I am so glad I can write to you on my new computer. I have been taking lessons from Sarah Palin's future son-in-law, Johnson Inmi Levi, or something like that. Now, you have probably heard that I am a technophobe when it comes to these new fangled computer things. The reason for this is because Cindy, who owns more homes than all the president's combined living today, feels it is just too hard for me to carry it around from one home to the other. Sometimes, we don't know where we are going to sleep from one night to the next. To set it up, plug it in, hook up the printer, and all that stuff, it ends up being too much work for me. It is so much easier to carry my fountain pen and a few cocktail napkins if I need to write down anything important.
You know, Barack might have raised many more campaign dollars than me, but I have more Facebook friends than he does. I am so popular. People say that I have a lovable face. Just as they say similar things when speaking about Alvin the Chipmunk.
It is now coming out that I was a critical component in the bringing of the Blackberry into the marketplace. Now, didn't they say something like that about Al Gore and the Internet? And, didn't I poke fun at him for being such an elitist? Anyway, I just love to mix those Blackberry's in with my yogurt, and flaxseed. It is so good for ya, too!
For years, my friends, I have been referred to as a Maverick. It is great to be in the same league as James Garner! Ya' know, he was a Maverick, too. I have been fooling everyone because I am really no Maverick. Actually, a person who is a maverick is one who stands up against those who are trying to persuade him to go along with them. But, my friends. I have done just the opposite over the last 8 years. I have voted with the president's wishes over 90% of the time. I have voted with the president when he wanted to go after Saddam and gin up a war based on lies, as well as with his war on terror, which will likely cost all of us nearly $2 trillion, and when he decided to create the bloated Homeland Security department, the largest entity in the government next to the Pentagon. It has been great giving HLS grants to the states, such as Wyoming, which have been supporting my political party. They were getting more money, per capita than New York City, the very site of the worst terrorist attack. Now, you might not think Wyoming needed such an infusion of HLS monies, but Dick Cheney did. Anyway, you don't want to piss off Dick, if you get my drift. Even though it has not made us safer, my friends, it has made us travel lighter. You don't need to carry on all that shampoo or toothpaste on the plane with you. The hotels give you all you need. And that is a good thing.
I want you to know that I voted with the president when he kept jacking up the fiscal budget deficit, which is now projected to be in the hole $410 billion, which is nearly twice that of last year, (and I don't mean Jackson Hole, Mr. Dark Side), and the national debt, which is reaching $10 trillion. Now that the government assumed Freddie and Fannie's guaranteed $5 trillion mortgage debt, the total is now over $15 trillion! WOW. I just love to spend money. Just look at my shoes! Also, did you know that the United States is a $13 trillion economy? Our debt is now bigger than our economy. Don't worry too much. I think Sarah can help me fix that. She has a lot of experience with dat, or should I say debt.
I know it has been hard on all of you in the middle class. You know, that's anyone living on Main Street or Side-Street who is making under $5 million per year. It is hard to see your jobs being shipped overseas. And, I am responsible for that, but I sure like those cheap items we can now buy at the Dollar Store or Wal-Mart. (OOOOH, that smarts.) Don't you think so, too?
I enjoyed voting on behalf of the president's request to give our Pentagon a budget that makes up one-third of our yearly expenditures, which has now reached $2.9 trillion! Yikes! "Cindy, that is more than you make in a year!"
I have sided with the president even this year, when I helped him usher in a record high current account deficit for the first quarter of 2008, which has reached $176.4 billion! That means we imported more goods and services from elsewhere than we exported to other countries by $176.4 billion. Doesn't that make you feel better now? We have to continue to lower the value of our great dollar in order to start to catch up.
Sarah and I want to drill, drill, drill away from foreign oil. By drilling off-shore our coasts. We might get somewhere around 200,000 barrels per day in around 10 years, but already, we are seeing a decline in our oil usage by around 600,000 barrels per day. Conservation is already working, but that does not help my friends at the oil companies make their yacht payments! Alternative energy is good, but nuclear is better. I want to build more nuclear plants, even though we have not solved our current problem of safely storing the nuclear waste. Wind and solar and geo-thermal are great, but then the power companies might just have to buy back your extra-solar energy. Exxon would not like that.
Oh yes, my friends, I even took the bold stand, along side our president, by voting against an upgrade to our tried and true G.I. Bill. I felt that by giving our returning soldiers, who fought so gallantly in Iraq and Afghanistan, a G.I. Bill that would allow them to receive a full and complete education paid for by all of us, was just too much to ask of them. Even though my father and grandfather were admirals, and I was a P.O.W, I don't know if you know that about me, I decided to stand up, instead of standing down, on behalf of our soldiers. You understand, don't you?
My friends, you have heard me talk about the fundamentals of our economy. They are strong, you know? They are strong for all of my friends in corporate America. All of our dear campaign-contributing friends, who have made huge sums of money running such failed companies as Enron, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (I just love her chocolates!), Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers (You know that those guys were Jewish; just like my mench friend, Joe Lieberman. They're my friends, too.), and Halliburton. You get the idea.
