One Brick Short

I’m a boy of very little brain and big numbers bother me. One number which has been wrapped around my cerebral core is the amount of money We, The People are paying to Wall Street firms, banks, car companies, states, and anyone else with a close Congressional connection in what we call bail-out and stimulus funding.

It’s, like, trillions of dollars in spending man, coupled with tax cuts—also known as income cuts—which means we spend more and make less, which means deficit.

Now DC has its taxpayer-paid panties in a knot, trying to figure out how to reduce the federal deficit they just got done increasing. After all, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are going up, up, up and that costs money, money, money.

According to the Associated Press,  President Barack Obama is bringing together dozens of advisers and adversaries to discuss how to curb a burgeoning federal deficit laden with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid obligations.

Huh? It’s a bad thing, now, to spend? Is it worse to pay for Johnny’s cancer treatment than to pay for Shearson-Lehman or Behrs-Stearn or AIG or any of the high-toned, big-bucks screw-ups who can still afford caviar?

Obama’s summit at the White House on Monday is the first meeting toward a strategy to address the long-term fiscal health of the nation. The gathering also comes as Obama prepares ambitious plans to cut the federal deficit by half within four years.

“It will require doing all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover,“ Obama said in his weekend Internet and radio address. “That work begins on Monday, when I will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how we can cut the trillion-dollar deficit that we’ve inherited.“

What about the trillion-dollar deficit we’ve recently created? The stimulus package is not cost-neutral, my good man. First we jack up the deficit on top of the Bush deficit and now we want to cut? Increase spending to bail out the rich while decreasing spending on the poor and unhealthy at a time when fewer people have jobs and health insurance?

Who’s the Democrat? Who’s the Republican. Who, for God’s sake, is on first?

I have no idea what they’re doing in DC, either in the White House or the Capitol. I just don’t get it.

I seriously worry that no one in Washington gets it, either.