Congress: Massively Incompetent and the Resulting Budget Fiasco

The Democrats and the 2010 Budget Fiasco

BY Gary Andres

September 30, 2010

The 2010 federal fiscal year ended unceremoniously this week – a political and substantive fiasco for the Democrats. It included a cascade of miscalculations that could haunt the party in the November elections.  But that pales in comparison to the serious harm they’ve inflicted on the American economy.

Never before has a party so bungled fiscal policy in the United States, leaving citizens, businesses, and investors with head-spinning uncertainty.

Failure to pass a budget earlier this year began the debacle, but the cavalcade of missteps continued this week with the passage of a so-called Continuing Resolution (CR) to avoid an October 1 government shutdown.

Let’s start with the annual budget plan – or lack thereof.   Facing one of the worst long-term debt and deficit crises in the past half century, Democrats in Congress decided to kick the can and skip developing a blueprint this year.

This is truly unconscionable.  How can the Democrats – with large majorities in the House and the Senate – look voters in the eye and say, we have no plan – no long term schematic to ensure America won’t become another Greece.  The only thing  more unbelievable is that they apparently got away with it because no one seems to notice.

This dereliction of duty is unprecedented. Never in the history of the modern process – dating back more than a quarter of a century – have both the House and the Senate failed to pass a budget resolution.

Investors would dump shares of a business that projected massive amounts of future debt, but told shareholders, ‘Sorry, we don’t have a plan to deal with it.’ It’s one of the reasons political markets put a strong ‘sell’ signal on the Democratic majority.

The majority party’s ‘dog ate my homework’ approach means fiscal year 2011  spending bills languish; funding levels for all of next year’s programs is uncertain; and deficit projections rival faith healers in terms of their trustworthiness.

Because Congress failed to pass a budget or enact any appropriations bills this year, lawmakers will have to rely on a CR to avoid a government shutdown.

But even a CR, which some will pitch as a “freeze at last year’s spending levels,” is a fiscal charade – the second act in this year’s budget fiasco.

Freezing spending at current levels sounds good at first blush. But as the Heritage Foundation pointed out in an August report, non-defense discretionary spending already grew at 28 percent over the past two years.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that non-defense discretionary spending is now at 4.5 percent of GDP – the highest level in 25 years.  A CR just “freezes” spending at these already higher levels.

Today’s politics demands a “melt,” not a freeze.  In other words, a CR should not just continue the status quo, but also acknowledge the public’s demand for a least some kind of fiscal belt-tightening.

Yet even modest cuts in spending offend many congressional Democrats’ ideological predispositions. Keynes is still king in their minds, particularly liberals in safe districts, insulated from distractions of viable Republican challengers or pesky swing voters concerned about the size of government.

The third act of the fiasco concerns tax policy’s future. The media focuses on whether or not rates should snap back to their 2001 levels for everyone or only those for individuals earning over $200,000 or families making over $250,000.

Republicans say no one’s taxes should go up; Democrats want to increase rates on individual, family and small business income over $200,000 (individuals) or $250,000 (families).  Why not schedule a vote to alleviate the uncertainty? Well, it’s Because the Republican position would likely prevail.  Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid are using their unchallenged rules powers to sidestep a vote.

Democrats’ budget fiasco also caused an avalanche of other tax ambiguity.  What are the taxes on inheritance (now zero because the old rates expired at the beginning of this year)?   How about rates on capitals gains and dividends?  Then there is the issue of the Alternative Minimum Tax and child tax credits.

This fiscal indecision has harmed businesses, individuals, and investors seeking certainty.  No one knows what they will pay in future taxes – confusion that freezes needed capital investments and job creation decisions.

Democrats this year presided over a fiscal policy catastrophe. Their inability to craft a sensible budget plan, their failure to use the CR to signal spending restraint, and the sea of confusion they created over tax policy, provides voters with a host of reasons to pull the plug on a congressional majority already in critical condition. 

Published on The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com)

U.S. In Decline

Forget a Recession, The Empire is Crumbling

Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research on 09/23/2010 12:50 -0500

I look around me and I see an Empire in Decline.

The US economy is clearly in a depression… not a recession, not a recovery, but a DEPRESSION. More than 40 million Americans (12%) are on Food stamps. Nearly one in five of us are unemployed of underemployed. Folks go to Wal-Mart at 11PM waiting for their government checks to clear at midnight so they can buy baby formula, milk and other necessities.