I know it is a little hard for my postal carrier, barber, neighborhood teacher, bus driver, cashier, and others to make ends meet, but remember, the fundamentals are strong. President Bush, and Carl Rove told me so. Or, is it the fundamentalists are strong. Oh, I can't remember which way that all goes. Sorry, my friends! I'll have to ask Sarah Palin about that one.
And yes, former Senator Phil Gramm, the very person who was instrumental in taking down this economy back in 1999, along with his friend, Alan Greenspan, and even though the fundamentals are strong, as I am told, was my key economic advisor until he called all of you "wimps and whiners; and had psychological-recession-on-the-brain problems." I had to fire him. But he still comes over and we hang out. But it is all for fun now. I replaced him with Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, so she can help me with all those important economic details, as my running mate. Or, am I HER running mate? I can't remember.
I have stood by my friend, George Bush, even though he humiliated me and my family when I ran against him for the 2000 nomination to be the Republicon candidate for president. He was so evil to me, but, you know, I had to give it up, suck it in, put on a happy face, show a stiff upper lip, raise my head up high, turn the other cheek, let bygones be bygones, stop crying over spilled milk, show my good side (I am not sure which one that is.), kick up my high step, whistle a happy tune, and let it all float under that Bridge to Nowhere so I could have MY TURN to be King! I wannabe the Change President. You give me a dollar, and I will give you back fitty cents in change. That's the new economy I talk about, my friends. You gonna like it!
I have told America that I do not like lobbyists, yet I have had 133 lobbyists work on my Straight Taking, or is it Talking Express campaign, just because there is no one else around here in Washington to hire! The place is bone dry. If they aren't lobbyists, then they are politicians. SO, what's the difference? You take what you can get, as they say.
I want you to know, my friends, that I want to raise your taxes, but don't spread that around! There are a lot of bail-outs to pay for. It is very likely, if I become president, I will have to raise your taxes, just because so many people are out of work, real wages have declined, and consumers are not spending as much, which is shrinking the overall economy. (Did you know that consumer spending makes up over 70% of the GDP?) It is not right for Barack to just raise taxes on the upper income groups, and corporations, who deserve to not pay any taxes. Let's lower their tax rate to 0%. You wouldn't mind, would you? Barack would cut the tax rate for 95% of workers and their families. He would raise the tax rate on the upper class from 35% to 39%. That is just horrible! We cannot have that! That would cripple us. President Eisenhower had the top upper class tax bracket pay 91% in taxes (1954-1963). From 1922-1981, the uppermost tax bracket paid between 58-70% in taxes. From 1944 to 1963 (basically wartime years) the tax rate was above 91%. We cannot have the top tier income earners pay higher taxes during wartime or terror-time. No way; Cindy would be so mad at me if I did that!
We need to raise taxes on everyone, and to make permanent the Bush Tax-Shift Cuts. Now, how will that all work? What this all means is that I will have to raise taxes on my defined "Middle Class" (HEHE) in order to pay for our military, HLS, and the rest of the budget, unless I keep borrowing from China and those sheiks and kings and princes' in the Middle East, raising our budget deficit, and national debt. "I can take you higher." Oh, I just love the duo Blind Ambition. I am so hip, right? Also, if you get employer-based health care, I will tax those benefits, too, lowering your real wages.
The president and I, along with a despicable former senator Rickie Santorum, want to privatize Social Security. You should like that idea because then you can take your hard earned money and put it into the losing stock market. You saw it drop over 500 points just last Monday (9-8-08), and over 300 on that Wednesday (9-10-08) giving all Americans real pause in our equities market. But then, Bernanke, Paulson and President Bush had to go ahead and bail-out every major lending bank with a near $1 trillion transfusion of government dollars because those top executives don't want to lose their country club memberships before New Years. They bought brand- new handmade Chinese suits and made their dinner reservations already!
Now, if you would have taken your Social Security, and put it into the stock market back around 1997, you would have likely not made a fricken penny. But, OOHH, remember, our fundamentals are strong. Social Security is an insurance policy that you pay into and is invested in our country so that when you are of age to receive it, you will get a check based upon your contribution. Now, if only we Republicons did not borrow from it beginning way back with President Reagan, there wouldn't be any IOUs in that Social Security Lock Box Al Gore wanted to keep away from the legislators. I am so glad the Supreme Court kept him out of the White House, since it would have hurt President Bush's feelings. And you know how sensitive he is. Anyway, my party has already borrowed so much from Social Security that we need to privatize it so you can just keep it under your mattress for safekeeping.
Now, I have written a lot for my very first keyboarded letter. And finally, I want to say that I have approved this message. I think I do. Don't I? Now Senator, type your name. Ok Johnson. No Senator, it's Levi. Sorry, my friend.
Sincerely Yours,
Jon Sitney McCaine
Postscript:
Link to Andover College's Bush War Crimes Trial. Read here.
Professor Andrew Bacevich, retired Army colonel, speaks on the Iraq War and foreign policy. Click on "Listen now".
Thanks for reading, Jerry
