Discouraged and Depressed About DC

May was a lost month for me in blog posts.  I was on the road most of the month with a vacation at the beach the last 10 days.  Blogging does not compare to beaching and golfing.  Time to get back to work and on a BeeLine to giving you the shortest route to what you need to know.

My time away from the blogosphere was partially a function of discouragement.  The debt ceiling limit that I first mentioned in early January came and went with no sense of urgency in Washington. It seems that the Treasury Department has any number of hidden stashes, shell games and other tricks to keep the federal gravy train running.  The new deadline is early August.  The result-kick the can a little further down the road and do as little as possible.  Senate Leader Harry Reid even stated that he sees no reason for the Senate to even present a budget for the coming year.  That makes 2 years in a row that the Democrats in the Senate have not even attempted to put a budget on the table for consideration.  Depressed is a better way to describe my mood after watching these developments.

Look at some of the stats on the economy that were released in the last few days.

• Private employers added just 38,000 jobs last month compared to a forecast of 175,000
• Last week applications for unemployment benefits was up to a seasonally adjusted 424,000
• Housing prices fell in 18 of the 20 cities tracked in the Case Shiller Index.  The index has fallen for 8 consecutive months.  Overall prices are down 33% from the 2006 peak.  That's further than the 31% drop during the Great Depression in the 1930's.
• 6 million homes have already been foreclosed on.  An additional 4 million mortgage holders today are 90 or more days late on their payments.

Add to this list these 3 stories that I came across over the last few days on the overreaching, overregulating, overseer that government has become in our lives.  This will better explain 3 things to you...

1. Why your clothes are dirtier than they were 10 years ago-"The Attack of the Washing Machine"
2. Why you don't want to raise rabbits-"Family Facing $4 Million in Fines for Selling Bunnies"
3. Why you may want to live in the swamp-"Swamp People, Capitalism and Regulation"

Our priorities in this country are seriously misplaced.  I believe in government.  I believe in promoting the general welfare.  I believe in the values and goals of our Founding Fathers. What we are doing today in Washington is a long, long way from where these ideals were first put to paper.