IS THE FUTURE OF ARTS FUNDING GONE IN AMERICA?

    
by Larry Wines
    
    ...With quotes from Thomas Friedman, Larry Summers, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Maher, Goldman Sachs, Jay Carney, Bruce Bartlett, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Abraham Lincoln, David Ignatius, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, Jon Stewart, Bob Schieffer, Fareed Zakariah, George W. Bush, Robert Reich, and Ezra Klein.
    
    In a call to action for artists, the editor debunks the current fight over the Debt Limit and digs into the future of public-sector support for accessible arts and arts education. He assess whether there will be any ability to find support for the arts again, given current politics, and what we can do to change things in our favor. It's an in-depth piece, with plenty of context, history and perspective.    
    
+++    
    
    You can't compartmentalize everything. A publication about acoustic music and musicians, one that exists to celebrate live performances and advocate for the arts and arts education, can't ignore something that may spell the end to what little public funding remains for presenting and accessing the arts in our society.    
    
    Capital flows to markets that present the lowest risk or the highest return. The former gets the lowest interest rates, the latter, because it entails escalating risks, pays the most to get money. It's basic economics and it's why political dithering over the Debt Limit is like a kid playing with dynamite. For the first time in our history, and strictly because of politics, the U.S. is about to go from the top of the first category to somewhere in the second, and it'll cost us far more than we can afford. That's not all.   
   
    The Senate's bipartisan Gang of Six budget wranglers and the White House are now agreeing to trade-away part of the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in return for paying today's outstanding bills. House Republicans won't accept it because it doesn't end some of government's traditional roles altogether. Senate and House Democrats will split, some standing steadfast to protect these programs, others ready to vote in panic on anything that pays the nation's bills at any cost. It's a mess.    
    
    There's an immediate need – guaranteeing we will pay our current bills, i.e., the Debt Limit – and a larger context – revenues and spending / investments. Politicians can't seem to separate them or address either one effectively. And just as most of us can't imagine any future society worth having unless it strongly supports and continuously celebrates the arts, neither could many of us have foreseen other claustrophobic aspects of our supposedly infinitely networked times. This was supposed to be a time of expansive opportunity. It's not, and the odds are running against us. It is, necessarily, a call to action.    
    
    No one seems to be asking the most basic questions: if government budgets are cut and no new revenues can be collected, is there any opportunity for comprehensive arts funding or even enough money to sustain what little we have now? And why no new revenues? If the rich must continue to receive massive tax breaks because they are job creators, where are the jobs? And why are big issues being held hostage by politicians on both sides before the nation's outstanding bills are paid to prevent a default and what it would bring – higher interest rates, and billions more from taxpayers for higher interest payments?     
    
    A day when we would seriously contemplate not paying the nation's bills, causing old people to worry whether they will get their Social Security checks to pay the rent? Going from a manufacturing to a services to an information-based to a solely consumer society that produces nothing for sale overseas? Surrendering leadership in scientific innovation and discovery, underlined this week by abandoning our manned space flight capability? Or more accurately, walking away from the ability to engage in it, at all, until some private business brings it back, IF we're willing then to pay what they demand for it.     
    
    Losing our ability to launch ourselves into space is a suitably ironic metaphor for all the ways we're grounding our future and holding ourselves hostage to those whose maximum altitude is the ivory tower, from which they control big money and manipulate it in ways that are not in our best interests.     
    
    Massive cuts of government budgets, and moreover, eliminating ways to raise future revenues, have profound implications for everything else, including regulating the fat cats, as well as supporting the arts, science, engineering, and a green future. The arts are always the first casualty. Arts and music education were the first to be stripped from school budgets. A disgraceful litany of losses has followed. How much more will we allow ourselves to lose, across all of society?    
    
    Thomas Friedman, the New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist and bestselling author, just asked the National Governor's Association annual meeting over the weekend, “What world are we living in?” He expressed, “We need to cut and we need to raise revenue. You cut without being careful and you may hit an artery or you may hit a bone. It's an idiotic debate we're having right now. It's irresponsible to our country and it's irresponsible to ourselves and our future.” Friedman emphasized the necessity of spending on education, infrastructure, the right rules for capital formation, and government investment in infrastructure and improvements.     
    
    He told the nation's Governors, “We need to reinvest and reinvigorate infrastructure for the 21st century,” because “we live in a hyperconnected world” where others are doing a better job with those things than we are. Of course, he had plenty of illustrative examples.     
    
    But we need to go beyond Friedman's remarks. We need to view some recent history that built and shaped our view of ourselves. Without it, you really can't get a sufficiently broad perspective, the context or the key meaning, much less the long term implications of all this. We think we are a society uniquely driven by a positive central characteristic of “American Exceptionalism.” If that was ever true, is it now?    
    
    Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who served both the Bush and Obama administrations, asks if we are willing to accept a time where people in their fifties lose their jobs and never find another one, a time when we fail to renew decaying infrastructure and continually defer that expense to the future. He says, “Make no mistake, a depression was a serious possibility in the summer of 2009. It didn't happen because of the Stimulus Act.”    
    
    Summers says “The most important thing that makes businesses confident is a thick order book. Business volume is lower than it was at the end of 2007, yet corporate profits are more than 20% higher. We've done a lot to enhance corporate profitability.” He notes that happened because businesses laid-off workers and downsized productivity.    
    
    Downsizing and massive, perhaps permanent, joblessness as the path to corporate profits? What a come-down for a nation that once believed it could do anything.    
    
    Forty-two years ago this week, Apollo 11 made the first manned landing on the moon. It was celebrated as both the 20th century's equivalent of Columbus and the moment when science eclipsed all other human achievements to date. It fulfilled a challenge given the nation by a bold and future-focused young president who didn't live to see it, but whose spirit embodied and emboldened America.     
    
    The timing was remarkable. The Greatest Generation, those who fought WWII, were enjoying the most prosperous time in human history and everyone expected their kids and the grand kids they produced would enjoy ever-increasing advantages they themselves had never had. Things were good and mostly getting better, if you ignored the ubiquitous smog, polluted rivers, and recent demise of all the light rail systems. But there was enough money and, for those who saved, anything reasonable was achievable.    
    
    Things took us higher, faster, farther. It was a very can-do era. Oh, there was the great incongruity: the unpopular and ultimately tragic and pointless war in Southeast Asia and protests of it in America were both raging. But in so many ways, even the painful upheaval of of that era's protest movements represented the apex of American culture, passionately striving for and achieving more than we had before. Civil Rights, at least in terms of an end to legally-sanctioned segregation, were won by black Americans and brought the basis for equality.     
    
    In terms of government-funded infrastructure and services, there were plenty and they were popular. The vast interstate highway system, begun in the 1950s, was nearing completion. Bridges spanned vast waterways. A monumental and symbolic arch was rising above the Mississippi River at St. Louis. University and college tuition was affordable and community colleges were free. Everyone took a family summer vacation, typically to the National Parks (which were free). Public schools and public libraries, the two foundations of democracy, both had the money they needed for rich, meaningful programs. The schools taught art and music for all. The libraries were open seven days a week. We, the people, enjoyed things across the height and breadth of our country and our taxes paid for them.    
    
    Every family, it seemed, owned its own home with an affordable mortgage. Gasoline was thirty-some cents a gallon and sometimes fell lower, and a new car cost three grand or less (a new Cadillac was six). It cost six bucks to get into Disneyland, and Knott's Berry Farm was free. Life was good.    
    
    A large proportion of working Americans were union members, including public sector employees. Health care came with any job worth having and co-pays at the doctor's office were paltry or unknown. The world was our marketplace, its industries, peoples and their governments our customers.     
    
    Americans had not just vision, but expectations of a future that would soon take us to Mars and beyond and let us live under the sea or on the moon or aboard giant pinwheel space stations like the ones in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” We believed in a world where America and its economic partners would ultimately provide a shared bounty of civilization's advancements – for all, provided we didn't annihilate ourselves in a nuclear confrontation. And even that aspect meant we were spending a fortune on ever-advancing military gadgets and hardware and ships and unprecedented submarines that never had to surface (fulfilling President Eisenhower's parting warning of the “vast military-industrial complex” as it built its power base and economic clout.)     
    
    The point is, it was all there, all happening at the same time, and we had enough money to pay for all of it, while investing in basic scientific research that fueled dreams of even more.    
    
    Yet, since the return of the final Apollo mission in 1972, we haven't done much to pursue the promise of space travel or sent people to explore “Where no one has gone before.” Neither astronauts nor cosmonauts nor the growing number of space-suited travelers from other nations have been anywhere farther than earth orbit. And we have largely gone that far just to gratify our own nationalistic and narcissistic impulses.     
    
    Jump forward. Unless it's some silly app for a bird-brain game on a mobile device or easy texting so we can avoid the stress of real interpersonal conversation, we have lost (or at least lost interest in) our once defining American desire to rush to be first to meet the future.     
    
    In more tangible terms, the expected “peace dividend” – the money we were supposed to get from defense cuts after the fall of the Soviet Union – was more than gobbled-up in the sands of distant deserts and recent permanent expansions in the size of our standing military to protect us from nebulous, non-state-based, geographically nonspecific terrorism.     
    
    Europe and Japan, for decades, and now China, have made massive public investments in high speed passenger rail that facilitates their dynamic and highly mobile economies. We can't even expand Amtrak into a true national system, and it's a constant battle to keep it, at all.    
    
    It just doesn't make sense. A prominent senator recently repeated that we don't need Amtrak because it doesn't make a profit. Does he understand that no nation's passenger rail system makes a profit? As Bill Maher recently observed to Piers Morgan, “It's not supposed to make a profit,” or it would cost too much to have it at all.     
    
    Moreover, what of the hypocrisy over competition and government meddling with the marketplace? After 9/11, the airline industry was suddenly freed from the expense of paying for its own security – maintenance base facilities, terminals, air and ground systems, passenger and baggage screening – all of it was suddenly provided to them free by the government. They saved an essential cost of doing business so we could, instead, be felt-up by the taxpayer-funded TSA. Yet the public sector assuming part of the costs for an entire industry is not seen as socialism? And what of the entire taxpayer-funded National Weather Service, built so commercial air carriers could avoid being torn apart in storm clouds? And air traffic control, provided free to the industry by the Federal Aviation Administration? But it's okay those things are expensive free gifts from the taxpayers, not something the airlines should provide for themselves or get the bill from us?     
    