Three out of every five Americans are overweight. One in five are obese. Indeed, there are only two areas (one state, Colorado, and Washington DC) where obesity rates are under 20%.

Nearly three in four of us don’t get enough sleep.  Almost one third of us report having trouble falling asleep EVERY night. And almost half of us report that day-time sleepiness interferes with normal activities including work.

Half of marriages end in divorce. One out of ten married couples report sleeping alone. The average American watches 28 hours of TV a week (enough to qualify for a part-time job). Two thirds of us eat dinner while watching TV, preferring the fake, sensationalized lives of others to engaging with our own families.

The TV and media are filled with foul, ungodly images of sex, violence, and hate. The most watched shows of the last decade all feature ordinary folks becoming superstars in lottery-esque competitions (American Idol, Survivor, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, etc) OR crime sagas detailing the most sordid and disgusting elements of society (CSI, Law and Order, etc) OR amoral social dramas in which notions of personal responsibility, fidelity, and common decency are unknown (Desperate Housewives, the Bachelorette, etc).

Today, brain dead, vapid human beings who have contributed nothing to society are idolized and followed as though they invented the wheel.  We’ve actually got two industries devoted to presenting the illusion and reality of celebrity: Hollywood shows the photo-shopped, CGI-enhanced, scripted version, while the paparazzi and weekly glossies reveal the drug-addicted, affair-crazed, family breaking, soul-less emptiness.

Sex or violence are plastered on virtually every flat surface available. Even the check-out lines at the grocery store feature endless images of barely clothed women along with headlines sensationalizing gruesome behavior, right out in the open for children to see. And if the kid can actually read the headlines… God only knows what ideas this stuff is putting into their heads.

Financially, we’re all pretty much bust or going bust (except those on Wall Street).

New home sales in July were a RECORD low. Not record as in for the year, but the lowest since 1963. The talking heads are high fiving because sales improved in August, but failed to note that they were still DOWN 19% from August 2009 levels.

Americans two primary assets for retirement (stocks and their homes) have both been absolute disasters. Home prices are down 30%, stocks haven’t produced gains in over a decade. Every moron on TV talks about the Dow 10,000 like it’s a miracle. But when you adjust the Dow for inflation, (using the BLS’ ridiculous CPI measure) the Dow is SUB-500 in terms of purchasing power.

Our money system is controlled by an elite banking oligarchy fronted by academics who have never run a business, invented anything, or had any interaction with commerce aside from vying for tenure. Our currency is now worth less than 1/20^th of what it was a century ago. And we are ALL in debt up to our eyeballs on a personal, corporate, local, state, and federal level.

Heck, even USA TODAY (not exactly the cutting edge in financial research) notes that in order to pay off our current liabilities, every US family would have to pay $31,000 a year… for 75 YEARS!!!

And we’re talking about an economic recovery?

According to David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff:

·      Wages & salaries are still down 3.7% from the prior peak;

·      Corporate profits are still down 20% from the peak;

·      Real GDP is still down 1.3% from the peak;

·      Industrial production is still down 7.2% from the peak;

·      Employment is still down 5.5% from the peak;

·      Retail sales are still down 4.5% from the peak;

·      Manufacturing orders are still down 22.1% from the peak;

·      Manufacturing shipments are still down 12.5% from the peak;

·      Exports are still down 9.2% from the peak;

·      Housing starts are still down 63.5% from the peak;

·      New home sales are still down 68.9% from the peak;

·      Existing home sales are still down 41.2% from the peak;

·      Non-residential construction is still down 35.7% from the peak.

The American Psychological Association reports that 73% of Americans cite money as a source of significant stress. Personal bankruptcies have fallen 8% month over month from July to August. However, August 2010 bankruptcies are up 6% from August 2009… so much for the recovery.

And yet, despite all of this, assumedly intelligent people write op-ed articles and appear on TV claiming that things are swell in the US, that we’re actually OK and that the recession is over. Some of these people even have advanced degrees or have won international prizes for economics.

Let’s be honest. Forget recessions, forget even Depressions, the US is an empire in decline.

You can literally see it crumbling right in front of you. Just start looking at how people live, eat, and act on a day to day basis. Look at how our Government runs itself, how it manages our affairs, how it spends our tax Dollars. Look at how our justice system works, who it protects and who it punishes.

