A Trillion Dollars Is The New Beige - by Douglas

I’m man enough to admit that Obama tweaked me a little by pre-empting House last night. It was therefore with an annoyed ear that I half-listened to his news conference. So it’s entirely possible that I only heard the most irksome half. Now, I’ll preface by saying that what I know about economics you could write on the inside of a Juicy Fruit wrapper. Double spaced. But if there’s anything I do know, it’s that we Americans are the most arrogant bunch of materialists ever to trod the earth. So when our national leaders tell us that we’re going to bail out a trillion here or stimulate a trillion there, we don't even bat an eye. Live in a trailer park with one functioning toilet? You have trillions of dollars. Drive a ’93 Corolla on bald tires to a thankless job? You also have trillions of dollars. We stick out our collective American chests and raise a cocksure eyebrow as we hear how no crisis is too big for our trillions of dollars to solve. Honest to God, I don’t know how other countries can survive without trillions of dollars. Poor Belgium. Poor Trinidad and Tobago.

Y’all correct me where I’m wrong but I don’t think we have trillions of dollars. My understanding is that we already spent all of our money and then some. Didn’t this whole mess start because people bought houses with bad mortgages that they couldn’t afford? Then Bush and Bernanke’s plan was to buy up those same bad mortgages that they also couldn’t afford? And now that we’ve individually spent way more money than we could ever hope to pay back, the government wants to solve our problems by spending way more money than it could ever hope to pay back? This has to be the most troublesome stimulus since the Tonya Harding sex tape.

And hang on another second but isn’t this kind of solution the very reason we all voted for change? Our last President wanted us to fight terrorism by going shopping. For a hopeful second I thought he had trapped some terrorists at the food court but then I realized he was just being another crass, wallet-worshipping American. Now, I’m as patriotic as the next guy but I am NOT going to the damned mall! Hell, my wife can’t even drag me down there and she’s WAY cuter than the president! And didn’t we vote overwhelmingly for change because we all thought the last president was a raging doofus? Wasn’t the new president supposed to tell us not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country? And is he telling us that what we need to do for our country is spend more money?

OK, OK, one bad roll in the hay doesn’t ruin the honeymoon but our new JFK has some ground to make up. Tell me we need to save some money, not spend it. Tell me the government is going to stop being the punch line in every wasteful spending joke. Tell me we’re going to lead the world by example this time, not with bullying and obfuscation. And please God, tell me I don’t have to go to the damn mall.