    And there's education. Some would have us eliminate the core science curriculum in our public schools, where it's already sub-par with most of what the world's kids get. Instead, they would impose their own religious ideology masquerading as science in some kind of Creation Theory. Funded by the taxpayers, of course. It isn't just that it would be wholly unsupported by scientific inquiry and methodology; it's that they expect the rest of us to pay for it.    
    
    At best, America's reasoning about eliminating our government's taxpayer-funded functions while using taxpayer dollars to further special interest agendas is a highly selective exercise aimed at getting others to pay for what you want while scrupulously avoiding the goring of your own ox.     
    
    But we can't simply focus on philosophy or contradictions or political hypocrisy. The economy is in deep trouble and, like Thelma and Louise, we're being driven toward the cliff – with the talk radio blaring. Short of massive censorship or exorbitant internet fees, the current scenario portends the most destructive implications for the arts that we can imagine. It's not too extreme to foresee museum and park closures, while reductions – even outright loss – of many publicly-funded arts programs and facilities seem inevitable.    
    
    It's appropriate to point out that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's high school senior yearbook page (everyone in his class got a personalized senior page) is emblazoned with his proclamation, “I want what I want and I want it now.” It seems to characterize plenty of politicians with heels dug-in and lower lips extended.     
    
    The current surrender-or-die hyperbole transcends all the old guns-or-butter arguments about where we should spend our money. Whatever we need – or simply want – we must be willing to pay for it. And these days, paying for anything, even something as essential as replacing aging bridges, old water mains and sewers, an obsolete and faulty electric power grid unsuitable for reliable computing, and other absolutely necessary infrastructure – or things as simple as keeping libraries open and putting new books on their shelves – seems in each case to require a dedicated advocacy group with a focused and emphatic priority.    
    
    At least plenty of talented people these days have time to be advocates. The latest Goldman Sachs report predicts unemployment will decline only slightly, to
8.75%, by the end of 2012.    
    
    The latest lunacy is “CCB,” a cutesy tag for an oversimplified new mantra of Cut, Cap and Balance. In return for agreeing to pay our current bills, it demands an immediate and huge Cut of the Federal budget and a Cap on all future spending, limiting it to 18% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Current spending is 24% of GDP, so we're talking about spending one-third less, across the board, immediately – and that means cutting more than the total amount of discretionary spending in the entire budget. The Balance part? That requires a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – just to get the outstanding bills paid.     
    
    Bruce Bartlett, economic adviser to the Reagan White House, calls the latter, “quite possibly the stupidest Constitutional Amendment I have ever seen... It looks like it was drafted on the back of a napkin by a couple of interns.”    
    
    Meanwhile, Obama White House Press Secretary Jay Carney calls CCB by another name: “Duck, Dodge and Dismantle,” citing efforts of lawmakers to duck and dodge their responsibilities and dismantle government programs like Social Security. For the maddeningly calm No Drama Obama administration, it's a rather strident statement.    
    
    So, it's a congressional fantasy land of loud intransigence, at odds with a White House that seems too interested in calmly achieving some impossible consensus. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius observes that “President Obama seems more interested in getting everyone to buy into a solution than in providing leadership.”     
    
    Perhaps the president could use an example from his own favorite presidential hero. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes Abraham Lincoln as saying, "Consensus can be paralyzing. You have to know when to act."
    
    Conservatives line up to scream “liar” at a president they call a socialist (perhaps as a substitute for another word they wish they could call him). Liberals see Obama as a wuss, far too conciliatory, starting every series of downs on the 50 yard line, and far too ready to trade-away Democratic Party cornerstones in search of some unattainable kumbaya.    
    
    Hello, Washington? It's supposed to be about paying the bills first, and determining our future after the wolf has been chased from the front porch. But politicians jockey for position and the wolf is still there.     
    
    But it's not just D.C., or the rancorous efforts to strip union worker's rights in Wisconsin and Ohio in the name of saving money and freeing the rich job creators from the yoke of paying taxes.     
    
    In California, an intransigent faction of the legislature just allowed a penny of the sales tax to expire, despite the state's hopelessly broke condition. They're playing chicken with the state's credit rating and its future, for the sake of politics.    
    
    Still, it's our nation's capitol where things are the worst. The leadership of one party refuses to allow consideration of anything that would bring in money. That includes closing tax code loopholes – ones that enable the rich and corporations to pay little or no taxes and take deductions for ostentatious toys that seem decadent to so many who are hurting.     
    
    Closing tax loopholes is off the table? Big Oil makes money faster than the U.S. Mint (literally) yet they get tax breaks and even receive "depletion allowances" and other subsidies paid to them from everyone else's taxes. They're the richest enterprises in the history of the world, and they're getting our tax money? Meanwhile, families with unemployed bread winners lose their homes and lifetime investments to foreclosure. The rich deduct yachts. People who've worked all their lives apply for food stamps. Corporations deduct layers of pumped-up line item expenses for corporate jets, rather than fly Southwest or Jet Blue with their already taxpayer-subsidized security, airports, terminals, air traffic control and weather infrastructure. Yet finding any new revenue is off the table.     
    
    The anti-tax party's leadership stubbornly refuses to allow expiration of tax cuts for the rich, passed as a temporary measure a decade ago. They won't allow a return to the levels the rich paid during the Clinton years, an era when the rich prospered so much that America produced a record number of new millionaires and an eight-year record of 23.1 million new jobs (compared to the tax-cuts-for-the-job-creators Bush years and 3 million jobs and turning a surplus into a record deficit). But the anti-tax party's creed is cast in stone: "we cannot tax the rich because they are the job creators.”    
    
    We want to avoid focusing on where the Republicans and where the Democrats stand in all this, not just because it's far less clear than you might think (we'll get to that). Put partisanship aside, because something bigger is far more important to all of us. No one seems to be asking the most basic question: if the rich must continue to receive massive tax breaks because they are job creators, where are the jobs?     
    
    The fat cats might dodge the question by stating, as they often do, that the US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. But does anyone actually pay it? Loopholes and deductions make it doubtful. GE, parent company of NBC, paid almost no taxes on its massive toasters-to-jet-engines-to-TV empire last year. That is all too typical.    
    
    Tax breaks for a rich individual – or for the fictitious immortal “individual,” the corporation – are too often characterized incorrectly. They are, in fact, a requirement for the rest of us to subsidize the rich, for whatever reason we're willing to do that. Of course, letting them keep more (often more than what they let us keep) subsidizes their ability to spend on whims and wants and vacations to exotic locales – and for purchasing politicians. That's where it goes beyond corporate welfare. We're paying for their purchase of politicians, and making them beneficiaries in a position to protect their interests at the expense of the rest of us.     
    
    It happens simply because spending the taxes collected from the rest of us subsidizes others who aren't paying their fair share – and that statement is, in fact, a longtime conservative definition – of welfare.     
    
    Expect to see a lot of upside-down welfare – protected corporate economic clout, pursuing its self-interest by pummeling the rest of us, since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. It was the stealthily-named case that actually gave corporations unlimited ability to raise and spend money on candidates and in political causes with little or no trail of how much they're spending on who or what or why or where.    
    
    The rich who got the tax breaks and the corporations that suddenly didn't need to pay their taxes were partly the cause of the nation's current financial crisis – along with a Medicare prescription drug subsidy that wasn't paid for, and two wars that, incredibly, were kept off the books.     
    
    Given all this, if the rest of us need to protect the rich from paying taxes when the government is broke, the central question remains, why? We'd really love to ask about all the jobs they were supposed to have created during the decade-plus of their continuing temporary tax breaks. We can't find those jobs and neither can they. They don't exist, except maybe at their relocated plants in China.     
    
    Good luck getting the pols to ask for you. The dialog is elsewhere, and its politics of diversion combines the idea that the rich shouldn't pay with an assertion that government shouldn't be allowed to pay its existing bills unless it has all its teeth pulled first.    
    
    Mixing metaphors, some would have you believe our government simply wants to spend like a drunken sailor. Given the phenomenal and shocking amount of decaying infrastructure in this country, that's an irresponsible position even before we get to issues of art and culture and advancing enough to keep from being left in the exhaust of other nations.    
    
    The perennial need to guarantee paying our nation's debt has never occasioned apocalyptic debate before. Our lawmakers used to quickly take care of business and then open the doors to ways to take society forward.    
    
    Ronald Reagan raised the debt limit 17 times, 11 with tax increases. George W. Bush raised the debt limit seven times, and to unprecedented levels. Rancor-free. During the administration just past, Vice President Dick Cheney stated quite emphatically, “Deficits don't matter,” and he went unchallenged by his own party. The very members of Congress who now demand take-no-prisoners concessions failed then to voice incredulity or outrage, though the idea of a deficit, or maybe any spending by government, is suddenly intolerable. Now, the same people who voted for two unprecedented bailouts of the banks see no role for government to have, much less spend, money. They demand the deficit must end without collecting revenue to pay for it.    
    
    Suddenly, nothing can happen unless a Balanced Budget Amendment to the US Constitution is passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and sent to the states? Plus a permanent spending cap? Plus massive guaranteed cuts to the Federal budget? Plus a guarantee that taxes on the wealthy will never return to their 1990s levels and tax loopholes will never be closed, though they cost us billions?    
    
    As the science of entropy predicts, systems move from order to instability to chaos. And that breeds more chaos. There isn't a clear partisan divide here.     
    
    Traditional economic conservatives are struggling to remember Ronald Reagan's famous 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republican.” Signs are clear that many old hands do not know what to make of the Tea Party's emphatically intransigent slash-and-burn neophytes, though they cannot risk open challenges.     
    
    Liberals had been finding scant consolation that the perpetually compromising President had temporarily backed-off from touching the third rail of American politics. It appeared for awhile he would reject Republican demands for privatization of Social Security and cutting Medicare and Medicaid as a condition for paying the nation's outstanding bills. As of Tuesday morning, he'll accept big cuts again. After all, he just abandoned the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, the woman who designed the new and popularly-sought consumer protection bureau, something that should be a hallmark of his administration. But on Monday, he nominated someone else to head it, rather than actually fight for her nomination. Liberals worry that the president always seems poised to cut the heart out of spending for Democrats' favorite programs, just to make himself feel reasonable in the face of people screaming that he's a liar. Is he being manipulated or doing it to himself? Either way, the name-calling is abhorrent.    
    