It’s all out there, right in the open for you to see. You don’t need an expert degree or some kind of advanced education. It’s OBVIOUS to anyone who bothers looking around.

The fact we don’t admit it doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The Failure of Obama's Stimulus

And who outside Washington, D.C. didn't see this one coming?

The Failure of Obama's Stimulus

Big spending has only produced bigger government.

Steve Chapman | September 23, 2010

No one spends money like the federal government. This year alone, it will shovel out $3.7 trillion, which works out to $7 million a minute. So it may surprise you to find out the clearest lesson from the Obama administration's fiscal stimulus program: The government is not very good at spending money.

On the contrary, it's slow and clumsy. Nearly a third of the $787 billion package, signed into law in February 2009, was assigned to infrastructure projects—from fixing roads and building bridges to weatherizing buildings and upgrading electrical grids.

The idea was to simultaneously improve our physical facilities while putting people back to work, which in turn would provide a badly needed surge of adrenaline to the overall economy. But it hasn't quite worked out that way.

The Wall Street Journal reports that 19 months after the plan was approved, federal agencies have managed to use only one-third of the infrastructure money. Federal contracting rules and labor requirements are among the hurdles that have slowed the process down.

This is not entirely unexpected. The Congressional Budget Office said before the program was approved that less than half the infrastructure money would be spent in the first two years.

That's always been one of the big problems with using fiscal policy—changes in spending and taxes—to manage the level of activity in the economy. By the time a policy takes effect, it may be too late to serve the original purpose.

Supporters insist there's no such danger this time, since the economic recovery has been feeble and promises to remain that way. A Bloomberg survey of economists found that most expect the unemployment rate to stay above 9 percent until 2012.

But if that's true, it doesn't say much for the potency of fiscal policy in boosting short-term growth. Obama's program, after all, is the biggest stimulus package, as a share of the economy, in our history. Yet it has landed with the force of a damp sponge.

If the slow-arriving infrastructure spending were the only component, the weak comeback might be understandable. But the other components of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were designed to get money out in a big hurry.

The program included $282 billion in tax cuts, which took effect immediately to boost the take-home pay of workers. It also furnished $140 billion in aid to state and local governments, so they could maintain programs and avoid mass layoffs of public employees.

What's wrong with those elements? For one thing, there is no compelling evidence that they function as intended. Tax cuts are supposed to induce consumers to spend more, but past experience indicates that people use most of the windfall to increase their savings or pay down debts—neither of which puts people back to work.

A recent study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, by Joel Slemrod and Matthew Shapiro of the University of Michigan and Claudia Sahm of the Federal Reserve Board, says that's exactly what happened with Obama's tax cut. The effect on spending, they concluded, was "modest at best."

Giving money to states and municipalities to spare them from firing teachers and slashing social programs undoubtedly achieves that simple purpose. But when it comes to generating economic activity, it's flying on a wing and a prayer.

Economists William Gale and Benjamin Harris of the Brookings Institution and Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, note in a new paper that "while the argument for transfers to states being stimulative is plausible, there is surprisingly little evidence on the countercyclical effects of federal transfers to states."

It is safe to say, though, that they have a destructive impact on taxpayers. During good times, states and cities tend to enlarge their budgets, rather than put money away for a rainy day. Economic downturns serve as a corrective by forcing these governments to eliminate low-value programs to live within their new constraints.

When the federal government bails them out during a recession, it spares them this unpleasant obligation. It invites them to keep spending more than they can really afford.

Of course, the use of deficit spending as a cure for recession has the same effect at the federal level—reinforcing our leaders' habit of loading debt onto future generations.

As a way of expanding the economy, it's a proven failure. But as a way of expanding government, it's definitely a keeper.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Let's Fix Washington NOW! It is HUGHLY Broken!

THIS IS HOW TO FIX THE U.S. HOUSE AND SENATE!

I am sending this to virtually everybody on my e-mail list and that includes conservatives, liberals, and everybody in between. Even though we disagree on a number of issues, I count all of you as friends.  My friend and neighbor wants to promote a "Congressional Reform Act of 2010". It would contain eight provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I know many of you will say, "this is impossible".  Let me remind you, Congress has the lowest approval of any entity in Government. Now is the time when Americans will join together to reform Congress - the entity that represents us.

