from there to Washington DC, all so he could tell a crowd 25 times in a single speech about housing that we are in a “crisis”. I don’t know if Biden went along for the campaign photo op or not.

TARP I was an “emergency”, stimulus was to avert a “catastrophe” even to the point of dragging Sen. Sherrod Brown away from his mother’s wake and flying him, at taxpayer expense, to Washington to cast the sixtieth aye vote. It was that “urgent”, but it took Obama four days just for staff to sort through the bill and get it all in order for him to sign with his $300 Mont Blanc pens. That and a million dollars to fly these two jokers to the west for a campaign trip.

I don’t know about anyone else, because I seem not to have a finger on the pulse of my own country anymore, but I have reached the end of my rope and it was reached as soon as I heard about this spendulus bill.

Barack Obama has already become so tired of the White House he now has to fly home to Chicago so he can go out to dinner with his wife. At the cost of $50,000 per hour for the plane (using 2004 prices for fuel) and who knows how much for his security staff to stay in or around his house to protect the family. I don’t begrudge him his time off, but in this economic “crisis” situation and for a weekend? He worked two years constantly so he could live in the White House and before he’s in office for a month he’s already complaining of how lonely it is. Should have thought about that two years ago.

They live in the White House! Couldn’t they have found a nice dining area where they could have had their chef (who was brought from Chicago because he cooks all those weird foods they like) fix them a nice meal?

This man who grew up on foodstamps eats food now I can’t even pronounce. I liked that Bush 43 ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. At least I can identify with that and he was brought up by aristocrats.

It is now time for the people of this country to tell Obama and all the people of his administration and the Congress that we are their employers and not the other way around. We get that you won and you can write the bills, but we also get that we can boot you out when you come up for re-election.

It’s up to us. Hold their feet to the fire or follow them like sheep to the slaughter. If you do the latter, America, I will not join you.

Want to see someone else express my feelings? Watch this.

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