Another Day Older

We're All Deeper in Debt.

We, here on the hill, seem to be recovering from our bout with what, I guess, was some kind of allergies. After going to the clinic, on to the drug store to pick up about a half bushel of medicine and a week at home we are mostly just left with a hacking cough. Mabe when the weather gets warmer we can shake it off. We have squash plants ready to transplant into the garden soon and cucumbers not far behind. Our peppers and tomatoes aren't growing as fast, they will probably be ready by the first part of May. Early enough.

The stormy weather last Monday did some damage here but not much, a few trees blown down on the next hill to the west of us. It did rain a lot, sometimes really hard, and will be too wet to do much in the yard or garden for a few days. It now appears that most of our flowers and fruit trees survived the light frost we had last week and again yesterday morning. The blueberries are now in full bloom with butterflies and other insects really swarming.

The news, our allergies or the weather (or all three combined) has been enough to cause us, especially me, to be somewhat depressed (cabin fever, maybe) for a couple of weeks now but we are hopeful that some warm dry weather will cure that.
After waiting weeks for Representative Paul Ryan to disclose the Republican version of our 2012 Federal budget, I haven't heard anything (yesterday or this morning) to be happy about. Their claim to cut 6 trillion dollars from the budget over the next 10 years will not even balance it. What that means is that in 10 years the National debt will have grown from 14 trillion dollars to over 20 trillion dollars or more when interest rates go up. I don't believe the final budget numbers will be anywhere close to the 2009 budget that President Obama inherited from the Bush Administration. Even that budget was running too much of a deficit. Doesn't that make a bright future to look forward to?
Maybe I just don't understand what is going on but according to various commentators on television today the cuts proposed by Representative Ryan are not even to the non-existant budget for 2011 but the 2012 budget as put forward by President Obama which carries a deficit of about 1.6 trillion dollar. If Ryan's proposals are passed we would still have a deficit of about 1 trillion dollars a year. Apparently Representative Ryan's budget cuts are not in real money but to projected budget deficits as put forth by the President. Smoke and mirrors?

I haven't, to this point, heard anything about cutting out the oil or ethanol subsidies. I can see helping the oil companies when oil is selling for 35 dollars a barrel or less but now that it is over one hundred dollars a barrel it is not at all called for and the subsidies on ethanol causes grain shortages which drives up prices on almost everything we eat. It is my understanding that ethanol can be imported from South America by paying a high import tax. If that is true then both the subsidsies and import taxes should be repealed.

When the news is mostly depressing there is not much point in dwelling on the subject so unless something more important comes up in the next few hours I intend to post this and try to forget about it. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned. - William