    All the rancor is ugly, and moreover, it's childishly annoying because it's incongruent, unprincipled and delusional. But when is it time to fight? Has politics ever been so – CONTRARIAN, without any legitimate regard for well-reasoned principles? Is there anything Republicans won't fight to oppose? Is there anything this president finds worth fighting for? Does he understand Ronald Reagan's basic popularity was based on the High Noon image of the Hollywood gunfighter facing the bad guys, the strong and decisive character whose favorite words were, “Well, no.” Does he understand, at all, that America wants a give-em-hell Harry Truman, not a Harry Potter who thinks he can charm the demons with magic? Assessing this – Intransigence vs. Obsession With Compromise – where no deal is possible would be only political handicapping, were we not in an economic crisis reaching from the kitchen table to the international money markets.     
    
    But we are in crisis. A real one. And the immediate part has an action deadline of August 2.     
    
    How did politicians come to fixate on so many crazy, irresponsible and wholly unprecedented hostage-based dialogs, collectively resembling Nero fiddling while Rome burns?    
    
    Raising the Debt Ceiling has almost – almost – nothing to do with any of the supposed issues the politicians are holding hostage. Sure, there is an issue of profound FUTURE importance because failure to pay our current bills would trigger higher interest rates on debt and cost all of us hundreds of billions in public and private debt service for decades to come. Other than that aspect, it's an issue of acting RIGHT NOW on a balance that's due RIGHT NOW. It's recklessly irresponsible to fool around with the wolf at the door.    
    
    Guaranteeing the debt is simply paying the bill we already rang-up. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, it's as if a bunch of pro-war, pro-corporation, anti-regulation, anti-tax characters took us all to an expensive dinner. They ate most of it, including some from our plates, filled doggie bags for their buddies, pocketed the silverware and embroidered napkins, then got up from the table and left us with the bill. (We note that some of them were at the banquet to celebrate increased profits gained by outsourcing our jobs and manufacturing capability to other countries. And they got away with it.) Now, we're the ones left at the table and we don't have the option of washing dishes in the back.    
    
    It may be funny when Jon Stewart asks, “Do we need to park our country down the block where China can't find it?” But it's a national humiliation we ever got here in the first place, and a disaster if we try to dodge calls from the bill collectors.    
    
    On his CBS Face the Nation show on Sunday, host Bob Schieffer explained a lot of it. Schieffer, the last of Washington's grand old men of political journalists, noted that “running for office and perpetually running for reelection are both so expensive that they consume nearly all the time of the office holder. By the time a newly-elected representative reaches Washington, they have sold-out to so many interests that all their positions are cast in cement. Any thought of compromise to get something done is regarded as a betrayal by some special interest who sent them there.”     
    
    Last week underlined all of it in an unexpected way. If you caught any of the funeral of former First Lady Betty Ford, you heard people speak of her commitment to women's rights and accomplishments and influences across the political spectrum that transcended the post-Watergate turmoil of her time, to the lasting benefit of all of us. Clearly, it hasn't always been the way it is now. She will be remembered and held in esteem. Will today's political figures?    
    
    Back to Bob Schieffer. What he didn't recognize is today's members of Congress are a throwback to the 1870s-1880s, the Gilded Age, when the Robber Barons of steel and oil and each big railroad conglomerate quite openly owned his own flock of congressmen and senators.     
    
    We're there again, and it matters more now than it ever has, far beyond the arts.    
    
    One of the first casualties in government spending cuts, by nations around the world, is spending for environmental protection and achieving the all-important marriage of environmental and economic sustainability. As economic impacts from America, Greece and Ireland exert pressure on financial markets, good things we think are happening simply are not.     
    
    Fareed Zakariah revealed on his CNN Sunday show, “Global dependence on oil is actually higher now than a year ago,” and continues to trend more in that direction.     
    
    As Zakariah explained, cutting carbon emissions to slow global climate change – something expected to exert a major technological push for new growth industries during this decade – simply isn't happening. The best it gets is disappointing if not bleak. Germany is currently installing inefficient solar panels and Denmark installed thousands of inefficient windmills because buying more oil was cheaper than the needed financing – the cost of getting money – to buy better solar and wind devices. When the cost of capital is too high, effective and efficient new technology is too expensive. (Denmark is now biting the bullet and replacing their old electric-power windmills with better ones, but they're the exception.)    
    
    Environmental issues often assert themselves suddenly, in ways requiring disaster relief funding. Right now, a record 12% of America is experiencing severe drought. That includes a lot of Southern Plains farmland and 75% of Texas. Arizona's forests just burned, catastrophically. Two summers ago, half the San Gabriel Mountain range became an inferno that nearly claimed the Mt. Wilson Observatory and all of L.A.'s broadcast radio and TV transmitters. Heroic firefighters from throughout America held the fire, just feet from those facilities, and ultimately extinguished it, after months of constant effort.     
    
Can private industry make a profit helping people and dealing with disasters when government is too broke to come to their aid?     
    
This spring, more than a dozen communities across half a dozen states were devastated or wholly destroyed by a shocking series of worst-on-record tornadoes.     
    
    Please permit a personal note. Those tornadoes brought me back to being in Louisiana as a volunteer aid worker after Hurricane Katrina. There, I saw first hand, the “Heckuva job Brownie” bungling and the effective, if far from immediate, efforts of National Guard units sent from several distant states – along with the people-to-people convoys and generosity. I can't imagine living in an America that has no money to help its own people. Nor can I tolerate the stupid arrogance of politicians who deny that human impacts on the atmosphere in the name of quick profits have no connection with the global climate change that powers extreme weather phenomena.    
    
    Ultimately, the economy is dependent on the cooperation of a benevolent if not benign environment, every bit as much as every other endeavor of society and civilization, including agriculture and all other essential human activities – including the arts.     
    
    The first intentional record left us by early humans was art, but as we're seeing here, it's not possible to focus on continuing that legacy to the exclusion of the society's interlocking issues.    
    
    So, what is the picture, if we were to take a snapshot right now? Overall, it seems the modus operandi of the 19th century Robber Barons and the politicians they own is simply back, but with much higher stakes:     
    
    a) Big corporations, ostensibly American, actually multinational, take short-term profits with little or no consideration for long-term viability. Profits are most-often based on extractrion of nonrenewable resources and on layoffs, firings, and exportation of jobs, following over-consolidations to eliminate more innovative competitors. The end result is far fewer jobs and an attendant reduction of competitive innovation in the marketplace, together with lost jobs that will not return.     
    
    b) Corporate-owned politicians legislate against government regulation, so the Robber Barons can do as they please and save costs of health, safety, spill prevention, clean-up and other social and environmemtal responsibilities. (And we get blowout preventers that don't work, months and tons of toxic gush into the gulf's waters and across the sea floor, millions of gallons of unknown synergistic chemical dispersants – themselves toxic – dumped into the environment, all followed by tens of millions of dollars in TV ads from Big Oil, telling us how wonderful they are.)    
    
    c) Big corporations buy politicians to de-certify public sector unions. Certainly, it's part of an effort to eliminate unions altogether, since the organizations exist to protect the rights workers fought long and hard to achieve.    
    
    d) Eliminating unions is consistent with privatizing everything for profit, whether or not it gains value for taxpayers. Even the military no longer cooks or serves its own food, or handles most of its own computer needs, or maintains its own vehicles – not even its sophisticated piloted and robotic drone aircraft. Instead, defense contractors do all those things at a profit. As a result, taxpayers pay much more, and most uniformed military personnel learn only combat skills that are not marketable in the civilian sector when their enlistment ends. (Time was, you could join the military and learn a career skill. Nowadays, you just get a fourth or fifth deployment to a fire base in Afghanistan, surrounded by literally millions of old Soviet land mines, living with more years of violent combat than any American soldier experienced in WWII.)    
    
    e) And finally, there's us. We, nearly all of us, allow ourselves to be distracted by far too much BS, by Howard Stern's insulting potty humor, Nancy Grace's crazed stares into the camera for HLN's endless “coverage” (and highest ratings ever) with the trial of a disgusting young woman who, the jury says, maybe didn't murder her baby.
    We're innundated with supposedly Real Housewives (like none we know) infesting TV between half-hours of ersatz angst with more brainless twits who worry about makeup and tattoos and hookups with people they don't care about anyway. It's the definitive lyrics of that Eagles song a quarter century ago, “Dirty Laundry,” on steroids.
    We are obsessed with transitory BS and foolishness marinaded in overwrought emotions of the extreme. We bestow celebrity status that makes pathetic people famous for being famous, despite their lack of meaningful accomplishment and apparent inability to contribute anything of actual value to society.
    We cheer the instant fame of the unaccomplished singing idol who cheapens the worth of lessons and practice and rehearsals and studio time and collaboration and learning.
    We see it too in the silliness of politicians who quit their jobs after half a term in office then carry on like they've remade a Rocky movie.
    To the far too limited extent that most of us analyze complex political issues at all, it's often limited to laughing along with Stewart and Colbert and Leno and Letterman and O'Brien and SNL. (In our defense, we do live in an age of no bold political heroes.)
    
    f) Democracy is in trouble, and with it, our opportunity to save the planet – and ourselves – from atmospherically destabilizing carbon increases; from artificially-mutated and ultimately intrusive food crops that lack natural genetic diversity; from myriad and synergistic carcinogenic poisons of countless industrial chemicals; from a plague of leeching plastic-based chemicals and airborne and waterborne toxins that infest the cells of our bodies; from slimy mid-ocean islands of garbage; from endless wars to protect access to foreign oil supplies; and from economic manipulations that benefit shareholders and bring obscene executive bonuses in the short run at the cost of everyone and everything in the long run.     
    
+++    
    
    So, can we, in this forum, offer anything more encouraging than the obvious necessity that the politicians need to stop screwing around (in some cases, literally) and take care of the needs of the people first – including the human need for culture and art – and then, when possible, worry about reconciling those essentials with the desires of business?     
    
