New Years Resolutions

12 Jan, ’07

It seems to be a long standing tradition to talk about new years resolutions immediately after the holidays, and far be it from me to break with such a hallowed thing as tradition. So… Washington, are you ready for this?

It’s my understanding that Homeland Security has a new training program for those wonderful TSA folks who inspect you and your baggage at the airport. It seems that they’re paying attention to the claim that they’re not sensitive enough to the wounded feelings of Muslim travelers. Now that in itself isn’t a problem, as I also get a little upset when I have to let some stranger rummage through my bags, empty my pockets of the last bit of change, explain that the mini-bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in my pocket really is Doctor prescribed medication, remove my belt buckle and shoes, and then pass through an x-ray machine or metal detector. Muslims seem to think that this is unjust treatment while they’re traveling on a pilgrimage or something, so Homeland Security apparently plans to ease the procedure for Muslims. Of course your 87 year old Grandmother will still be strip searched, the lady traveling with a baby will have to unpack all that paraphernalia while holding a squirming kid, and my cowboy hat apparently indicates that I need lots of special attention to make sure that I don’t have a six-gun hidden in my boot heel.

So… how about the folks in our nations capitol make a resolution to relax all this nonsense, eliminate quite a few of these make-work security jobs, and maybe cut part of the public tax burden at the same time?

Another problem seems to be Social Security funding, lack thereof. Social Security has been around since the 1930’s, and working Americans have been required to pay a percentage of their wages into the system. After all that time, you’d think that there’s be quite a lot of money in the bank, and I understand there was… until congress needed more money for their insistent pork barrel programs. Now, Social Security is nearly broke and has become Social Insecurity. As tampering with the Social Security system is seen as being tantamount to political suicide, nothing ever gets done about the problem, except to continue robbing the trust account and blaming the “other” party for it.

It really seems an easy enough problem to solve… Congress, make a resolution to keep your sticky fingers out of the public retirement kitty, and start replacing the money you’ve stolen… ahh… “borrowed” over the last seventy years. Do that, and social security will be rolling in dough!

From all the commotion on the news about the war in Iraq, perhaps we ought to look at that little problem as well. We’ve known for a couple of years now that al-Qaeda was pretty well wiped-out in Afghanistan, along with most of the Taliban. For all intents and purposes (except the headlines), the war on terror is over, and we won. BUT (and that’s a pretty big word), if we continue to retain the US armed forces in Muslim countries, and keep pushing them around, we’re going to instigate “War on Terror – part II”. That could get nasty, as we wouldn’t be facing a few disgruntled Islamic fundamentalists anymore, but rather we’ll have a billion Muslims mad at us… Muslims who just happen to own seventy-five percent of the worlds oil supply, and a lot of hi-tech weapons systems. Iraq is after all a civil war, not the war on terror. If the Iraqi’s really want to kill each other off, that’s their problem, not mine. Don’t forget that this hate session has been going on just fine without our help for over a thousand years now. As to the “insurgency”, what would you think might have happened in 1861, if somebody had invaded the US, to “keep the peace”? Bobby Lee, and U.S. Grant would have joined forces, done some serious attitude adjusting, and gone right back to shooting at each other just as soon as the last foreign soldier left for home. Why should the Iraqi’s have a different attitude? In addition, somebody in the Puzzle Palace on the Hill really ought to remember that we got the seat of our pants kicked up around our ears in Somalia a few years back. Yet today, the Ethiopians seem to be doing a pretty good job of straightening out that situation. Perhaps we ought to send them a couple of shiploads of replacement ammunition, point them towards Iraq, and just keep our mouths shut.

So, if Congress will make a resolution to remember that the United States can’t afford to be the world’s policeman (and nobody asked us to either), perhaps our troops can come home, and stay home as well. Halliburton can subsidize themselves.

Then we have the high cost of health care. For one thing, I can remember the days when Doctors actually made house calls, drove a five year old horse and buggy, and didn’t make annual pilgrimages to the beaches of Hawaii, so I’m probably not the best judge of what’s a fair price for medical care. Still, I rather think the problems stems from the outrageous fees that Medicare and the health insurance companies pay out, as an excuse to fleece the public out of even more tax money. As socialized medicine doesn’t seem to be working all that well in other countries, perhaps we ought to forget that idea, and go after the financial angle.

Yo, Congress, put a heavy duty cap on the prices Medicare pays out, look into using the excess profits laws on the health care industry, and start investigating the huge bills that are being submitted.

Oh well, who keeps new years resolutions anyhow?