Crazy traffic

I started my trip back to Michigan this afternoon, but it did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. I ran into complete gridlock on the George Washington Parkway (supposedly the Beltway was backed up due to snow removal), and by the time I made it to I-270, I was engulfed in complete rush hour madness. It took me two and a half hours to go twenty miles. So instead of driving all of the way back to Michigan, I am spending the night in Pennsylvania, and finishing the drive up tomorrow.

I was pondering the fact that I can bicycle twenty miles in far less than two and a half hours. I can't imagine what the traffic in DC will look like tomorrow, as everyone attempts to head out for the holidays.

Working to a bad end

So according to this Washington Post article, the Senate is planning on having its first Christmas Eve session since 1963. The Democratic leadership is so obsessed with quickly passing a health care bill that the American people do not want, and is forcing Senators and their staff to continue working around the clock up through Christmas. The legislation would still be there in January, as it isn't a crisis like the growing national debt, or the unemployment rate that is still rising. But the Democrats are so afraid that there could be negative repercussions in the 2010 elections, that they are desperate to pass the legislation now in the hopes that the American people will forget this travesty in November.

As a small-business person who personally pays for my own health care, the Democrats health care plan will have a negative impact on me. I will most likely no longer be able to purchase the health insurance plan I currently have. Instead, I will be stuck with paying for a plan with features I don't want, and I will watch my insurance rates go through the roof as the medical industry shifts costs for the upcoming government subsidized health plans to those with private plans. And worse, I will eventually see my taxes skyrocket, as the country tries to pay for those massive subsidies.

Spenders Anonymous

President Obama provided me an extremely good laugh today. In his speech to the Brookings Institution, the President made the statement, "So one of the central goals of this administration is restoring fiscal responsibility." Really? I heard this statement and it made me think of the recent comedy movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. I guess this Administration has been doing such a good job with saving money that it needed to buy something nice for itself. Maybe $787 billion dollars for a failed economic stimulus. Or maybe about a trillion dollars for a health care "reform" plan that nobody wants.

The United States can't drown in red ink forever. Eventually, either the taxpayers will be required to pony up with crushing tax rates, or the government will try to induce monetary inflation in order to escape the problem. Both will have terrible consequences for Generation X and many future generations.