    Actually, yes we can. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is the one making more sense than anyone else. For months, Reich has advocated “tax relief, to be meaningful, needs to be aimed at getting more capital into the weak economy.” He would start with balancing “a return to 1990s tax rates with an exemption for the first $20,000 that each of us makes, regardless of our individual total earnings or tax bracket.” It's even-handed, because the rich get it, too, and it's an inherently practical stimulus because the poor need it now and will spend it now.     
    
    Reich would reinstate ideas that worked before. He would bring back a form of the WPA and CCC from the Roosevelt Administration that beat the Great Depression. If you've seen an epic mural in an old federal building or post office, you're looking at a WPA project that employed artists and gave us a lasting cultural asset. Often, the local post office itself was a WPA construction project, as were significant bridges, irrigation projects, rural electrification and lots more. These government investments put unemployed people to work, built career job skills, and left something for all of us that we continue to use and enjoy. In the mountains above L.A., the Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest Highways and the ski areas reached by them, together with the extensive network of high country hiking, equestrian, and mountain biking trails, were all products of the CCC and WPA of the 1930s. Okay, so the decades of accessible publicly-owned resources there and elsewhere are no longer free, because the underfunded Forest Service now charges a hefty fee for a parking pass.     
    
    Still, that's part of the point: we don't have the money to guarantee safe access to, or fund maintenance of, the things we once built in prolific profusion, from interstate highways to hiking trails. Yet politicians want to cut government budgets and prevent any chance of employing anyone to maintain or improve or restore any of it? We should what, throw it away? Any politician advocating that should be brought up on charges for failing to protect public property.     
    
    Reich is right. Bringing back a WPA / CCC component to the public sector makes sense, especially in hard economic times with massive unemployment. It would give us something that would not only put skilled people – including artists – back to work, but it would enable us to pass on to future generations some useful gifts from our time to theirs.     
    
    Why shouldn't every public park in the suburbs have a piece of sculpture, just as every old park in the city has a statue or two? Why shouldn't every park of a certain size have a bandstand and a publicly-funded neighborhood concert series? Why shouldn't all our public buildings be retrofitted with sustainable energy-producing devices that take them off the grid for good and save taxpayer money in perpetuity? Wouldn't that produce jobs now, paid for with savings generated everyday, savings that benefit us for years to come? But it's only possible if the money to do it is there in the first place.    
    
    Thomas Friedman, who writes of the hyperconnected economy of what he calls a flat earth, emphasizes, “We must create jobs that cannot be outsourced.”     
    
    Well, investments and jobs that create and present art for our own people, here in our own communities, and improve our publicly-owned facilities and renew our infrastructure, cannot be outsourced, and they enrich our lives here.     
    
    Friedman even told the National Governors Association, “Everyone must think like an artisan. Artisans give a personal touch to whatever they do. Artisans often put their name or their initials on what they do. Their pride and individual expression are part of it. That's a really good mindset. Think like an artisan.”    
    
    If even one of these ideas has merit, then we must reckon with the central issue: drastically cutting government's sources of funding will prevent us from ever achieving even one of these goals. We won't have money for hurricane or tornado relief or fighting wild fires. We'll always be too broke. Would we need to hock Yosemite or the Lincoln Memorial or the Statue of Liberty to pay for earthquake relief? We couldn't, because we couldn't come back later with the money. Before some fake populist wave convinces you that government funds should be taken away, understand that the things we enjoy now will become unsustainable for lack of funding. Unsustainable, even as our critical infrastructure continues to decay while unemployment, as Goldman Sachs predicts, continues at high levels.     
    
    Back to Friedman, who offers more challenges. He asked the Governors why is it appropriate that we continue to expend our blood and treasure “in places where the supposed beneficiaries,” the indigenous populations, “have insufficient or no interest in taking ownership” of the changes wrought by our military presence and our killing and dying and destroying and expensive rebuilding there? If we are to cut what we spend, why not start with what we spend in those places?    
    
    There's plenty we should be discussing that hasn't been part of the politicians' dialog.     
    
    Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein remarked Monday, “We are being forced to choose between deals that are either/or instead of deals that are both/and. We can do better.”    
    
    The unique and vital perspective of the artist – to hold a mirror up to society to interpret and define and challenge and dream and design and reach for things that exceed our grasp – should bring us all a seat at the table. Instead, we get musical chairs. The rich and powerful corporations are the ones controlling the music. Our elected representatives, rather than getting a chair for us, are complacent (or worse) running a loud and distracting room while more chairs are removed. Do they all hope we're too beset by political Attention Deficit Disorder to notice?     
    
    Our message to them is, let's stop the noise and hyperbole and distractions and distortions over the Debt Ceiling and stop claiming it's something that it's not. We must immediately pay the bill the fat cats left us when they got up from the table, and we must reckon that it'll cost us more from now on to watch and regulate those fat cats so they can't screw us with another gulf oil spill or the negligence of last week's broken pipeline that kills the Yellowstone River. We can't let our government be too broke for oversight and regulation that protects us from bad industrial practices, unsafe food, bad pharmaceuticals, and from those obsessed with profit at any price.     
    
    But first, we must pay our nation's bills, and we must do it right away. The politicians know what will happen if they allow an unprecedented default, and they must see we know it, too, and we are holding them accountable to do their jobs.     
    
    Then we must address the proper role of government spending for our society's future. Investment isn't just needed, it's required for essential infrastructure, for research and innovation and invention and exploration, for things that fuel opportunities for new clean and green sustainable industries, for development of entirely new pioneering sectors and services, for creating a new export-capable manufacturing base and for a better society – one that includes public sector support for the arts and for art and music education.     
    
The private sector has already demonstrated these are mostly things it will not provide for any price we can pay, even when they don't pay their taxes. And they've demonstrated they are not creating jobs addressing these essential needs (or anything else on our shores).    
    
    Accessible arts, and arts and music education for all, have a place in the proper role of government spending. Government has a legitimate role in meeting needs that can't be met at a profit – like efficiently and effectively operating the National Weather Service and the FAA and the FDA and Social Security and Medicare and affordable health care and a new Consumer Protection Agency and expanding Amtrak and fixing and modernizing our collapsing transportation infrastructure and water and utility grids. Government must assure the things that in turn assure health and safety, make the economic landscape navigable and attractive for private investment, and make life better for all of us.     
    
    Of course some things must be cut, since a time of high unemployment and reduced incomes means less is available for government to receive its share. So, let's determine, too, whether it's worth continuing foreign military occupations and fighting unending wars at any price, and what role we should properly have, and can afford to have, on the global stage.     
    
    Our military budget – with most of it going to giant defense contractors – is bigger than the next top 20 nations' combined military spending.     
    
    Why not preserve those jobs in a sector where high tech would freely spin-off to revitalize innovations, rather than in a classified military status where we get nothing but the bang for our bucks? Why not return military contractors to aerospace contractors and get back into space exploration? Why not do it in the name of the ultimate economic stimulus, one that gives a reason to revitalize education and emphasize the science and math sectors where we are so deficient? For America to create the massive number of high-paying jobs we need, we must help our few remaining non-exportable industries to again be a big employer – and one with infinite potential to cross-pollinate our economy. That will require something big and bold – a commitment to send humans to Mars – and it will require government leadership and spending. It's time. The moon was a generation ago. We've piddled around with silly, narcississtic technology too long. Let's do something that distinguishes us for having lived in this time with these opportunities. Let's go meet the future.     
    
    Embrace a cause or make one. Let's be worthy of our time and presence here. Let's go meet the future.    
    
    It's time for each of us, as artists and as people who passionately care, to take ownership of the future. It's time to own the fact and the recognition, and yes, the responsibility, that everything (not just the internet) is interconnected. Every role, every act, every innovation, every collaboration, every contribution, every idea, every person can be important. All it takes is will and opportunity. Part of opportunity is money. As for will, do we want to achieve something worthy, something great? There are no limits to what any of us can dream, but dreams are no substitute for doing. There is something specific we must do, right now, because we are artists, and that makes us uniquely qualified.     
    
    Can we can afford to live in a society where only private profit motive determines what happens? – Or can we afford something more, something special enough to inspire us? – Inherent in that, can we afford publicly-funded art, and art and music education and presentations in our lives? – Or can we afford to lose these vessels of our culture, from the banner-waving flagships to the simple joys of the smaller crafts? – What things will we willingly lose, for ourselves, for our society, and for our time? – And would losing those things be tantamount to abandoning hope of a future where artists are respected and sought for the uniqueness and character that only the arts can contribute? – Will we accept a world where the only art is custom-ordered by and for corporate clients, and by definition, a commercial product targeted to sell soap (or whatever) and devoid of free expression? – Are we willing to surrender an accessible cultural legacy to a corporate-dominated, exclusively profit-driven world, one that our complacency or frustrated non-participation could assure is all that's left for those who come after us?    
    
    In the face of slash-and-burn politics, these essential questions will simply be taken off the table unless we fight to keep them there, and help others to understand and answer them.

   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WOW, are you sounding-off on THIS one! The comments and replies have been pouring in!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    
                                    YOUR COMMENTS are below
       
WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS on our special feature,

“IS THE FUTURE OF ARTS FUNDING GONE IN AMERICA?    ”
    
~~~~~~~
    
We've received some very thoughtful replies. THANK YOU to our readers.
    
~~~~~~~
    
THE MOST RECENTLY RECEIVED FEEDBACK is posted first. You must let us know if you want your email address included with your post. Otherwise, we always protect you from cyber attacks and spam when you write to us.
    
Send YOUR comment to us at the “Comments” link on this page (yes, this IS the first time we've invited messages that way, and it's the PREFERRED way to comment)
    
or, write us at
    
TiedToTheTracks (at) hotmail (dot) com
    
– just replace the “@” and the “.” and delete the extra spaces (We're trying to avoid spam.)
    
