Contact: kimsch *at* thisdomain
miscellaneous thoughts and observations
Monday Morning Musings
So they’ve passed this massive spending bill without having read it. Who could have read it in the time they gave it? President Obama is set to sign it, unread of course. He’ll depend on his aides to tell him what’s in it. That’s the excuse he’ll give for not having read it either.
The Dems have had their wish list for 40 years and they’ve accomplished a lot of it with this bill. Most of what is in this bill should have been taken care of in the regular appropriations cycle, but maybe they were afraid that even with Dem control of both the legislative and executive branches that they wouldn’t get this stuff though in the regular process.
Then, too, this is supposed to be such a big deal. The President was able to get this huge spending bill passed so quickly, so soon into his administration. Yipee!
But he got no Republican support in the house, in fact he got bipartisan opposition to the bill. In the Senate, he got Specter and the Maine twins to help get it passed. But still, there were more than twice as many Democrats in opposition than there were Republicans in favor…
It’s not such a great accomplishment. The House has enough Democrats to pass anything they want without any Republican support at all. A fact they proved with this spending bill. Nancy Pelosi passed the bill with no Republican support and even with Democrat defection. An accomplishment would have been to garner Republican support. But that’s hard to do when you won’t let them have any input. When you just expect them to roll over and vote your way.
They want to help out people who are upside down in their mortgages, people who are in danger of foreclosure, or who are already in foreclosure.
What about me though? I pay my mortgage on time every month. I didn’t purchase a house that was out of my range. But, being a responsible person, I’m stuck. I have a 1200 square foot ranch house on a 1/10th acre lot. I have a crawlspace (with a full cement floor, not just a splash coat) that has flooded a few times rendering everything I had stored down there unusable. With no garage and no basement for storage, we spend extra each month for a storage locker to hold larger items and now smaller items that we used to store down below. The new Christmas tree since the old one was ruined, othere seasonal decorations, the children’s school work (lost quite a bit of the older childrens’ stuff), etc.
I wake up every morning with a badly aching back. If I had one of those Sleep Number beds with the hospital bed effect (raising the back, raising the knees, etc. I could sleep better and not have as much pain on waking as I do now. But I can’t fit a king size bed (which is what I would need, as Hubby likes to sleep flat…) in my house.
My house also only has one bathroom. Oh, for a second bathroom, even just a half bath, for when the main bath is occupied. Even just an extra toilet somewhere with a curtain around it. The kitchen sink is fine for handwashing after use.
This bill would give first time homebuyers a deal. Or people buying a new car or truck a deal. I am not a first time homebuyer. I may want a second vehicle, but we just don’t have the money for a new car or truck.
I would certainly love to get a bigger house with a basement and a garage. I would certainly love to have another vehicle. When the weather is inclement, Hubby leaves work early so I can take the truck to go get The Little Guy from school. If the weather is clement, I will walk a mile to the school and then a mile back with The Little Guy. I won’t let The Little Guy do this by himself yet. Too many scary people in the world. And eight year old boys are known for wandering and meandering and getting distracted during the walk home.
I’d love to have a bigger house that would allow me to have a dedicated office. One that would allow Hubby to have his own office too. A place where the kids can play, where The Little Guy could set up a train, or a Lego town and be able to leave it up instead of having to put it away all the time. A place where I could store my stuff without having to spend on an external storage area. A place for the Bowflex…
Oh, I hear that Hubby’s paycheck may have an extra $13 a week until next January when it goes down to $8 extra a week… W00t!
8 Responses to Monday Morning Musings
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We’re upside down on our house from being young, naive, and walking straight into fraudulent lending. Our house isn’t fancy and, to the contrary, is falling apart around us. Yet we have scraped and fought to make every mortgage payment on time to avoid foreclosure that we probably would have qualified for easily. It’s tempting on a daily basis to just walk away because we’re in over our heads.
And yet, in spite of all of this, I don’t want the government playing in role in “helping” us. We got ourselves into the mess and we will get ourselves out of it by living within our means and doing what we have to do to meet our responsibilities — including the ones made out of stupidity, or unwillingness to delay gratification (same thing).
Their spending debacle has actually helped eliminate my husband’s job. They don’t seem to get (or care) that not everyone in a financial bind wants their help. In fact, I wish they’d get out of our way.
jae,
you should definitely take advantage of any loan restructuring that you can. As you can attest, not all who are upside down are there because of get rich quick flipping of houses.
kimsch
I found your blog thru a google alert for cpsia. After reading your spending bill post, I feel I have found a kindred spirit! I won’t belabor the issue, just suffice it to say that you are not alone in every point you made. OK, we do have 2 bathrooms!
I’ll be back!
Thank you peggy!
You have spoken for many of us!
When you consider what will be “given away” so the democrats can lock up a few more votes..well let’s just say it is disgraceful.
Jae: I agree with you 100%. The government at every level needs to stop inserting themselves in our lives. That was never the intention of our Forefathers nor the Constitution.
I think the so-called “stimulus” package is a huge waste of tax-dollars, and is only going to deepen the recession. I think this president is about to make the same mistakes as Roosevelt.
We own our home due to saving and paying it off when we retired, but others are not so fortunate, I realize.
Our retirement money is in the
crappermarket and we have no idea from one minute to the next how much money we have. And because the “tax cut” is geared for payroll deductions we don’t qualify as we are retired. Yet we can get a train for Reid and save a mouse for Pelosi.On the bright side, I do have a SelectComfort king-sized bed but it’s not the kind you can raise and lower, so I still get up with a backache every day.
But we all still have God and that makes all the difference in the world. This is just temporary. Eternity is forever.
We’ve talked before about how my house is big and on a big lot that hubby and I chose based on that (now) old-fashioned premise that a home is always one’s best investment.
We took on a 15-year mortgage with the rationale that, while the payments are unbelievably high (over $2000/month) we’ll actually be saving ourselves a small fortune on interest in the long-run. (We also got a nice 4.3% rate.)
In the 4 years that we’ve lived here, making those monthly mortgage payments along with paying utilities and continuing to set aside savings in our retirement accounts has been hard but that’s what responsible people do.
We don’t take fancy vacations. We don’t go out to eat more than once a month. We don’t have big-screen televisions, designer clothing, or stainless steel appliances. Heck, we don’t even have matching appliances.
We don’t use credit cards anymore, although we DO owe quite a bit on ours due to various large, unexpected expenses over the years. Every month we pay 4 times the minimum payment in an effort to pay the damn things off. Unfortunately, our interest rates have been hiked so many times for reasons never quite explained to use that our payments have basically had very little effect on the balance.
But we pay them anyway. Just as we pay our mortgage anyway while knowing that our home has lost well over $50,000 in value this last year alone. These were financial commitments we made, and responsible people keep their commitments. They don’t ask for bailouts, and they don’t blow off debts (while buying big screen TVs) just because they feel overwhelmed.
I’m so pissed about the bailout that I can’t see straight. We’re basically all getting the shaft in order to help out people who didn’t feel like doing whatever it takes to honor the commitments they’d made. Bastards.