Courtesy of RagingTantrum.com

I’m an Independent, but I lean to the left. I was inspired by Barack Obama and believe he’ll do great things for the country. On most major political issues I side with the Democrats.

So it’s not just partisan drivel when I say that Nancy Pelosi is a b*tch.

There’s no way around it. She’s a petty, manipulative robot. Have you ever watched her speak? Her face doesn’t move like a normal person’s. Everything but her lips is completely frozen. There’s a solid chance she’s not even human.

Consider the situation facing our country at this moment in history. We’re dealing with a recession and teetering on the brink of full-scale economic collapse. We’re dealing with an energy crisis. We’re engaged in two wars overseas. The GOP has been dramatically thrown out of power, an African-American has been elected President, the Democrats made sweeping gains in both the House and the Senate, there is an urgent public demand for an effective stimulus bill– the stage has been set! Enter Nancy Pelosi… and the biggest potential waste of taxpayer money since we payed George W. Bush over $500,000 to run our country into the ground.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of economic stimulus, here’s a simplified explanation: In a recession, business slows down. It affects everyone. People lose their jobs, and have to stop spending money. Because less money is being spent, more people lose their jobs. It’s a cycle, and when it gets moving the wrong direction it takes a massive intervention to stop it. This is where the government steps in. By spending money and creating jobs, they get money flowing again. As previously unemployed citizens find jobs, they start spending money again. As more money is spent, more jobs are created. It’s an incredibly simple concept.

That brings us back to Pelosi and her colleagues in Congress. All they needed to do was spend some money on projects that would create jobs. Build roads. Repair bridges. Renovate buildings. Build parks.

And what did Pelosi give us? Take a look! $300 million for contraceptives! $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts! $400 million for global warming research! $2.4 billion for “carbon-capture demonstration products”! $81 billion for medicaid, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion in tax-credits for people who didn’t pay taxes.

These are all worthwhile causes, BUT THEY WILL NOT CREATE JOBS! They do NOT belong in a stimulus bill.

Pelosi knows this– but this is her chance for payback. The Democrats were harassed and marginalized under Bush, and Pelosi wants them to pay. You can make the case that the GOP deserves it– but that’s not the point. The point is that our economy is at the brink of collapse and THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR POLITICAL REVENGE! Grow up, Nancy Pelosi! Follow your President’s lead. Work with the Republicans and DO WHAT’S BEST FOR THE COUNTRY!

You’ll have plenty of time to jerk the Republicans around AFTER we fix the economy.

The economy stinks. Everyone agrees on that. But it gets interesting when we start talking about who’s to blame. The Democrats, the GOP, Wall Street, greedy CEO’s, Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, mortgage brokers, banks… talk to five different people and you’ll hear five different ‘who’s to blame’ theories. And while everyone we’ve mentioned bears some culpability, the bottom line is this: None of them could have caused this disaster if not for THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC!

When did it become acceptable to sign a mortgage on a house that you could not afford? Yes, slimy mortgage brokers were pushing hard. Yes, banks were (foolishly) issuing these loans. And if it wasn’t for Wall Street’s greed, these mortgages wouldn’t be spread around the world contaminating investments everywhere. But it starts with personal responsibility and ethics.

Growing up, we were bombarded with maxims like “your word is your life” and “don’t borrow money you can’t pay back”. At what point did the American public collectively say “F*ck it, give me that car!”? And what made us think it was ok?

It comes back to our fundamental feeling of entitlement. When we want something, we want it now! And if we can’t afford it now, we take out another credit card. We arrogantly assume that life will keep getting better and that we’ll be able to pay off our debt. It was this same assumption that led investment banks to take on incredible debt in an attempt to maximize profits. It didn’t dawn on them that their investments could fail, leaving them with mountains of debt and few assets. We’re right to criticize their spectacular failure, but we need to acknowledge our own collective failure.

We’re not suggesting that literally everyone is to blame. Most likely the majority of the public has conducted themselves fairly responsibly. But if nothing else, we’ve allowed our culture to embrace instant gratification at the expense of responsible planning.

This isn’t limited to our finances– we’ve embraced instant gratification across the board. We let our kids play hours of Xbox rather than read or exercise. Forget waiting for sex until marriage– even the thought of saving it for a committed relationship is a joke in today’s culture. And why would we bother with a home-cooked meal around the dinner table when we can just pick up McDonald’s and sit in front of the TV? We glorify the wrong things– clothes and cars are not as important as intellect and communication skills, but ask any high school kid which he’d rather possess… 99% of them take the ferrari and the $199 jeans over the intellectual ability. Thanks MTV!

Right now, we’re dealing with the consequences of our financial irresponsibility. But we’ll pay for our neglect of physical responsibility and our neglect of education. When generation X-box grows up and is completely dominated by the international workforce, we’ll wish we had reacted before it was too late.

The good news in all of this is that we’re not dependent on anyone to fix this for us. This stimulus bill may be effective or it may not. But either way, it doesn’t matter unless we embrace personal responsibility at an INDIVIDUAL level. YOU have to fix this. I have to fix this. We need a common-sense renaissance. We need to stop spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need. We need to get our kids off their butts and away from the TV. We need to stop glorifying material substance and start emphasizing education and work ethic.

Or we can sit on our hands and watch the economy continue to crash– to be followed in short order by the collapse of our way of life.