~~~~~~~
    
We promise not to change the meaning of what you say, though we may need to edit for language or form, break long blocks into paragraphs, etc.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
                                    YOUR COMMENTS:
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
   
    
Late reminder, since most comments omit signatures
    
REMEMBER to sign your post if you want your name and / or contact info revealed.
Otherwise, we protect your identity.
   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Received via hotmail...

From: Jim Jones [mailto:ajamojo@comcast.net]

I almost never use my email list to promote anything political but I decided to make an exception in this case because I feel like this is so critical to all the citizens of our great country. I really don’t think it’s a conservative vs. liberal issue which is why I’m passing it along. It has to do with setting some form of term limits to assist our noble congressmen in focusing on finding solutions to the multitude of problems we face as a nation rather than focusing entirely on getting elected and then getting re-elected. If you’re not interested, read no further and please forgive me for this one departure from my otherwise iron-clad policy of keeping politics out of my music bidness. Thanks, Jim

No matter which side of the fence you are on, this is something everyone should get behind.


Congressional Reform Act of 2011

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their Address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below..
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. ;No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Seems to me Obama is the first president to negotiate with terrorists.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Chris Matthews asked a good question today. If anything goes and the ends justify the means, what next? They threaten to blow up our economy just to get their agenda done. If they win, what's their encore?
- Ben
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
When I first saw your long story on this, I glanced at it and figured this would all be over in a few days, so I probably didn't need to really read it all. Then it wasn't over and it keeps getting worse.
    
I was going to your site to look for festivals this weekend, I ran across the link again. Now I really wanted to know what all this means for the arts. This time I read it all and I ended up re-reading parts of it so I would have plenty of ammo when I talk to other people (the ones Ed Schultz calls “low information voters”. I watch Rachel Maddow, too, when I can. Recommended, she's great!)
    
I really want to acknowledge you for doing such an amazing job with this. I hadn't thought about HOW MUCH is at steak with all this. SOOOO much more than I ever would have thought. Even John McCain just called what the Republicans are doing “bizarro.” But there's no time to laugh. It's too damn serious, it's about what kind of future we will have, and I might not have appreciated any of that if not for reading what you presented. I sent messages to my congresswoman and two senators (three women – yea!)
- Bonnie
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Comedian Remy Munasifi made a rap video called 'Raise the Debt Ceiling'. Might do some good. Way simple repeating lyric, not interesting like the lyrics posted in a comment here a few days back. Is there a video of that one?
- Ellen
   
[Editor's reply: we've heard back from the lyric writer who posted. We had asked if he wanted to protect his copyright. He said no, that anyone who wants can use the lyrics. So go for it. Short-shelf-life song while it can still make a difference, anyone? If you set it to music, send us the link to your video or audio so we can share it.]
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I can't believe all the replies here that are fine with all the reckless spending continuing. Are you really posting ALL the replies, or just the ones that agree with you?
- Georgette
   
[Editor's reply: We are indeed posting everything we are receiving, though we do edit-out profanity and replace it with “expletive deleted” to protect our search status as an all-ages-friendly site. (Unlike the language in Congress, the past day or so.) We have received a record number of replies, the most ever on anything published in The Guide.]
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
It smacked me up side the head that we could have no space exploration. So I went to NASA sites and read alot about what they envision. They ENVISION alot but it doesn't look like much of it is really paid for. If congress caves to teabaggers like Obama is, we won't have ANY space exploration, will we? That's as big for me as arts, it's all what makes living now interesting. They should tax iphones and personal tech devices to pay for space. Just like they should tax processed food to pay for world famine relief. But they won't tax anything to pay for anything, no matter what it is, will they? What's broke is the bank of ideas.
- Kelly
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Lawrence O'Donnell is right: Pass a one page, one sentence bill that simply extends the debt ceiling. They screwed around too long to do anything else. Too many special interest agendas at work here, all financed by the rich. Whatever they might try at the last minute is just too suspect.
Pauly P.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
If a default would just stick it to those Wall Street bond market a-holes the way they [expletive deleted] the rest of us, that would be great. But it wouldn't. Rich guys never lose. They'll just charge the rest of us a lot more for car loans and everything else. Look at how the oil companies use every excuse in the world to raise the prices at the pump. Too hot? Higher prices. Too cold? Higher prices. Instability in Botswana? Higher prices. Clean up a big spill? Higher prices. Negligent and incompetent oil companies? Higher prices. That's a sample of what's coming if the country defaults on the debt. But you are right that we can't let the corporate owned politicians cut everything by holding the debt hostage. Just bite the bullet, raise the debt and don't kill everything worth having in our country.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Can we use this... [republish it] in FolkWorks?
- Steve Shapiro, co-editor, FolkWorks
   
[Editor's reply: ABSOLUTELY! Note: Readers can look for it among plenty of features and reviews at www.folkworks.org, but you'll still need to come here to read the feedback comments sent directly to us, rather than to FolkWorks.]
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
This is officially the least productive congress in history, you know.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
RE: my lyrics: “We bail out banks and AIG, I'm unemployed so bail out me!...”
    
Thanks for asking if I want the rights to the song [lyrics only] that I posted. Nah. It was my therapy for coping with morons, inspired by your post. Anyone who wants can sing or record [the lyrics] to their heart's content.
Sammy K.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I thot theyd pose & posture & do their fashion model runway walks & then finally get to business. Obviously I was wrong. How do we change the constitution so we can get rid of all of them and start over? Or does that happen automatically when the Chinese repo man takes us over for bad debt?
- JayDee
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
So today the CBO [Congressional Budget Office], the official nonpartisan office that evaluates proposed legislation, says the Boehner plan is off by billions in what he claims it will do, and that Obama offered a deal that Boehner refused that would have gutted 4.7 TRILLION dollars from the federal budget. Obama himself would have shut down nearly everything the federal government does and that wasn't enough for these people? Contact your member of congress and put a stop to the idea of these apocalyptic cuts!!!
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I'm sick of this and sick over the damage it will do to us for a generation or more. The crisis in this country is a JOBS CRISIS. If Cheney could say that Deficits don't matter, why aren't the Republicans still ready to believe that? They believed it for eight yrs of Bush's reckless spending.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Everybody is vilifying congress and that's wrong. Some of them are the only ones saying they'll look out for us since Obama caved. Boehner is so full of [expletive deleted] but not everybody in congress will go along with him and maybe won't give away everything like Obama either.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
So here are the real numbers, out today. The top 400 richest Americans had a 29.8 % tax rate during the Clinton years. It fell to a 16% tax rate during the Bush years right through today. That's a hell of a lot lower taxes than I pay on what little I make and and I'm struggling. The rich people's servants pay higher taxes than they do. Income inequality in America is at a 25 year high. The net worth of Latino households dropped 66% in the last ten years, and it dropped 53% for Blacks. It dropped 16% for Whites. Those look like cuts to me. Big cuts like Republicans demand. This isn't about just income and the rich not paying taxes, it's about the rich getting much richer and getting a free ride while the rest of us get poorer and stay unemployed. Yeah right, cut everything and we'll all have jobs. They are so full of [expletive deleted].
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Compromise hell. Why should the Dems compromise anymore after Obama already gave away the farm? I liked it when you said America wants him to be Harry Truman not Harry Potter. I remember Truman and he was great. No BS. I remember when he said we were going to win and going to make the Republicans like it. Now Obama is giving everything to the Republicans they say they want and they still don't like it. What about what the rest of us want? No compromise with them is what I want. Screw them the way they screwed us for 8 years. They're the ones who put us in debt after Clinton left them with a surplus. Cheney and the rest of those [expletive deleted] should be in jail. Obama is such a disappointment.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
The prez wants me to call my congress man and say I support the balanced approach he presented on TV? That wasn't balanced. It was surrender of “yes we can” and admission of “no we can't” because the Republcan (Teabagger) Party is more interested in him failing than whether they take the rest of us down with him. And he surrendered just so he can look reasonable? Maybe you called it on that. I'm writing this instead of calling them. Somebody may read this. They already made up their minds in the government and what I want no longer matters to them. They never spoke for me the way they mishandled this, not once, not anywhere.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Boehner better not give in. He talks tough but he seems to like Obama so I'm worried he might let Obama raise our taxes after all and that's stupid to raise taxes when nobody has a job to tax.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Obama's speech simplified everything and told us he isn't going to fight for anything. Looks like you were right about the whole thing. How sad. I'm 23 and trying to build a business at an outrageous time. For the difference between my generation and the older people who seem to be thinking only about themselves, visit ourtime.org and buyyoung.com. You'll discover a whole world of youthful entrepreneurs who contribute parts of our revenues to good causes and earth-friendly sustainable practices. I don't care about invoking Ronald Reagan and I'm rapidly losing interest in Barack Obama because he just caves in to the protectors of greed.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
A deal isn't what matters. It's how much we lose to let the nut fringe win. I know if there's a default we will owe millions maybe billions in higher interest for which we will receive nothing. But if they give away our future just to get a deal than I don't care anymore. I'll move to some other country that takes care of its people. Talking to my friends I don't think I'll be going alone. Look at the unity in Norway. Tragic and terrible what happened there but look how they came together over it instead of just cutting off their own limbs fighting. I'll invest in Rosetta Stone for Norwegian or whatever language if I need to. What will this country invest in to make anything better here?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
So it all comes down to how many spending cuts happen and how many people that hurts. It's near record unemployment for you white people, and way beyond records for Latinos, Blacks and other minorities. New college grads have no job prospects. Oldschool summer jobs for high school students? - Forget it, not happening. But no taxes on the rich and no way the government gets to have money to invest in job creation. So everybody just stays unemployed to make Obama look bad. The Teaparty need to leave the government enough money to send us all to China so we can get our jobs back over there where they sent them. That way we're not here any more to vote them out, so everybody finally wins, huh?
- Otis
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I'm re-registering independent and joining AARP. Nobody in either party is interested in making a deal that looks out for me so I'll become a self-centered greedy [expletive deleted] who looks out only for me, just like them.
- Cindy P.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
There's no mystery. This is about the Republicans hatred of health care reform. They will do anything to make us too broke to have money for it. Anything.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
We bail out banks and AIG
I'm unemployed so bail out me!
We'll cut the taxes for the rich
But not for me cause life's a bitch.
You need money to go to school?
You weren't born rich so stay a fool.
Make it harder to vote in 35 states?
If it's harder for that's just the breaks.
Kill the FAA? If it helps kill a union
And kills workers rights for at least an eon.
Regulate to protect the earth?
Shutup stay pregnant and always give birth.
Rupert Murdoch will tap your phone
In case some liberal is doggin the bone.
But a pants down conservative? Heaven forbid
