Debt Ceiling Crisis - The Smell Of Mendacity

I don't know about the rest of you guys out there, but the themes of late by the Republicans and Democrats with regard to the so called debt ceiling crisis are disturbing to watch being played out.

I am one of the fortunate workers here in America that still has a job. Although, every month, it's a job that just barely survives. I can't believe the headache just meeting payroll every month, my boss endures. We don't close up because there are still clients we service, and we do get paid ... just not timely, but that's the economy, stupid, as they say.

How long this can go on, I don't know. As I approach 60, I can't imagine not having a job, yet I also have never imagined that I would be reliant on Social Security or any medical assistance in my "old age" as it were.

However, millions of Americans DO rely on SS, Medicare, and other forms of assistance. They PAID for it, and I am tired of the Government (both sides, and anyone else in between) trying to tell the American public that SS is NOT an American entitlement.

It's not the American public's fault that our government has used the SS trust as a giant free for all piggy bank. It's not the American public's fault that since 9/11, big corporate monied interests have dictated the pillaging of all forms of public funds. We, the people, did not ask for an invasion of Iraq. We the people, did not vote for handing off trillions of dollars to foreign countries while millions here at home go unemployed, are hungry and homeless.

The gutting of American's safety net, coupled with the dishonest corporate greed of the Republican wave of governors throughout the United States, makes it very clear there is a class war going on. The debt ceiling so called crisis is but one clog in the overall dismantling of what was an America I grew up knowing. Today's America barely resembles the country I came of age in.

I am unaffected now. Don't know how long I will remain unaffected. It's bad enough just to watch the dollar signs at the gas pump arbitrarily go up and down while watching everything else, like food prices, transit fees, just go up, up and up. Even rent, although mine seems to have topped out and there have been no increases in the past five years. But I do notice each time a unit in my building is vacated, the rental price increases for the new tenant, such that the singles that are rather small are going for more than my 1,400 sq. foot one bedroom! And it's too bad, too, because aside from a handful of us in this building that have been here for a while, the newer tenants only manage to stay a few months and then leave -- it is obviously too expensive.

I'm also lucky that I can use mass transit, which helps out a lot in that I do not pay for gas, insurance, repairs or parking. If I had a car, I probably could not make it every month on what I am paid. I made a lifestyle choice when I gave up my driver's license a few years back, and opted for a state ID instead. Getting rid of my car was one of the best decisions I have made financially.

So, as the President and Congress have their little tug-o-war over what to give and what to take during this debt ceiling made up crisis, I, like the rest of America, sit on the sidelines and just shake my head. I can't for the life of me figure out who these people are in Washington, and how the hell they got there. If this is any sign of the future of this country, where we, the people, actually don't count anymore, and they, the corporations, have more sway over our government, pretty soon we will find ourselves not even having elections because who we want elected and what we want done by those elected, won't be an option.

Jobs, not the debt of this country, is what we Americans wanted our politicians in Washington to tackle. In fact, we thought we had it in the bag when we elected a full slate of Democrats across this nation that espoused "change" as the mantra. We blogs were patting our collective selves on the back, great work, etc. Now we sit practically powerless as corporate money pushes us back into our "basement" offices, and our voices slowly but methodically being silenced by greed, avarice and to quote "Big Daddy," the smell of mendacity.