We need to get a Senator to introduce this bill in the U.S. Senate and a Representative to introduce a similar bill in the U.S. House.  These people will become American heroes. 

Thanks,

A Fellow American

Congressional Reform Act of 2010

First principle: Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below:

A. Two Six-year Senate terms

B. Six Two-year House terms

C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.  A congressman shall collect a salary while in office and shall receive no pay when they are out of office. 

3.  Congress (past, present & future) shall participate in Social Security.  All funds in the Congressional retirement fund shall move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system. Congress shall participate with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

5. Congress shall no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay shall rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress shall lose its current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen shall become void effective 2011 January 1. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen; Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

If not now – WHEN?

You Are Ungovernable! You Are A Bigot!

The last refuge of a liberal

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, August 27, 2010

cc: Washington Post

Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."

Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.

Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.

As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays -- particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?

And now the mosque near Ground Zero. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.

It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" -- blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims -- a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, "just downright mean"?

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.

Election 2010 - Election 2012

Election 2010 --- Election 2012


Read this slowly, let it sink in, VOTE in November

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be “ please read it!! (all the way to the end)

The article below is completely neutral, ...not anti republican or democrat. 

Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. 

It's a short but good read.  Worth the time.  Worth remembering! 

545 vs. 300,000,000 

EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE.  READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE. 

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years. 

545 PEOPLE--By Charlie Reese 

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.. 

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? 

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? 

You and I don't propose a federal budget.  The president does. 

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.  The House of Representatives does. 

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. 

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. 

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. 

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. 

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.  In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank. 

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.  They have no legal authority.  They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing.  I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.  The politician has the power to accept or reject it.  No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes. 

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault.  They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. 

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.  No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.... .  The president can only propose a budget.  He cannot force the Congress to accept it. 

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.  Who is the speaker of the House?  Nancy Pelosi.  She is the leader of the majority party.  She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want.  If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. 

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 
545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility.  I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.  When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. 

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. 

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .. 

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. 

There are no insoluble government problems. 

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.  Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. 

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. 

They, and they alone, have the power.. 

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. 

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... 

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! 
  
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. 

What you do with this article now that you have read it.........  Is up to you. 


Count 'em ----

Sales Tax 
School Tax 
Liquor Tax 
Luxury Tax 
Excise Taxes 
Property Tax 
Cigarette Tax 
Medicare Tax 
Inventory Tax 
Real Estate Tax 
Well Permit Tax 
Fuel Permit Tax 
Inheritance Tax 
Road Usage Tax 
CDL license Tax 
Dog License Tax 
State Income Tax 
Food License Tax 
Vehicle Sales Tax 
Gross Receipts Tax 
Social Security Tax 
Service Charge Tax 
Fishing License Tax 
Federal Income Tax 
Building Permit Tax 
IRS Interest Charges 
Hunting License Tax 
Marriage License Tax 
Corporate Income Tax 
Personal Property Tax 
Accounts Receivable Tax 
Recreational Vehicle Tax 
Workers Compensation Tax 
Watercraft Registration Tax 
Telephone Usage Charge Tax 
Telephone Federal Excise Tax 
Telephone State and Local Tax 
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) 
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) 
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) 
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax 
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax 
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes 
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax 
  

NOT ONE of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world.


We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. 

What in the hell happened?  Can you spell 'politicians? ' I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!! 


YOU can help it get there!!! 

GO AHEAD - - - BE AN AMERICAN!!! 


PASS THIS LINK ON TO THOSE WHO CARE!
Thank You

Where We Are Today

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER This one is a little different...... Two Different Versions.... Two Different Morals       OLD VERSION   The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant  is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!  MODERN VERSION  The ant  works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a pressconference and demands to know why the ant should beallowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.  CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.  Liberal America is stunned by the sharp contrast.  How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?  Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopperand everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'  ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's housewhere the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.    The President condemns the ant and blames all the former Presidents...from the other Party plus Christopher Columbus and the Pope for the grasshopper's  plight. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on theant  to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar  and given to the grasshopper.  The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's  old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood. The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.   I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant - not a grasshopper!  Make sure that you pass this on to other ants.  Don't bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldn'tunderstand it, anyway. And that's where we are today!