During the prosperity of the '40s and '50s, there emerged a phenomenon known as "keeping up with the Joneses," defined by some as "spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't even like."
Today, that seems to be the official policy of the administration of (President) Barack Hussein Obama, with the added twist that the people they seek to impress don't like us, either. Our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being squandered around the world on developing nations for food, medicines, disaster relief, electrical power plants, military hardware, even computers and cell phones, as well as to replace infrastructure we've destroyed with our attempts at nation-building and even to countries such as Brazil for oil exploration while a moratorium remains in effect in our own country, destroying countless jobs for skilled oil field workers who want to work as the high price of oil and gas drives up the price of everything else.
Meanwhile, we print money to pay the interest on money we borrowed from China as it floods our markets with cheap, inferior products and buy up investment properties even as close as Toledo and scold us about the devaluation of our dollar.
Our own nation's infrastructure is crumbling, and tons of toxic waste seep into our rivers and streams and ultimately our drinking water every day from failing sewer systems. In some large cities, the water mains no longer can be shut down for badly needed maintenance for fear they will collapse from the drop in pressure, and electrical grids are inadequate for the needs of the people in even average temperature swings, resulting in brownouts and failures, while our highways and bridges have decayed to dangerous levels already causing collapses that have cost the lives of unlucky motorists. (If you ride a motorcycle, you may have noticed increased road hazards in the last years on major highways as they are more obvious than is a car or van.) These problems will only multiply and feed on themselves as the population increases and nature continues a natural cycle of weather extremes and maintenance continues to be under funded.
Where are the billions of taxpayer dollars that were designated for shovel-ready projects creating millions of jobs under the president's laser-like focus on unemployment? Most of these projects supposedly are bogged down in federal regulations and red tape while the money leaches away in administrative costs. Bull! The funds have been siphoned off to the public employee unions for donations to Obama's re-election campaign, which is his only real concern.
And in the middle of all this, what are the two most pressing problems our Congress and Senate in Washington have concentrated their efforts on in the past week?
Anthony Weiner's underwear photos and Sarah Palin's three year old e-mails! God help America!
D.F. Heimrick,
McCutchenville
