Romney’s Real Olympic Record

From 147DegreesWest: A great short overview of tax dollars used to make Mitt’s Winter Olympics successful.  (Subscribe to YouTube channel here.)

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30 year Home Econ Teacher Diagnoses President Obama

A friend of mine sent this to me this morning, in response to the debate over whether to back Boehner and fight another day, or use whatever power the country has given to stop the political shenanigans of band-aids which end up continuing to grow the debt.  She doesn't blog so I asked her permission to put it up here.  It is the most profound thing I've heard in this debate: 

After spending 30 years teaching Home Economics, this is my view of the debt crisis in D.C.:

It is estimated that one in four children in America grows up in a dysfunctional home. That means that one or more family members has a major problem, like alcohol addiction, that is never solved. The addict surrounds himself with friends and family who either have the same addictive personality traits or accept the addiction as part of “loving” that individual. The family members learn to cope by means of denial, escape, or participating with the addict. Many times the family members assist out of “love”. They do things like bail the addict out of jail, put him to bed after he passes out, clean up his vomit, call in sick to work for him, etc. They make excuses for him to make the abuse OK like ”a bad day at work” or “financial stress”.  Any family member who speaks up is quickly shunned and called “cruel and heartless” for speaking the truth about the addict’s behavior. This co-dependency allows the addict to maintain this lifestyle for many years by not accepting the consequences of his actions. Usually it takes a major catastrophe where the family hits rock bottom for them to admit they have a major problem and seek help. For real healing to take place, the family members have to stand strong and stop bailing the addict out or they will all end up right back in the same dysfunctional cycle.

Our federal government is dysfunctional in the same way. Our elected officials have become addicted to borrowing money to fund all the laws they pass. They surround themselves with other politicians who have the same addictive personalities and cry out constantly that “we must spend more money’. They are encouraged by co-dependent persons who want to help spend the money the politicians are borrowing. They make excuses like “…we have to or else someone will suffer…” or “…this is just for one more year…” Any fellow politician who speaks out about the addiction is quickly shunned and called “cruel and heartless” or even worse, “a stupid Tea Partier”. Just like in a dysfunctional home, this behavior allows the addicts to maintain their daily lives in Washington and not deal with the consequences of their actions.

Now Washington is heading for what may turn out to be a major financial catastrophe for the US. Our politicians are so dysfunctional that they want to borrow money to make the payments on past borrowed money so they can keep spending more money on their pet projects. We citizens can keep our nation dysfunctional, stay co-dependent, make excuses for them and bail them out again. We can dig into our wallets and give them more money to throw away so we don’t have to face reality ourselves. Or, we can practice good old fashioned “tough love”. We can say. “No more. It stops here. It is time to get out of this dysfunctional debt cycle.”We can stand behind the members of Congress that are being shunned for speaking the truth. We can allow our nation to hit financial rock bottom. We can stay strong and not bail the politicians out this time. We can force them to admit they have a major addiction to debt and deal with it. It will be hard, just like it is hard on a family when they hit bottom. But if we stand together, we will come out healed and stronger as a nation. We will be able to weed out the addicts and their co-dependents in Washington. We can keep the strong healthy leaders and send them some non-dysfunctional coworkers this next election cycle. Then it will be up to us to keep watch and make sure we never bail out addicts in Washington again, or we will end up back in the same dysfunctional cycle.

Stand Strong,

Colleen Vera

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