According to the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - more popularly known as the 'stimulus package' - it appears that our government leaders will be congratulating a job well done by rewarding themselves with some $300 million worth of new hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles, offering even more of a bail-out to the failing auto industry which just received several billion dollars worth of our money already.
Though I applaud the effort and the ecological desire to move away from the greenhouse gas producing combustion engine whose hunger for fossil fuels will one day deplete our planet of breathable oxygen and continue to make the Saudi's richer, I have to confess a certain amount of dismay and outrage that whilst those in Washington enjoy their shiny new thirty- to forty-thousand dollar new toys, the rest of us will be enjoying approximately $13 extra dollars in our pay.
Can someone please explain to me how this is stimulating anything but growing animosity and resentment?
Like many millions of Americans I lost my job and my small business; I have a home that is facing foreclosure and I will be filing bankruptcy. In desperation, I took a shit job (one of two offered to me after nine months on unemployment) and I am making half of what I used to make. I am months behind on everything and am struggling with unwieldy debt and legal hassles, making me suddenly 'toxic' to anyone. After 25 years of being a hard-working person who always maintained good credit and paid my bills on time, I am now just so much shit on the shoe of society because of a nine-month bad spell and a suffering economy. But no-one cares about your history - only what you are now. And 'now' I am shit.
But pretty soon I'll have thirteen whole dollars more on my pay cheque. Man! I can see the light on the horizon as I write this!
Does anyone else see the hideous irony behind the fact that this Recovery Act was signed into law on Friday the 13th and will take effect on April 1st?
Saying 'Fuck you!' to the American people doesn't get much louder than that...



