The House and Senate passed the massive $1 trillion + stinkulus bill tonight. Our President even commissioned a military jet to pick up a Senator so he could cast the 60th vote passing the measure and sending it to his desk for signature. Yup, in a time when our government is strapped (now bankrupt) and people are suffering, we spend tens of thousands of dollars to fly in a Senator – on our dime. I wonder if the military will fly me somewhere for a funeral or wake for free? Probably not. But, I digress…

If you have kids, call them into the room and sit them down. Look them in the eye and make sure they know that we’ve failed them. We’ve burdened them with more debt than we’ll ever be able to pay. They may never be able to pay it off either, since we have already borrowed trillions more for other craptacular spending. Let them know that when they grow up, they will be saddled with high taxes and piss poor government services to pay back all this money we’re printing like magic that belongs to a foreign nation. Never mind that President Obama said we need to learn Spanish. Nope, they’ll need to learn Chinese instead.

Tell them that it’s not all bad. Nana and Papa, retirees, disabled veterans and others who don’t pay payroll taxes will get a nice $250 Social Security feel good check out of it. Federal agencies will get nice computer upgrades (yeah, that’ll stimulate the economy and create jobs). I will have an extra $26 in my pocket every paycheck which will work wonders going towards their college fund! Don’t forget to thank them for that when they’re pushing your wheelchair down the insane asylum cursing your name for having to work two or three jobs for that. Rush made a brilliant observation today about how Michelle Obama was praising this extra $13 per week in my pocket but just last year making fun of Bush for the $600 stimulus checks and how it would only buy one pair of $600 earrings. It will take me just shy of ONE YEAR to buy those earrings under this plan! Thanks, my children!

It’s important that we start brainwashing them now into thinking this is a good idea, so when they get older and realize why 50% of their paychecks are gone before they see them they don’t think anything of it.

$787 billion my friends!!! $787,000,000,000 BEFORE interest!! Over $1.2 trillion WITH interest! President Bush didn’t help matters much. In the first six years as President with a Republican Congress, President Bush spent us into an additional $3.6 trillion worth of debt. Granted, he had to deal with a major terrorist attack and subsequent recession and then two wars. In the last two years of his presidency with a Democratic Congress he raised the national debt another $1.1 trillion. In the past YEAR (including today), our debt has risen another $3 trillion!! THREE TRILLION DOLLARS IN THE PAST YEAR!!! Nearly as much as it took Bush to spend in the his entire first term, plus two years!! In just the first three weeks of President Obama’s presidency, he added $1.2 trillion. Brilliant! Brilliant.

Make sure your kids understand these number. Put into words they understand. That’s their allowance for the next 2.6 billion years!! That’s over 5.2 million homes they could have bought (averaging approximately $150,000 per home). That’s almost 10.5 billion bicycles. More than 2.5 billion iPhones. 3 billion iPod Videos with 60Gb of space. Nearly 66 million new cars. 787 billion Snickers bars. I could go on and on, but I think they’ll understand after just a few examples.

Liberals (both Republican and Democrat) will tell you that we NEED this stimulus. Our economy and this country will fail without it. To respond to that, I leave you with recent monologue by Glenn Beck, mostly because it’s about Texas but also because it’s a good dual meaning:

A lot of people call this program and they say, “No one’s fighting, no one’s listening to me, I’m tired, I’m alone, I can’t do it anymore, I’m not willing, I’m going to unplug, this is hopeless, there are too many problems, the odds are stacked against us.” Look at what’s happening in the world.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking for the last month on this particular problem. Where is the hope? Where is the true belief, not, “Everything’s going to work out.” Where is the true belief that we’re going to make it? Because if you’re listening to me and you listen to me on a regular basis, if you just stumble across me, god bless you, good luck, buckle up, you’re in for quite a ride. But if you’re listening to me on a regular basis, you’re here for a reason because your gut tells you maybe, maybe that’s right and it sounds more right than, “Well, don’t worry, this package coupled with this package, we’re set. Everything will be back to normal. In, you know, six months we’re going to be out of this thing.” I don’t think so, that doesn’t sound right. But now how — for those people who just their gut says it’s not right, how do you hold on? What do you do?

