And he danced.

On Friday night, my niece threw a really nice party to celebrate her husband’s college graduation.  It was a fun evening full of family, food, and music.  For me the best part was the joining of family and music.

My Mom, Winnie, died in September 2009.  My Dad, Ed, has continued on in his life.  From my view he is doing pretty well.  After 60 years of marriage, losing your spouse must put you in a very unfamiliar and lonely spot.  Dad has fallen into what seems to be a seamless routine of the grocery, laundry, yard work, and golf.   I think the fact that he plays golf twice a week at age 83 is important.  The exercise is really good – he uses a pull cart instead of riding (probably more to do with the cheap German in him, than a strong desire for exercise), and he is out with his buddies socializing.

My family has done pretty well to look in on Dad either on the phone, or by stopping by to visit.  Before my Mom died, Dad was likely to want to take a pass on invitations to go out.  Now he is willing to accept most invitations – probably because of the loneliness he must feel after losing Winnie after 60 years of marriage.

My Dad was at the graduation party Friday and it was nice to see him.  My sister-in-law Debbie asked him to dance – and he did.  My Dad is a good dancer and I used to love watching him and my Mom dance together.  They would float across the floor effortlessly.  Watching him on the dance floor on Friday may have been the first time he has danced since my Mom died, but I don’t know.  I do know it brought tears to my eyes thinking of my Mom, and made me happy to see him out there living life in a way that brought him enjoyment for many years.  Thanks Debbie!

There is a behind the scenes fight going on between Democrats and Republicans over language Democrats have put into official mail going out to their constituents.  The fight is over the GOP plan to end Medicare as we know it.  Today, the government is the single payer of medical bills for our retired citizens.  Under the GOP plan, seniors would need to buy insurance from a private company.  They would get a voucher that they could use to offset the cost of the premiums.  This would be a huge change to the program.  I think it’s fair to say that it is such a huge change that the program under the GOP plan is not Medicare, but something altogether different.  

Now, in the fight between the Dems and the GOP, the GOP says the Dems can’t use the phrase “eliminate Medicare as we know it and replace it with a privatized system”.

In my mind, the GOP’s attempt to make people believe that their budget proposal saves Medicare when in fact it ends it is like saying this Van Halen and this Van Halen are the same.  Perhaps in name, but to a seeing, hearing person, they are nowhere the same.

Lebron James

I think I may be one of the few people who think Lebron James has gotten a bum rap.  The way in which he left Cleveland and went to Miami really turned a lot of people against him.  They are still criticizing it over a year later.  To my way of thinking, he should get maximum credit for maxing out his earnings.  When a company decides to pit one city against another in a bidding war to see who will provide the largest tax abatement for them to relocate, they often have a large press event when the winning city is announced.  Nobody has much criticism about this.  As a matter of fact it happens all the time.  When a professional sports team pits one city against another to see who will build it the best stadium with the best deal to maximize its revenue, the team is not ridiculed.  Why should an individual then be criticized?  To me, it comes down to the fact that it is OK, even admired, that corporations act a certain way, but pity the poor individual who wants to act the same way because they are stepping out of bounds.

James played 7 seasons in Cleveland and poured his heart into the game for that city.  Good for him to seek greener pastures elsewhere and earn a few extra bucks along the road there. 

What would you do?

 At last night’s GOP debate the participants and Republicans in general, want to make the case they if they were in charge (of the White House or the entire world), they would do things differently and the result would be a better economy.   Well, to them I say, “What would you do differently?”.

Tax Cuts! – Tax cuts are the answer to all that ails us as a nation. 

But wait, didn’t we go through 8 years leading up to 2009 and President Obama, in which the GOP ran the country and set its policies?  Didn’t these 8 years give us tax cuts that should have put our economy in an incredibly positive position?   As the economy was sliding into recession in 2008 that culminated in the financial meltdown, weren’t the tax cut policies the GOP wants to sell us already in place?   Didn’t seem to help, did it?  

Wasn’t about 25% of the $820 billion stimulus that President Obama signed into law made up of tax cuts?  Yes, it was!  Didn’t seem to help, did it?  In fact, check out a story in the Wall Street Journal that told us exactly why they wouldn’t work.

Eliminate Regulations! – Too many regulations are keeping the economy down.

Well, again I have to point to the 8 years with the GOP in control and siding with business over the public and consumers.  During this time many of the government agencies whose job it was to provide oversight to industry were staffed and led by industry insiders.  So, as 2008 wound down, the economy should have been at its peek ready to reach new highs, right?  Well, not exactly.  The economy was failing.

So 8 years of GOP rule that should have been the perfect setup for optimum taxes policy and regulations didn’t provide the foundation our economy needed to hum.  The GOP’s answer to this is to do more of the same.

What we have gotten in the first decade 2000 is a larger split between haves and have-nots.  We have a financial industry (that makes no hard goods) making record profits, but a larger economy with stubornly high unemployment.  We have companies with large sums of cash, but individuals struggling to make ends meet.  We have the GOP with an attitude that workers, laborers, and everyday people are the problem with their expectations of employment, health care, and fair treatment – just look at Wisconsin and Ohio.

Our government needs to employ policies that results in an increase in demand.  The resolution to our economic problems is in raising demand, not increasing supply.  This is not brought about by giving the $40K to $60K wage earner $800 to $1,000 more dollars in a year (tax cut), that won’t do anything good to our larger economy.  Rather, it will further reduce our countries ability to pay for the things that are needed.

OK, so what would you do different to really make a positive change in our economy?  Are tax cuts and regulation elimination your answer, or something else beyond the GOP's imagine?