Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Had enough?

Had enough? I sure have. Every day there is another headline that shows just how ludicrous and out of hand this country has gotten. We keep sinking deeper and deeper into chaos. The biggest problem we have is the men and women who are supposed to be leading us. With all their combined degrees and pedigrees, they continue to act like the biggest bunch of lunkheads (you can quote me on that) I have ever seen in my life. So, taking my simple education, I've decided to offer a few suggestions that could quickly help turn our country around:


  • Challenge every member of Congress to return the pay increase they voted for themselves this year. ($4700 x 535 = $2,514,400 saved)

  • Stop the bailouts. The U. S. is a free-enterprise society. That means those who do business well survive the lean times; those who don't will not. (e.g. the car makers in America. Haven't they been warned for years that they were not being competitive with foreign auto makers and it would come back to bite them? Consider yourself bitten).

  • Challenge every person who has received a bailout dollar to this point to invest 50% of it in education. Right now, the state of Tennessee (who finished below the national average in reading and math scores according to the National Report card) is trying to figure out how to keep from laying off teachers. In the same paper that reports this, there is an article showing the income of the top 20 or so CEOs. They make as much as most of the school systems in the state combined.

  • Speaking of salaries, why don't we do something about the outrageous disproportion of salaries in our nation. The little town I used to pastor in is losing over 600 jobs because a plant there is closing. It will rip the heart out of this little town. At the same time, the CEO of Home Depot in Atlanta (a company that continues to show loss after loss through each passing quarter) made more than three times the entire membership of my former church combined.

  • Smack some sense into the sports industry. How do we justify the salaries of guys who play a game (albeit, very well) for a living when the teachers who taught them how to sign their contracts are being canned left and right? Why does A-Rod have the right to earn over $185,000 a day when the men and women who serve our communities as police officers and firemen will be lucky to see that much money in four years? Does anyone in Washington have any sense left?

  • Learn to do what every other red-blooded American (liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats) is having to do--live within a budget.

The United States is going from the land of the free to the largest debtor nation in the history of the world and NO ONE in our capitol seems to care. Our patriots have turned to perverts and self-promoting prima donnas. Would the last American with common sense to leave the District of Columbia please take down the flag? They don't deserve to have it flown over their heads any longer.

Be sure to catch the post below as well. It's a link to an outrageous report on what's going on in the housing industry. It's worth the read.

1 comment:

Ginny said...

Wow, Ridley. We agree on something?! I, like you, have never understood why pro athletes make such a fortune, and some of the people who got them there will never see a quarter of what some of them make in a year. How is that right? Hope you are well.