Teabaggers have ego but certainly not id.
Hypocrisy abounds but no one will care
They're too busy trying to get their own share.
And government will no longer regulate
They'll just let the rich guys guard their own gate.
The fox in the hen house they shipped off to China
Sends melatonin chicken back to Carolina.
Don't worry ignore it put on your pajamas
They'll hide Bush's debt blame it all on Obama.
He'll let you, you know, he'll compromise
He'll give away all while they scream that he lies.
Bachmann and Palin and arrogantly dumb
Want to call him the N word on the tip of their tongue.
Suave no-drama Obama the picture of cool
While Koch Brother teabaggers play him for the fool.
He'll lose his base for failure to fight
And wonder what happened when it all turns far right.
I've lost so much hope I might just turn boozer
My president only fights fair so I end up a loser.
[temporary copyright by the Acoustic Americana Music Guide, 2011, while we contact the author to see if he wants it protected.]
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Look, local government and state government tax revenues fell because nobody has a job. The feds need to pick up the slack or ultimately all the local services are in danger. Want to see firefighters and cops laid off? It's coming if the Teaparty gets to gut federal spending. Thought they believed in trickle-down. You don't have to cut my taxes, t-people. Give me a country I can be proud of because I sure ain't feeling it right now.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
How do you say -

Brother can you spare a dime

- in Chinese?
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
You present the key question more clearly than anything else I've read: If the rich can't be taxed because they are job creators, than where are the jobs? After more than a decade of them getting lower taxes than the rest of us, lower taxes than ever before, these job creators should have given us full employment, not universal unemployment. That alone should make congress tax them again at the rates they paid when Clinton was president.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Bill Maher asks the right question: Wouldn't it be a tragedy if we elected a Democratic President and he goes through four years without ever attempting any Democratic policies?
Is this a Bush third term?
- Susie
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
You liberals live in a dream world where nobody has to work. I want to keep what I make and not always be told how I need to give it away to somebody who isn't working because they don't want to. Or because they have an idea that because they make art the rest of us owe them a living. I support the arts I want to enjoy. I don't want some NEA spending my money on so called arts like that disgusting Maplethorpe and his blasphemous smut pictures. If he had insulted muslims instead they would never have paid him with tax money. Nobody but the stupid government would have paid for that smut. Better to steer clear of all of it and let the marketplace decide what art to support. We should abolish most federal agencies and now is the best chance we've ever had to do that.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Nice thought about public funding for arts like the WPA did in the last depression. But with everything else about to get cut to the bone, we would need to tax the corporations to pay for that and it isn't going to happen. There are no arts commissions, public or private. I've looked and I'd be happy to sell out to get a commission to do a work that makes some corporation look like the savior of the world. I've got school loans to repay and I'm hungry enough I'd prostitute myself to an oil company. Or a chemical company that poisons our food. But even the corporations who aren't paying taxes are not creating jobs for artists. They're busy killing the planet and making and keeping lots of money doing it and they're the only ones who have any. Them, and the politicians they bought, that is.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
So you don't want to cut ANYTHING and you want to spend even MORE? How about if I start sending you MY credit card bills and I apply for more cards and send you those bills also? We can go to Mars on my credit card as long as you get the bill.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Why does everything need to be a crisis before we do anything about it? Or it needs to be made into one? If I let my bills go to where its a crisis they charge me late fees. Congress should be paying late fees out of their salaries until they do their jobs. Let's pass a law that they can't collect campaign contributions until they get their work done and see how fast we never have another crisis again.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I'm unemployed and my unemployment insurance claim ran out a long time ago. So did the emergency extensions. I had to suffer the anger and humiliation of politicians claiming that people only stayed unemployed as long as their UI lasted. Well I'm still unemployed. I did child care while my wife worked until the stress of me not being able to find anything caused us to split. Now she needs money from me to help pay her rent and the child care she uses now. I have nothing. I've sold my car. I've sold everything of value I ever owned. This is where cutting everything gets you, Mr. Boehner. I need some kind of new training in something (anything) that would give me a new job. I haven't been able to qualify for assistance for anything I've found. If my wife files for child care, I won't be able to try to qualify for anything. It looks like you don't want there to be anything for anybody, Mr. Boehner. I'm thinking of buying life insurance as a way to get money to my kids. I don't see any other way to support my kids now. [editor's note: we sent a number for a suicide prevention hotline to this man and he replied with a thank you.]
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
Let us eat corporate cake served by the job creators who don't create jobs. Can anybody say French Revolution?
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
The rich who can't pay because they're job creators that already don't create jobs and they don't pay any taxes either. So the middle class and the poor must pay for everything and get less in services and probably never retire.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...
    
I think the saddest part is the End of The Space Program. (I'd go tomorrow if there was another planet that we could do a better job with than we're doing with this one.) They aren't calling it the End of our space program but what else is it? What did the Romans call it when it was the End of their Empire? Did they drink tea as they counted their gold and the Barbarians came over their hills?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
   
Received via hotmail...
    
I guess it really is all connected!! The news media just seems to want to tell us who's up and who's down and I'm at work during the day when all the cable shows are on so I don't know if they may be doing a better job reporting what's really at stake. Politicians just piss me off. I really feel like I need to watch those guys before they [expletive deleted] us again. In case they're listening I do vote!!!!
- Jeri
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

So Boehner just walked out. Taking his ball to sit in the corner and pout and cry. Do we panic or cheer? He could have gotten Obama to give away the farm just to get a deal. We dodged a bullet. Now the Dems should be able to protect the poor and middle class and not cut anything, good or bad. We might yet have money for something to put people back to work so that is definately good. Like you asked, is there anything the Republicans won't oppose, even when they were about to win...
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Congressman John Garamendi, I know you know him. Asked if he will accept Obama's being willing to gut social security, medicare, medicade “big 3” to placate Tea Party fantasies he says “not no but hell no.” U go, Congressman John!!!!!
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

So you don't mention Grover Norquist. I'm watching Ezra Klein with Lawrence O'Donnell and it looks like Norquist is actually behind this mess. He strongarms Republicans into signing his No New Tax Pledge or they won't get safe treatment from other Republicans. How arrogant. Who elected that bozo?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

The Bush tax cuts, which as you remind us are temporary, will expire automatically in January 2013 anyway and then government will suddenly have enough money and not have to make all these draconian cuts. That means there shouldn't even be a need for NEW taxes -- just a return to the old ones, before the temporary Bush cuts. Except maybe we would need new taxes to pay higher interest rates after the default on the debt they won't pay now. This makes this big fight crazier.
- Gene 
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I grew up with that space program and doing art in school. I didn't realize how many fond memories are based on those things until I saw the last Shuttle flight and read your detailed story on the role government spending played in all of it. If I need to pay a little more in taxes so all our kids can have school art lessons and have heroes who are astronauts, I'm glad to do it. But that's where I want the money to go, not to unwinnable wars and Wall Street bankers.
- Craig S.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I thought the Republicans were the party of big business? Their Wall Street pals are telling them to pass the debt ceiling or we'll have calamity but the Republicans would rather cause trouble they can try to blame on Obama. It would be fun to watch them tear themselves apart except they're happy to take us with them. And Ann Coulter claimed Dems were traitors.
- Mike
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

You said the one making the most sense is former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. What about Senator Bernie Sanders? If the rest of congress would listen to him we would be having discussions about what works for all of us instead of just the privileged few who always seem to need more.
Paula in Seattle
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm glad you found the real cause of this: four irresponsible things: two wars that were not included in the federal budget, a prescription drug subsidy for seniors, and tax cuts for the rich in the face of iall that hidden increased spending. All were Bush Republican policies when as Cheney said “deficits don't matter.” Now the same Republicans decide they want to cover it by leaving ordinary people with no hope for health care and no hope we can ever retire.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

so now some sexist congressman called a congresswoman some sleazy names over whether we will pay the country's bills. i remembered how a senator once beat another senator with a cane before the civil war. that was over slavery. wonder if it will go that far this time. these tea party people are so crazy they make everything the end of the world. its just about paying our bills, people. stop wasting time and just do it. and stop thinking you can have a country with no taxes. i want the traffic lights to work when I drive my car and somebody has to get paid to change the light bulbs.
- tam
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

U RAWK!! Wish they did in DC
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Glad to see Amtrak included as a priority that needs and deserves funding. I've ridden trains all over Europe and Japan and long distance trains across Russia and Australia and the US & Canada.

Amtrak is two different things, and both (connecting cities in the same regions and spanning the country) are underfunded. It [Amtrak] can beat airlines, city center to city center in corridors like San Diego-LA-Santa Barbara and New York-DC and there are many more potential corridors if we would pay to develop them. Riding a long distance train is a working vacation, laptop with scenic beauty out the big window.

Europeans come here to ride our long distance trains and that surprises people. Amtrak's biggest drawback? There isn't enough of it. I often need to fly, get to airports way too early, get felt-up by TSA, rent cars to get from airports to meetings in cities, and reverse the whole thing to get home. Exhausting and too many extra steps robbed from productive time. Thanks for noting the contrast that good rail systems fuel other country's economic dynamos and make them more competitive.

Trains are low stress when they're convenient. Expand Amtrak and supplement it with true high speed rail in high density corridors. Or cut spending and lose what little we have. That's the debate as far as that part goes. Transportation would still be in trouble anyway, since the interstates need a lot of work.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I feel used. You take the arts as a flimsy entry point to rant about everyone else who wants to be responsible and cut the spending.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I have no problem with Republicans not agreeing to extend the limit to pay all of Obama's big debts until the Democrat Party agrees to stop spending my money. These things must be linked or we'll never make them stop spending our money. Cut cap and balance. I want to keep my own money, thank you, and not spend it on your supposed needs and wants. You want to go to Mars or put arts in parks, you pay for it.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

There has never been an example of decreasing taxes in a war. Until Bush and his two wars and tax cuts. Duh.
- Chuck P.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I just saw that 141 million Americans across a million square mile area are under a heat dome. Temperatures over 100 degrees with humidity so high it makes for a deadly heat index. Right away I remembered reading last night what you wrote. The connection being that you talked about how we need a government that can handle disasters like killer tornados and hurricanes (and earthquakes?) and help people. You talked about neglected and decaying infrastructure also. I started thinking what would happen if the power goes out under that meteorological heat dome. These Republicans don't believe in evolution, but do they believe in survival of the fittest? or just survival of those who have their own electric generators? People need to see that we're all in this together all the time and our government is supposed to be about us, not about protecting the wealth of the super rich. Somehow, cutting spending ends up making the rich richer and the rest of us just plain screwed.
