Something To Think About Archive

Today, the federal deficit is nine times higher than it was in 1996. The federal debt is four times as high and welfare spending is nearly three times what it was in 1996. Meanwhile, the welfare “reform” in the current budget bill requires only 20 hours of work per week for able-bodied persons to receive benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. While the 1996 legislation signed by Bill Clinton, required 30 hours of work per week. Like current levels of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending, it’s a necessary but unsustainable program at this level.

English writer Jerome K. Jerome once noted that “I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

According to writer Harper Lee, “People see what they look for and hear what they listen for.”

Author J.M. Barrie claimed that “Life is a long lesson in humility.”

The late singer-songwriter Brian Wilson once observed that “Genius is a big word. But if you have to live up to something, you might as well live up to that.”

The Father of Hungarian democracy Louis Kossuth said: “It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes.”

Here are some fun facts: Delaware led the nation in federal tax revenue per person at $24,575 per resident in 2023, followed by Massachusetts at $21,747 and Minnesota at $20,728. Mississippi and New Mexico were at the bottom at around $6,000. Washington D.C., home to all those laboring in, with and for government, contributed $54,612 in federal tax revenue per resident — more than double any state.

It’s been said that “The world needs unbending courageous people. It needs people who day to day do what’s right – not what’s expedient. It needs people who are not afraid to lose their position, not people who will do anything to keep it.”

Albert Einstein said: “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”

Today, let us remember Ronald Reagan’s warning that "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

French author Francois Garagnon notes that “Between what I think I want to say, what I believe I’m saying, what I say, what you want to hear, what you believe you understand, and what you understood, there are at least nine possibilities for misunderstanding.”

Regarding the big Army parade in Washington a few weeks ago, Republican Senator John Kennedy said: “I think the United States of America is the most powerful country in all human history. I mean, we’re a lion, and a lion doesn’t have to tell you it’s a lion. Everybody knows it’s a lion. So why spend the 40-plus million dollars to tell people that we’re a lion?”

Following Ukraine’s successful drone assault on the Russian Air Force, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich notes: “In some ways, the drone attack reminded me of Israel’s complex pager and cell phone attack which crippled Hezbollah’s organization in Lebanon. We are in a new world, with new dangers. Artificial intelligence, robotics, low-cost manufacturing, and long-range planning are going to destroy all our traditional assumptions about warfare.”

Author and positive psychology coach Diane Drehr says: “Leaders must have the courage to follow their vision, to believe the invisible, to work for something that’s still only a possibility, while others often wring their hands in despair.”

According to educator and author Edgar Z. Friedenberg, “What we must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut believed that “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

The so-called Dean of American Sportswriters Grantland Rice wrote: “A substitute for hard work is worth about one-tenth the real thing.”

Writer Edmund White claimed that “At certain crucial moments – an emergency, an opportunity – one must act first and think later.”

As Elon Musk recently noted, just prior to his break up with President Trump, “A bill can be big and it can be beautiful; but I doubt it can be both.” If you want proof, the budget bill sent to the Senate, where we hope sanity my reside, adds $2.7trillio to budget deficits through 2034. That’s certainly not beautiful. And, if it’s such a win for the taxpayer, why did we have to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion?

Poet Sylvia Plath once observed that “If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”