Not Taking Care of Business, or Budget In

She's so fine, there's no tellin' where the money went
She's all mine, there's no other way to go
Her methods are inscrutable
The proof is irrefutable
--Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer

The business of America is business
--Calvin Coolidge

And if your train's on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
--Takin' Care of Business,
Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Sgt. McChesney: What do you mean "elephants"?
This ain't elephants. This is Annie. My Annie.
--Gunga Din (1939)
_________

What is the business of America? The presidential candidates talk about everything and anything, except the business of business. The business of America is America. The new '09 eco-friendly Federal e-Budget doesn't really address the business of The U.S. so much as the business of continuing the crusade abroad. It is like watching Gunga Din, 2008-style.

Or worse, reading cavalier poet Richard Lovelace's "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars":"I could not love thee, dear, so much /Loved I not honor more." And we buy this bunk today. For our own good it is, you know, and we are surely much beloved by our beneficent maximum leader.

"The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.

"The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 2009 budget year beginning Oct. 1, even as programs aimed at the poor would be cut back or eliminated. Half of domestic Cabinet departments would see their budgets cut outright (Bush Budget Would Bring Record Deficits.)

The basis of sound business practice is sound budgets, and fulfilling budgetary requirements. Whether approved or not, GWB's budget is an academic exercise. The extreme budget deficits are the fact that will impact all citizens, and the working people of the U.S. are bearing the brunt of shrinking domestic programs.

Couple the disastrous budget that cannot even cover most of the bases with trade deficits, shrinking dollars and all the other negativity that is GWB's legacy and one wonders why this campaign is business as usual regarding the elective wars -- the elephants in the room collapsing the floor of the economy.

The war and the economy are the same issue. Either we spend our assets on phony endless feel-good wars, or we take care of the welfare of America. Our phony wars do not make us safer; to the contrary. Instead they bleed off assets that are essential for the health and welfare of the nation. Killing people can never be more important than helping people, yet that has become the new business of America.

The Budget Inn at least gives a wake-up, but you have to request it.

When will America demand a wake-up call?