What to think.

I am no more comfortable with the state of our Union today than I was yesterday. President Obama is an orator of the highest order, while listening to him it is easy to be swept along in the current of his words and the emotions of his message.

I like that as a Nation we are attempting to do something and I find it difficult to criticize with out offering another solution. I do not have a solution, I do have concerns, when the person directly responsible for increasing the size of government looks me in the eye and tells me he is against big government, it makes me uneasy. When the person responsible for increasing the budget substantially tells me he is going to halve the budget, I get uneasy.

I fear that without decreasing the size of the bureaucracy, and the fines, fees, and taxes associated with it, we are not going to arrive anywhere good. The new President is not decreasing the size of the bureaucracy, he is expanding it and that makes me feel uneasy.

Child Rearing

Raising children is difficult, and depending on the child, can be very frustrating. I do not have a strong grip on what motivates my son David. I do not know why he makes the decisions that he makes. At five years old he as had consequence explained to him and he has demonstrated an understanding of this concept. When the time comes to make a decision the lesson can be lost on the boy, his desires become paramount and anything standing in the way of achieving them is in jeopardy.

Today David misbehaved, he demonstrated a complete lack of respect to his teachers and classmates. This is not the first time he has done so and I have no confidence that it will not happen again. The professionals at his pre-school say things like "he needs structure". I believe he has structure, we all sit down for dinner every night, we go to bed at the same time every night, we brush our teeth and say our prayers, we eat our breakfast every morning and are reprimanded with a" time out" when we misbehave.

The other two children are not prone to the same behaviors as David and sometimes I worry that there might be something wrong.

Most importantly, I do not like it, his behavior is a poor reflection and I need to understand how to help him behave better.

4 Million Jobs

I watched the President last night, he is a dynamic and informative person. I appreciate the way that he answers questions with solutions and explanations of his solutions. President Obama lets you know where he stands and why he has chosen to stand there.

President Obama wants the current economic stimulus package to generate 4 million jobs. He wants there to be sustainable growth in emerging industries and he is open to ideas that achieve these goals.

I do not trust Congress to spend 800 billion dollars prudently. Listening to the press conference last night I got the feeling that they lost the first half, 400 billion dollars of the bank bailout and are going to "try" not to lose the next 350 billion dollars. It does not seem possible that our Nation can continue to spend and remain solvent. Remain solvent? We are not and will not be for a very long time.

If our plan is to spend 800 billion dollars, why not give it back to the people and let us lose it. How many tax paying citizens of The United States are there? Google says 130,000,000. I do not have a calculator that can handle this many zero's but when I work it out the old algebra way I think it comes out to around 6 million 150 thousand dollars per tax payer. If we could cap inflation and pump this money into the productive sector of our society do you think that would help? Or open an entirely different can of worms? I am not sure.

800 billion dollars is an exorbitant sum to fund 4 million jobs. That 800 billion dollars could make a significant difference in 130 million lives tomorrow. I am afraid of Government and do not want it involved in the day to day business of its citizens. Our Government grants us privileges and its job is to protect those privileges. The Constitution refers to these privileges as "Rights". When it starts impeding these privileges and running the financial system the end is near.

Things are spinning out of control and I fear that there is not a politician who can stop it. Hang on life is going to get interesting.

One Trillion Dollars

Obama has put a 1 Trillion dollar economic stimulus package out there and it is getting killed! Conservative talk show host and legislators across the nation are ripping it to shreds.
What's a President to do?
I say reach out to the GOP and ask them for their plan. What steps do they feel the Nation should take to climb out of this mess?
Until the agendas of both sides are put on the table it is impossible to work towards a consensus.
This strategy would put the GOP on the hot seat, instead of criticizing they would be put in a position to create.
I say divide the $ trillion up between the tax paying citizens of the United States of America. that would stimulate my economy.

The Tutu Boutique

Yesterday our site and emails went down. Things seem to be back up and running. The contact information for people with questions is heidi at tutuboutique dot com. if you need to call 978-335-8675.