2008.....2009...."Taxation Without Representation"

Looking back at 2008 from a strictly financial point of view things could not have been much worse.

The stock market crash, banks and financial institutions folding and the big 3 auto makers holding on for dear life.

Just when we thought we had seen the worst we had the Madoff Ponzi scheme uncovered and another $50 Billion was lost.

It just seems we can never learn from our mistakes.

Greed was good to a lot of people until the house of cards came crashing down.

And as always the typical response was we will get the government to bail us out.

Once again will we ever learn?

Where were the fiscal watchdogs, where was the SEC?

And why are the guilty never punished?

Top execs still pulling down million dollar salaries and Madoff sitting in his $7 Million penthouse while the rest of us have to worry about paying the bills.

Almost everyone I know has forgotten about retirement as their 401 K’s have lost most of their value.

And these are the people who go to work every day and care for their families.

The ones that will wind up paying for the bailouts with higher taxes and fewer services.

Hundreds of billions and bailouts and we will tax people who don’t drink diet soda.

And if you think our elected officials are going to fix this mess just look at how many of them were either arrested or indicted last year alone.

And almost all of them are still in office.

In New York alone we had a drunk driving Congressman, an Attorney General paying hookers and at least 2 Councilman accused of attacking their girlfriends or co-workers just to name a few.

And while our Governor appears to be deciding on our new Senator looking only at pedigree instead of qualifications at least he is not selling the seat to the highest bidder as they tried to do in Illinois.

Numerous times we have called for a political pre-nup and were are laughed at.

But the fact of the matter is that if these elected officials know that they will not be punished if caught the risk appears to be worth the reward.

We need the good elected officials to make a stand and there are a lot of them.

If just one would stand up and publically take the pre nup it would be a start……JUST ONE

But as corruption and mismanagement run rampant they all turn a blind eye.

And it will appear to be status quo in 2009.

The MTA is already looking into a federal bail out.

Not to hold down the price of tolls or keep current service but to build new stations.

Wouldn’t the money be better spent maintaining current services and tolls?

If you don’t have money to pay the bills on your home you don’t take out a loan to put on an extension.

Don’t those in power see that it is this kind of thinking that has gotten us into our current predicament?

But no they will continue to let the Authorities mismanage their budgets and give sweet deals to the same companies that miss deadlines and overrun their budgets.

Agencies will continue to be top heavy when it comes to salaries and John Q Public will continue to foot the bill.

They will close firehouses and put lives in jeopardy before they will even think about having these execs at these agencies take a salary cut.

Or they will award political patronage with additional staff or grants because they can.

Well if we want 2009 to be any better than 2008 we need to start saying no you can’t

“Taxation Without Representation” was not just a slogan but the foundation on which this country was built.

It’s about time we reminded our elected officials.