The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, a line taken from a Scottish poem and implemented in John Steinbeck's "Mice and Men".

I am beginning to wonder if this statement is not entirely applicable to the current situation on Capitol Hill.

A conversation with my beloved leant some credence to what I had already suspect - the Obama administration is running at a hundred miles an hour, barely able to see the forest for the trees.

In fact, I am sure everyone on Capitol Hill is experiencing the same type of tunnel vision.

First of all, Mr. President...SLOW DOWN. Take a breather. Relax. Regardless of what Madonna and Justin Timberlake think, you cannot save the world in four minutes.

I am ALL FOR the creation of new jobs, bolstering the infrastructure and ESPECIALLY promoting education. It may be too much to extrapolate on the preamble of our fair founding document, but to "promote the general welfare" does imply a certain amount of governmental responsibility to ensuring that ALL men have a fair shot at a good life. Even Thomas Jefferson, avid reader and lover of books noted that a well educated people is the basis for a well regulated nation. And yet today in America one cannot hope to get a job without a slip of paper that proves they are capable of such work, nevermind what their natural talents lend themselves to.

And yet I cannot help but wonder just where in the hell this "stimulus" money is going to come from. The government certainly doesn't have it. The PEOPLE sure as hell don't. And why is the government not avidly tearing down these megaconglomerates that are hoarding their skimmed riches in off shore bank accounts so their company CEOs can head off to a spa in Tahiti before the next board meeting? Why are we not privatizing and regulating the cost of health care? And why the hell is it going to cost me close to $30,000.00 to put my daughter through college?

It's one thing to try to bolster a failing economy with the hopes of bouncing back our national profit, but you can just expect to spend $800 billion you DON'T HAVE and make it work. The only way is to surge that money back to be people...lower the health care costs so people can afford to take care of themselves, and give everyone a chance to build upon there own talents and work ethics without busting their bank. You want to create jobs? Give kids a chance to educate themselves so they can TAKE jobs first.

There's a huge miscenception here that I think has been overlooked...we are only treating the symptoms and not curing the cancer. The heart of the problem is not in wars and not in government silver linings...though these things ARE a big chunk of it. The REAL issue is John Q. Public making an @$$ of itself by undermining the whole American economy. Who in the hell in their right mind would go out an purchase a house they cannot afford, having no intention of paying it back? Or buying $5000 vacations under the same principle? Borrowing against banks, playing with air money and wittling down an already delicate balance between government ordered risky loans and outsourcing American jobs? Come on, folks...you know better than that. Just because you spent your allowance doesn't mean you can steal money from your daddy's wallet.

Or expect him to pay bail and get you out of jail.

PEOPLE need to be more responsible and less greedy. Big business and hoity-toity educational institutions need to rethink their policy on milking the populace of every last shilling. And we certainly don't need to be generating any more debt than is necessary by letting our leaders practice the same damn folly that put our economy in the tank.

Ah yes. The best laid plans of mice and men...truly DO go awry.