- Emil
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
I thank you for doing something to try to educate artists about what all this political argument will mean for us, in and out of music. I'm sending an email to my congressman to tell him to pull his head out of his rectum and make sure the government doesn't go broke and put us all in way worse shape than we're in now.
- Jennie P.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

More than 25,000 supporters have already signed my open letter to House Speaker John Boehner, House GOP Leader Eric Cantor, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, demanding that they back down from their threats to make America a deadbeat nation by forcing us into default.

And the pressure on the GOP is growing. Take a look at some of the latest news headlines over the past 24 hours:

"Debt ceiling stalemate is Tea Party's fault: GOP base refuses to compromise" – NY Daily News

"House conservatives resist compromise" – Politico

"Opposition to a deal with Obama creates problems for GOP" – Los Angeles Times

But it's up to all of us to keep the pressure on and send these extreme right-wing leaders a message.
- Senator Barbara Boxer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Received via hotmail...

Stop the stupid failed war on drugs and the government should have plenty of money. Legalize everything and collect sales taxes on it. We're not a free country until we let people do what they want.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I remember when Republicans were claiming there would be Death Panels to pull the plug on grandma. They don't have any problem pulling the plug on grandma's social security and medicare. They just want to protect the rich. I need to watch Roy Zimmerman on youtube now before I scream.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

THANK YOU!!! I got mad in a bunch of places when I read this but I knew it was all stuff I needed to know. Good facts and lots of quotes from other people so nobody can think it's just a rant. Some names I know and some I don't. But I Googled the names and was really impressed that you brought them in!!!
- Sara
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

[assembled in sequence from two emails from the same sender.]

I thought I knew where I stood and now I don't know what to think. You really got me to thinking. I was telling everybody that the government spending money on everything under the sun was socialism and we can all do what needs to be done and everybody get paid because they work hard and just do it.

I can't say that anymore.

My older brother got music education in public school and that got him started on what he does for a living. (He reads your music site and sent me the link to what you wrote). My cousins all got driver ed in High School and had their own cars when they were 16. I couldn't get a real job until I was 18 because I didn't have a license so I couldnt get a car. Vicious circle.

I didnt believe you that community college used to be free. I asked around and you were right. I've tried to afford college three times and I've never been able to afford to stay. Two of my friends went in the military to get money for school. When they got out one went to a state college and got a degree he can't use because there are no jobs now. The other went to a trade school that calls itself a college and advertises on TV. When he realized it wasn't going to get him a job, he discovered too late that the credits won't transfer. Wasted his time and his only chance to get education as payback for being in Iraq three times. I know he wishes the government had been a watchdog for him like he was for us when he was over there.

I know I always wished I'd gotten driver ed and who knows where I'd be if I'd gotten all the extras in public school that my older brother got. What I got in school wasnt fun it was boring and I couldnt wait to get out.

Now I work and pay my taxes and it really irks me the fat cat rich Wall Street corporate types seem to get away scott free. Seems to me we need to spend more tax money to police them so they can't rip us off. I'd pay a little more taxes if I knew that meant we could hunt them down and make them pay, too. And make sure they cant rip us off anymore.

I'd pay more taxes if it meant my kids would get better education than I got. I used to talk about that with my grandfather before he died. He was one of those WWII vets and he would tell me when he was proud of what came from the war and when he wasnt. I'm not proud of who we are now in this country and what we are becoming. We are just unworthy of the sacrifices that have been made for us. People are too into things that dont matter like you said and that might be why I kept reading all you wrote and why Im writing this long comment. My grandfather tried to make sure we would have a better world than the one he grew up in. I dont see our politicians trying to do that for our kids now.
- Pete the artist's brother
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

After that I'm going to make time to pay more attention. It's much worse than I thought.
- Sammy
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

When will all you LIBERALS get your hands out of our pockets? I speak for a lot of people when I TELL you that we're TIRED of bleeding hearts wanting all our money to fix your society. You and Robert (Third) Reich want to bring back the WPA like that socialist Roosevelt? Spend the money on a border fence, maybe, but that's it. No more taxes will be needed if we just quit all this spending. Repeal all taxes. Let freedom ring!
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

More government money should go to Faith Based programs. We can use the money better than the politicians you complain about. We'll be happy to teach your kids music. If people went to church and took their kids we wouldn't have all these problems and it wouldn't matter what happens in schools with your so-called Science that you think is so important.
- Evelyn
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

That's the most I've read in one sitting about anything political probably ever in my life.
I only did it because I'm a musician who performs and does music instruction for free in public schools.
I'm annoyed as hell that it has to be the way it is, but it inspires me to no end to see the kids' laughter and smiles as they play simple percussion that I teach them to make in their classrooms and as they learn vocal harmonies and write songs with me.
So I keep doing it, even when I don't have enough to buy a school lunch with them while I'm there.
I got to tell you: I can't do this for free forever.
I'm engaged and when we get married and have a baby I'll have to work during the day and no more free music from me for my schools.
The teachers are even talking of chipping in to pay me (or somebody) to keep doing it because it means so much to their students and they say it makes their students are more interested in school. But could I count on that being reliable income?
I don't want to agree to stay and then end up feeling bad about it and resenting everyone if I can't afford to do it.
Face it, that could happen because I can't afford to wonder if they can really pass the hat.
Obviously they'd need to pay me (or pay somebody) to be there enough to feel like it has continuity or all we've done could fall apart.
But when I'm done, then what?
From my little corner of the world, you got it right that there's a whole lot at stake with the future and we need to find enough tax money to have things that are worthwhile.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

The arts in our country? Neglected all the time. Not like in Europe where they SUPPORT the arts and music performances with their tax money. Here they only want to help starving bankers and stock brokers. And those big oil companys getting our tax money in subsidies as you mention.
- Johnny K.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm having a hard time connecting what the FAA and the weather bureau have to do with funding the arts. The first two we need so we can fly and know what clothes to take. The other one we want. People pay for what they want. If they want the kind of music you say, they'll pay for it and they won't need to pay twice, once from their taxes. There are plenty of rich musicians and many of them are all over the scandal sheets behaving badly. So they make plenty and don't need any money from me. As far as music and art in school? The soccer moms can drive their kids to after school music lessons and someone who teaches them can earn an honest living and not be part of some teacher retirement that we have to pay for.
- Hal
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm a kid who devours everything you write every week and a half a dozen other music blogs. Yours lets me find free concerts I can talk my mom into taking me to. I wanted to read the whole thing to my summer school class on whether there's a future for funding the arts. My teacher thought it was too complex and nobody my age would understand it. Well I understand it and I'm asking the questions to adults that you ask. I already decided that it isn't the kids who don't understand whats at stake. It's the stupid adults. I wish I got my music lessons at school and got a chance to practice and jam at school. I wait till after school for music then stay up late doing homework. I get my mom to take me to free summer concerts as much as she can. My mom says I have a good work ethic. I think most people have a good work ethic if they could find a job to do something that would make things better. I wish the politicians who are throwing away the future of our country had a good work ethic. I think they only care about themselves and people who will give them money to run for election again. I wish I could vote to get them out of there.
- Paul M.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

This should be required reading for any budget negotiator before s/he goes in to argue.
- Stephanie
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Kick THEM while they've got US down!!! U go, Larry!!!
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I keep thinking of the musical chairs being taken away from the table and how there's going to be no chairs left for the arts (and a lot of other people) unless we stop them from making us too broke to have a table. I just know I don't want a government that looks like my college dorm room with boxes for furniture. Hard to imagine us competing for global business if we come across that way.
- Bill T
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Why arent you on twitter? It would be easy to get lots of short replies. OK I get it. You wrote something long because it requires serious consideration to make meaningful sense of whats really happening. Thank you for all the research and pulling together so many seemingly unrelated parts into an understandable and cohesive whole.
- Amanda
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Look, we must cut spending because so many people are unemployed that the government doesn't have as much coming in, in taxes. That's simple arithmetic. But... The idea that we can't spend much of anything at all, even to make things better? That's economic suicide!! I hope enough people read what you wrote to put pressure on Congress. I'm glad you make a case for the arts and still show that it's much bigger than just us as artists. It's pretty much the whole ball game for whether this country will come out of this stronger or permanently crippled by our own doing.
- JR
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

You're mighty hard on Obama. Don't you get it that he is the only adult in the room? I guess the Republicans don't see that he will easily beat whoever they put up against him in '12 because nobody will believe a thing the Republicans say by then. I would feel good about that except the country is gonna be in even tougher shape because the Tea Party zealots will rape pillage and plunder to give big banks, big oil and big business a free hand. And they'll make sure government has nothing left to regulate them.
- Wendy
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Very thorough analysis. You don't note one thing. Republicans are doing a dance to keep the Tea Party (fiscal issue zealots) in bed with the Evangelicals (social issue zealots). The two are not necessarily of one mind. Just try to cut money that goes to all those faith-based initiatives...
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I remember reading your old newspaper column. I had no idea you still covered anything political, but it's obvious you still have the chops. Keep the faith. Catch you at a concert or festival.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Why do our own elected officials want us reduced to shopping at thrift stores and having a government that looks like one, too? Rich oil companies with corporate jets, regulated by a government that arrives in an old gas powered golf cart? No wonder the Chinese take our jobs. There's no way to build anything in a country that's broke and unemployed.
- Stephen Call
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Hey, I think I'm insulted. I do get my political news from Stewart and Colbert. Didn't you write once that the best political shows on TV were on Comedy Central? Maybe you wrote it as sarcasm, but it's true. The people who are the most full of themselves get their comeupance on those shows and that's a good start to showing them for what they are---phonies who care about feathering their own nests, not public service.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

i learned a lot.
more than i wish i knew because now i need to do something about it.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

“Much is expected from those to whom much has been given.” That's how we advanced to where we are. Guess it all stops here with America in the bread line behind Greece and Portugal.
P.S.: if you find one with a soup kitchen, bring your own bowl and spoon. They won't have any.
- Pat
