Hi Birch, Thanks for writing.

Rest assured on one point -- Obama is not a socialist "Muslin".

All kidding aside, I hear ya.

I, too, have grave worries about Obama and his decisions, some of which you noted, he's a politician after all, and I'm willing to give him more than 10 months in office before I throw him overboard. Plus, what's the option we have other than voting him out of office. And who would we elect? Sarah Palin, Newt, McCain? The Republicans are tripping over themselves trying to grab the brass ring.

My only humble ability in all of this is trying to make you laugh through political turmoil, be it Republican or Democrat.

Lisa,

I was a little disappointed in your response to Birch.

First of all, I would love to see us get out of the Iraq and Iran wars.  As history has shown, any country that is continually at war ultimately fails as a country.  There are only so many pieces of the economic pie to spend for butter or guns.  Choosing guns means that less money is spent on butter (infrastructure, education, health care, clean air, etc.).  So, it is a delicate balance on where we vote to spend our money--"defense or food"- as the saying goes.  At least Obama is looking at all options from what I can see--unlike his predecessor.  If we pull out, do we have less exposure to terrorism or more?  You tell me. 

As for the bailout--if we hadn't done anything at all (which the Republicans wanted to do), most experts have said that unemployment would be double what it is now and most likely we would have headed for another great depression.  Econ 101 tells us that at certain times the government should inject money into the marketplace to jumpstart the economy.  That's one of the reasons the Federal Reserve controls interest rates.  Low interest rates to stimulate the economy; high interest rates to slow it (and inflation) down.  Same with the stimulus package.  Doing nothing was NOT an option in my opinion.  And some economists also indicate that the stimulus should have been double what it was. 

And remember, the failing economy did not start on Obama's watch.  In theory it probably gained its roots during the Reagan administration.  Remember Reagan saying that government was not the solution; government was the problem?  So, we started on the perilous  path of deregulation of business, Wall Street, etc.  If you do your research of the Great Depression, you can find the same sentiments during the Coolidge/Hoover terms--"business will weed out the bad seeds"  Well, we've seen how well that has worked, haven't we?  Enron, AIG, etc.  Gordon Gekko may have said that "Greed is good," but that DID NOT make him right!  Greed in the housing market on ALL sides, greed on Wall Street, greed in the banking industry.  When we will learn?????  It took us 20 years to get where we are now at and we won't get out of it overnight. 

In addition, we now have many politicians who don't give a hoot about their own country.  It's all about the money--see above paragraph.  Obama could pose the Ten Commandments as legislation and the Republicans would vote it down just because he championed them. 

As for health care, it has ALWAYS BEEN RATIONED---based on your ability to pay.  If I got anal cancer like Farrah, would I be able to go to Europe to get access to all kinds of medical procedures?  Hell no because I don't have that kind of money.  And, it's always been that way.  Remember the Golden Rule--he who has the gold rules!  I'm all for a single payer system which seems to work well in other countries who pay less for health care with much better results.  We pay the most of any country for health care but only rank 37th in outcomes. Currently 1/6 of our GDP goes towards health care.  Unsustainable!  We cannot continue on this path.  Yes, we will all have to make sacrifices.  The free ride is over. 

Other than that, I hope you are doing better,

Cindy