The American public has long been known as the most generous in the world. Earthquakes, sunamis, epidemics, famine, hurricanes, tornadoes – you name it – natural or man-made disaster anywhere on the planet and we’re right there with help. Our hearts and wallets open with amazing speed and few, if any, questions asked.
This year is no different: Wall Street falls on tough times and our elected officials in the blink of an eye offer $700 billion of our hard-earned dollars to help out those poor souls who can’t make it on their half-million dollar annual salaries while scamming the pants off of the unsuspecting “investor class”. That was after they doled out a chunk of change to Freddie and Fannie and AIG to save them from the consequences of some incredibly stupid (not to mention criminal) business decisions. And, in what is, hopefully, his last act of “compassionate conservatism”, President Bush threw another few billion at the Big Three (or Two of the Big Three, anyway) to thwart a potential tanking of the last vestiges of the American manufacturing industry. Now we learn that we’re making one more Santa Claus gesture this holiday season: We’re giving every single one of our Senators and Representatives a $4,700 raise.
It never ceases to amaze me how thoughtful and giving we Americans are.