Republicans Setting Filibuster Record In the US Senate

President Obama had an ambitious agenda when he took office. A majority of Americans voted for that agenda. However, there are rules in place that give the minority some power, and one of those is the ultimate tool of obstruction – the filibuster. Right now, Republicans are using this tool at a record place. This means that a simple majority will not be enough to get legislation through Congress.

What it also means, in my opinion, is that we taxpayers are spending a lot of money to get nothing done. It is amazing that the wheels of our nation are moving at all with these obstructionist tactics. And what is it all for?

Well the concept arose from our national sense that the majority rules, but the minority must be protected. However, in this case, I hardly think it is used to protect some disadvantaged minority, but simply for political gain. The minority, in this case the Republicans in Congress, want to score political points by keeping the majority from getting anything done. They want to stall progress, and so they want to stop progressives.

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Will Obama Tax Cuts Help the Sandwich Generation?

What is the Sandwich Generation? If you have not heard this term before, you can go right to the source and look at SandwichGeneration.com. It refers to late baby boomers (myself) and early Gen Xers. (Yeah, we know – sometimes that is called Generation Jones) who are caring for aging parents while still caring for kids at home. That includes many of us!

Anyway, let me get away from defining popular terms for different generations and back to the proposed tax changes. These proposals should be announced in President Obama’s State of the Union Address tomorrow (1/27/10).

According the New York Times, we may get help in a couple of areas.

Increased Child Care Tax Credit – The proposal may almost double this valuable credit for families that make less than $85,000. This is more incentive for both parents to go back to work, and it should help working families pay bills. This should be popular for families with younger kids.  I know that when my own kids were young, before child care tax credits, about 1/3 of my net income went for child care.

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Does Your Government want to help with New Years Resolutions?

OK, that was sort of a title and heading I crafted to get attention. But before you run off, it really isn’t that far off. The US federal government does want to help Americans with some New Year’s resolutions! USA.gov, a website run by the federal government, has information on such a variety of topics that I really am surprised that more of us don’t know about it. For one thing, I am all for having our government spend our federal tax dollars on something useful!

Happy New Year from The USA!

The New Years Resolution Page of USA.gov is here. This contains a variety of topics related to common New Year’s resolutions. Weight loss, quitting smoking, getting out of debt, finding a better jobs, or planning a great vacation are some samples. The website serves as a link between other government websites (state and federal) in order to make a central search location to use for all sorts of questions.

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Maybe The Time For The White House Has Passed For Hillary

Oh Hillary, I loved you well. I am here to tell you that I am a middle aged Texas Democrat, andI threw my support behind Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I was bitter when she lost the primary, but being a good Democrat, I realized that Obama was the future, and like me, Clinton came from the past.

Baby Boomers Did Well!

We had a good run. We did. I am, perhaps, too old to be idealistic, but not so old I cannot remember idealism. We are the children on the 60’s, and the early 70s. We did some good, made some mistakes, and earned our legacy. But I am reminded of the story of Moses, leading the children of Israel for 40 years, enough time for the odler generation to die off, and the next generation, who had not been slaves – at least as adults, take positions of leaderships.

Now I just read a post that some of the Clinton’s business dealings did not live up to the idealism we thought we still had. Poor working conditions in an ethonal company the Clinton’s invested in and a Chinese internet company who wanted to help the government find Tibetan protesters come to mind. Oh, Bill and Hillary, you are not worse than the rest of us, and perhaps, better than most.

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