Ah gawd 'im, dahdee! Three hundred-plus dead soldiers and 80 bi'ion dalluz don' mattuh, I gawd 'im jes for you, dahdee!

 

By Henri D. Kahn

 

The casualties go on and the chicanery goes on.

Now it's Cheney's old chums, Halliburton, under fire for allegedly whacking the USA , aka you and me, with abusive and exorbitant overcharges. You know, "padding the bill" for services performed in Iraq .

Each new chapter of the G. W. Bush presidency reveals added deceit and trickery.

 

What does this multibillion

dollar deficit mean to all of us?

If you don't understand or perhaps don't even want to think about this current debt-ridden government of ours, you dern well should.

I will do my best to explain this cloudy issue with a parable.

John and Mary (could be Juan and María) lived in Happyland , USA . Nice house, late model car, two lovely children. They lived comfortably, ate good food, dressed well, took great vacations. Yep, life was a bowl of cherries, all Aces.

"It's bill-paying time, John."

"Hit our credit limit yet, Mer babe?"

"Uh uh, hon."

"What's the minimum payment status, mamacita?"

"We can carry it over, lover."

"Do it, bebe doll!"

"Cool, let's get that 50-inch home theatre TV DVD entertainment center we saw last week."

"Ooh, I'm so happy, Johnnycakes. We have it all, don't we, pops?"

John made good money, but the cost of everything kept increasing. The good income was buying less and less.

Eventually, the credit repayment demands became very bothersome and downright intolerable. John started working two jobs, seven days a week.

In spite of all the credit repayments, the interest on the debt was consuming the majority of the installment payment, so the principal remained virtually static. John and Mary just couldn't get out of debt so Mary went to work and the children became latchkey kids.

The current administration is emulating John and Mary operating on credit, aka Deficit Spending.

Many of us are living well and taxes aren't increasing, because the mint is printing new bills daily. Our export revenue is increasing, but the devalued dollars are buying less and less.

Like Mary and John, all of us will have to produce more money for the government in the form of incredible increases in taxes. Living expenses will increase markedly, and, of course, inflation will dip into everybody's pocket.

Things are peachy keen for the federal government right now, and we are all just a bunch of ignorant happy campers.

Beware, my friends -- not only is ignorance bliss, bliss can create ignorance!

Send this current administration scurrying for the hills when you vote in November 2004.

 

Laredo continues to struggle

upstream without a paddle

The front page of the Dec. 21, 2003 San Antonio Express-News stated in bold print, " S.A. native on road to transportation panel."

Hope Andrade has been appointed to serve on the 86-year-old Texas Transportation Commission which is responsible for more than $5 billion a year.

Hope is V.P. of a home health care business in San Antonio . She recently attended a funeral in Eagle Pass and was taken aback by the traffic engulfing the small Texas town.

Apparently, Hope Andrade has been out to lunch for a long time if she was not even remotely aware of the traffic created by the transfer of goods with our prime trade partner, Mexico .

I am disgusted and shocked that this inexperienced and obviously uninformed person has been appointed to a state agency that is responsible for doling out more than $5 billion in transportation funding.

Since 1957, only three members of the commission have been from South Texas: two from San Antonio and one from the Río Grande Valley . El Paso has also garnered a new panel member for the next five years since Jan. 1, 2004.

I guess Laredo 's politicians still can't understand that there's more to political influence than tamales, all the beer you can guzzle, and being suckered into meaningless ego-building junkets to Austin and Washington , D.C.

The best of health and luck to everyone for the coming year.