Monday Musings: April 4. 2011

I’ve spent the day avoiding writing this. Having noted fellow blogger, Blue Lyon’s comment on Facebook ( Carissa Snedeker “Is tired of bad news”) I understood what was bothering me, and keeping away from the keyboard.

I’m tired of bad news, too.

I’m also tired of ‘camping out’ at home. We’ve been on some serious water/flushing rationing for about 10 days now. The big dig finally started this morning ( three days to figure it out and a week to get the permit), and I’ve been assured that I’ll be back in business for the most part by end of day tomorrow.

Here’s what we’re facing.

Boy, we’re having fun now. The 40 year old leach field failed, and the new one needs to go underneath our concrete driveway. Wheee! At least the concrete was horrible and it really needed to go away to be replaced by pavers. But selfish me, I’d like a vacation this year, too … not having had one for about four years now.

Then came the notice for jury duty.

But you can’t let this stuff get you down (she said, teeth gritted). How many other places can you live where it’s tempting to go skiing, but you opt to go for a lovely 12 mile bike ride instead? I did finally get the road bike out and am starting this season at 3200 miles on the odometer. I reckon to get about 800 to 1,000 miles more by fall.

As I tell everybody, biking is good for what ails you.

So is pie. Everybody should have a neighbor that makes a great pie. Since we’ve been caging dinners from all our friends - so as not to have to use water for dishes, and avail ourselves of their potties and laundry facilities - we’ve had some nifty meals.

Isn’t this the purtiest lattice pie crust you’ve ever seen? This is why I rarely attempt pie. It’s best left to those who do it the best, and that’s Peg O’Malley. This beauty is chock full of her own pie cherries from last summer. Oooooooh.

Pie is another thing that can cure the blues.

If you haven’t already, you must read the article by Diedre Pike on Gov. Brian Sandoval’s delusional smoke and mirrors attempt at creating the illusion that everything’s gonna be all right in Nevada - as soon as he brings in some of those BIG businesses that are looking to pay no taxes.

The operative question of the day for Nevada: How far can you spread them legs apart - with still no ‘takers’ - before you get a clue?

When we ask nothing of any of our large businesses that are already here, how can you offer ‘incentives’ without robbing the already broken cities, counties, schools and the rest? The robbing Peter to pay Paul approach hasn’t worked, yet they keep trying to sell it!

A while back I was talking about the National Priorities Project website and one of my readers sent me a link to some interesting numbers - federal dollars that are no longer coming to Nevadans who need it the most. Help to low income persons for any sort of energy assistance is being slashed. Yup. There’s always plenty to give away to corporations though.

As Pike says: It’s the education system, stupid.

True to form, when things get tight budgetwise, the usual Republicorp suspects start chiming in for a ‘balanced budget amendment’. Sen. Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn are leading the charge of the fool’s brigade this time around.

“Millions of working families across the country balance their checks every year; their government should do the same,” they wrote in a letter to colleagues.

This is pure political theatre, based on nothing. It certainly isn’t about fiscal responsibility. The odds of it coming to fruition are between nil and none, but the GOP will keep dangling this current ‘fresh meat’ for the Teabagger Nation, in their continuing attempt to distract voters from the realities that aren’t being addressed. Even conservative observers are appalled.

“It is about the most irresponsible action imaginable,” said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It would virtually ensure that an economic downturn would end up as a deep depression, by erasing any real ability of the government to pursue countercyclical fiscal policies and in fact demanding the opposite, at the worst possible time.”

Duh. Balanced budgets in government are a cruel joke left over from the Reagan era - he who never submitted one, BTW.  It’s a gimmick to enable Congress to avoid the odious task of doing the hard, miserable work of raising revenues in addition to cutting spending. It wastes time with the un-doable. In these days of super-charged partisan politics, getting the needed majorities to pass a Constitutional amendment would happen after hell froze over. It just ain’t that easy. Even that nitwit Paul Ryan’s awful Roadmap for America can’t make the budget balance until about 2063. The Great Depression proved that running a balanced budget is actually a bad idea during hard times. The GOP insisted that FDR move into balanced budget/deficit reduction mode and essentially prolonged the misery. Finally, the myth that states do a balanced budget all time ignores that states - unlike the federal government - have operating budget which can be balanced and then capital budgets to fund things like infrastructure.

As usual, the GOP thinks that saying something inaccurate often enough will just magically make it true.

On that note, we’re on our way over to friends who are feeding us tonight. Tomorrow I go forth to try and cut better deals on pavers. A thousand here, and a thousand there … and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Cheers. Check in occasionally.

-maven