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Had to tell you. New msnbc promo for Rachel Maddow: standing on Hoover Dam, talking about the infrastructure that's in trouble and the gifts we received from past Americans. She ends by asking 'What are WE doing?' At least some of us are on the same page. Thanks for the Big Analysis.
- Elly
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Do not let them disingenuously fold the issue of Social Security - which is solvent through 2036 - into raising the debt limit. Do not let them move the ball so far down the field that a "compromise" has become a politically friendly term for caving in on the very cornerstone of our Party and - more importantly - on well established principles of economic and social justice in America.

The more details that emerge, the worse the picture gets. While our unemployment remains perilously high and families are suffering, instead of a roadmap for recovery we are receiving directions towards another depression. Any "deal" that ignores the massive economic challenges of this country and balances the budget on the backs of children, seniors and the poor is not moral. In a lifetime, will our party have journeyed from the New Deal to the Raw Deal?
- Congressman Dennis Kucinich

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Received via hotmail...

No debt limit increase, period, no matter what. If the good guys in the white hats can get the Democrat Party to make the cuts that are needed, they can balance the budget and everything will be fine. This is on the Democrat party president to come out of it without a disaster. It's his watch and I don't care if Reagan did get raise the debt limit 17 times with 11 tax increases (if you're telling the truth with those numbers). He was defeating the Soviet Union then. Who do we have to defeat now? There's no justification for spending money we don't have now like there was then.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Great central question that I haven't seen anyone else present as clearly as you do:
We've had a decade of tax cuts for the same rich who are supposed to be the job creators, so where are the jobs?
Your citation of Clinton getting us 23.1 million new jobs in his 8 yrs (with higher tax rates) and GW Bush getting us 3 million new jobs in 8 yrs with lower tax rates for the “job creators” should be the one question everybody asks.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I almost got lost because you go into this so deeply. But I'm glad you did. Still ridiculous that we need to go fight to get back the arts in school that we had when we were kids. I agree that if we don't fight now, the question will vanish and there won't be hope of ever bringing it back in a country that will just have less and less for everything once we start down that road.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I really like your idea that every modern suburban park should have a sculpture the way that all the old city parks have statues. Performance spaces in all parks “of a certain size” would be great too because they could be used for so many things. Public art should be a mindset and that requires visibility.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Ever gone to a boxing match and been ripped off by fighters who dance, weave, bob, dodge and won't punch? This is the politics of distraction. Somebody's got a horseshoe in a glove and they don't want to give it away.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

You came and volunteered to help us after Katrina? THANK YOU! I always make sure I thank all those who dropped whatever was happening in their own lives and came here to help us when our own government did not. I have no patience with the boneheads who think that everything can be cut, reduced, eliminated. We can't risk a disaster on the scale of Katrina ever again. Hell, we should be watching space to spot the next asteroid before it takes us out like the dinosaurs. Seriously, we're mad as hell here about reckless oil spills in a local economy where we need production from the gulf. We need the government to, as Anderson Cooper says, Keep Them Honest.
- Stevie, finally back home in New Orleans
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Your central theme is really about some kind of vision for a better future, isn't it? We need to be stronger and fired up, ready to go, as we dig out of a bad economy. If I was unemployed and needed a car to go get a new job, I'd borrow the money to buy one. I guess that makes me a reckless spendthrift.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Let me get this right. We can afford to give money and brand new infrastructure projects to the people of Iraq. We can afford to give payoffs to tribal drug lords in Afghanistan and watch them ship it out in suit cases. We can afford to let oil companies take our tax money and not develop alternatives to oil. But we can't afford to spend any of tax money on anything at home because that might hurt the rich. [expletive deleted]
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

You make me, as a humble artist, feel guilty about looking for any kind of tax support for what I do, when you look at so many other things that really need the money so badly. There's no escaping that we can't have a country that does much of anything if we don't spend any money.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

If everything might go unpaid, who wins? Who forcloses? I mean, it's our country, right? Please tell me that the home of the free, land of the brave won't get repossessed by the communist Chinese.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm missing a lot of my favorite musicians and I guess I'll miss more.

We retired and bought our camper, a small self-contained RV (motorhome).

I thought we could drive it around the country every year and go to all the best festivals—Kansas, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, Northern California, Missouri, Louisiana, Michigan, etc for roots, bluegrass, cajun, blues and roots music that we love. We looked forward to it for many years.

Now gas costs too much.

Then came a big repair bill when we broke an axle in a big hole on a bridge. That bridge needed replacing but the cops said there was no money to fix it or build a new one.

We just decided to come right home and save money in case my government retirement checks stop getting paid. I worked for the federal government for 43 years, doing the people's business. Let me tell you, we were not featherbedders. Government workers work hard.

We were in Minnesota and South Dakota and going to see a big concert at the state fair this week but the fairgrounds is under flood water and there's no fair this year. I don't know if any money will be available to rebuild it for next year. Maybe not if they can't fix their highway bridges.

Everywhere we've traveled we see empty store fronts.

This country needs to get moving again. That's something Kennedy said when he ran. You said Obama should be more like Harry Truman. That, too.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I was saying a plague on both their houses and now I see that the plague is what could hit us all. A plague of disease? Maybe. You talked about hurricane Katrina and natural disasters and choosing a future with no money to help anybody. Diseases follow disaster. Look at Haiti. We don't have health care to save any but those with expensive health insurance. Maybe it would be a different plague? Cybervirus? The Murdochs hacked families of dead veterans so we know some rich people would do it. The Chinese have tried to mess with big companies and banks using the web. Whose to say what a cyber plague would do or who would launch it? We have a plague of political stupidity. How can the same people who wanted us to be terrified of terrorists for 8 years now expect us to accept a government that would be so small it couldn't protect us from anything likely to happen?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

So, like, why are you writing about acoustic music instead of like for the Rand Corporation or something? Somebody in Washington should hire you. It would be money well spent.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Whoa! I just read the whole thing. If I'd known it was that long I wouldn't have. Good thing I didn't because it was well worth the read. You showed me a lot I didn't know and wasn't thinking about. Reminds me of a Jurassic Park moment of unintended consequences...
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

So we just kick the can down the road and keep spending money we don't have? Sure it would be nice to have a space program again. It would be nice for Americans to make Rolls Royces again. Aint happening. Pay as you go.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

When it comes to the idiots who are jockeying for position and not solving the problem, you nailed em. Hope we get recall elections like they did in Wisconsin.
- Kelly
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I really like the part about artists having a seat at the table. Thanks for making me think about that. A bit of empowerment is good.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Stupid is as stupid does. Forest Gump or Washington. Bush may be gone but stupid remains.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

So now you liberals call balancing your checkbook slash and burn economics? Glad you don't owe ME money!
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm in my eighties and need my Social Security. I paid into it so you're damned right I am entitled to it. How dare anyone think they can take it away or threaten whether Medicare money will be there to pay my doctor when I need to go. If I had the money I would go back to Washington and tell them their games are not fair. They are csaring senior citizens half to death.
- Grace R.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I grew up in a small town and always enjoyed studying the mural in the post office. I first asked what WPA meant when I was about six and read it on that mural. Hell yeah I'd like to get hired to paint one of those murals in a public space now!
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I thought that once we got Obama in there we could get back to r own lives. But he was going to close Gitmo and then he didnt. He was going to get us universal health care and he didnt. If he fails because he fights and loses its one thing. If he compromises too much and ends up with little or nothing what's the difference between him and the same crowd we got rid of? He needs to fight for us or we will deserve the Palins and Bachmans when we get stuck with them.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Okay Republicans I'm giving you what you want. I give up. I'm sick of your 'party of no' stopping everything except giving more money to the oil barons. (Not the shieks over there so much as the barons over here). I know you want me and lots of others like me to get disgusted so we won't vote. Then you can get all your henchmen elected with only a few people voting. Thats good for you and very very bad for the country. Nobody seems intersted in fighting for me. Young people who want a bright future and dont see it available here. Is it better in Australia or Canada?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Ah, a visionary. We don't see many of those these days. Especially since the plug was pulled on stem cell research and we surrendered our tech advantages and jobs to the rest of the world. How lame that those who want to be greedy will keep us and our time from being known for accomplishing anything.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'll always fight for the arts. Always. I like your term, accessible arts. Differentiates between what can be done commercially for profit and what an artist can share with people in direct communication. Musicians have lots of ways to share a song or a recorded track or a live performance that exists just for that moment. Other artists, like sculptors and those who paint large murals, need a client who provides the place for the work to be displayed. If that's a commercial client, is what we are doing an unfettered work of art? Probably needs to meet their preconceived ideas of themselves. Public commissions are better. They're crucial and way too rare. Sculpture – and murals – should be funded in public places like parks and post offices and all kinds of public spaces. I searched and read up on WPA and CCC projects from the Great Depression. Thanks for letting me know about what happened then. It needs to happen now for all the same reasons. The hell with the stupid idea that not paying taxes will make us all better off.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Larry, this is well intentioned. To reach anyone it should have been very brief. No one reads that much anymore. Maybe a series or something with a little every day for a month. I wouldn't change it other than that. (ohh except we don't have a month.)
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

This is way bigger than just the Debt Limit. I hope it gets read more widely than just in the music and arts community. Every artist should read it and use it to campaign for public support for the arts and for things that matter like infrastructure rebuilds and modernization and science funding. I'm ready to go to Mars and ready to meet the future. I just hope we have one!!
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

Rah rah cut taxes, rah rah cut spending. Rah rah it's the debt collector and he's repossessing your country. Congress is delusional.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Received via hotmail...

I'm long term unemployed from my day job and trying to make it with whatever I can find. My unemployment ran out a long time ago. I'll be a fan of any program that puts me and other people back to work. Especially if we can do something that lasts for other people to come. The government has paid for a lot of crap and it can afford to give money to oil companies who rip us off every day. Surely they can afford to spend money to put us to work and they can let us have art. Combining the two as you say is great. They should find us ways to make a living doing things that make society happier or why do we have a government?
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
    
Go back to the main page for the Guide's other current sections and more content at
    
www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com     
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~