I wanted to look back at the Alamo because I think Texas is going to play a role. I don’t know why. I just think Texas is going to play a role, and it’s the spirit of the Texan that I think this country needs. “Oh, gee, we don’t have to wear big hats.” No, they don’t really — well, some of them do. In fact, a strange, a strange amount of them do. But it’s not about the hat.

Most people don’t understand Texas. They think that Texas is, you know, “Well, we’re just going to come down here, we’re going to kick your butt.” It’s not that at all. Texans, don’t get me wrong, will kick your butt but, you know, generally they’ll put you to death after you’ve killed their daughter. That’s when they usually kick your butt. But they’re just “Mind your own business” kind of people usually.

You know the Alamo, when you think of the Alamo, what do you think that is? Most people will think, “Oh, it’s a fort,” but it’s not a fort. It wasn’t some gigantic fortified castle, you know, built to try to hold off an advancing army. It was a mission. That’s all it is is a mission. It had to be made into a fort, but it was the defenders of the Alamo who did just that. They made it into a fort. They faced insurmountable odds. 4,000 soldiers versus 188. 4,000 up against 188? Which one of those soldiers would you be? If you were the 188, would you be going, this is too — I can’t do it, I’m tired, we’re alone, we’re not going to make it. They were outmanned by over 20:1. This is just after Texas declared her independence. This is just a few weeks later they were forming the Republic of Texas. It was going to become its own country. Not a state. A country. The Mexican general, Santa Ana, demanded that they surrendered. And how did those 188 in the Alamo react? William Travis, who was in command at the Alamo wrote this letter: “I’m besieged by 1,000 or more of the Mexicans under Santa Ana. I’ve sustained a continual bombardment and candidate for 24 hours, and I haven’t lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender. I’ve answered the demand with cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I will never surrender; I will never retreat.” I’m pretty sure I don’t speak Texan but I think that means, “Yeah, thanks but no thanks.” 188 men alone. They are running low on ammunition, they were running low on food and other supplies. The next day, another letter. This one, this one to Sam Houston. The commander was hoping that Sam Houston would get these letters and send, you know, “Help, help, help, help, send us somebody.” He wrote, “Our numbers are few but I shall hold out to the last extremity hoping to secure reinforcements in a day or two. Do hasten on aid as rapidly as possible, from a superior number of the enemy, it will be impossible for us to keep them out much longer. If th ey overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country,” speaking of Texas,” and we hope prosperity in our country will do our memory justice. Give me help. Oh, my country, give me help. Victory or death.” Somehow these 188 men held out for more than a week against an evading army of 4,000. Have you ever been to the Alamo? It’s a little — 4,000 men advancing and 188 protected that? After ten days Travis was still hoping for reinforcements. He was still hoping, but he had no idea, he had no idea if they were coming or not. He understood the odds. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to last much longer, but he didn’t back up. He didn’t back off. He didn’t back up. He didn’t whine. He didn’t say, “I’m tired.” He rode under the flag of independence, “We are ready to peril our lives 100 times a day. I will fight the enemy on his own terms. I’m ready to do it. And if my country men do not rally to my relief, I’m determined to perish in the defense of this place.” Later that day he wrote one last time, “Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I will make for him a splendid fortune but if the country be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection but he is the son of a man who died for his country.”

Three days later the Alamo would finally fall. The reinforcements didn’t make it in time, but it didn’t fall for 13 days and not before those 188 took out 600 of Santa Ana’s men. More importantly was the number of days, 13 days. It gave 13 days to Sam Houston. He was able to put together a volunteer army, an army that defeated Santa Ana, gave birth to the Republic of Texas, its own country, its own constitution.

Here’s the story. These 188 people, they weren’t any different than you. Some of them were soldiers, some of them were just regular people, some of them were just, “I’m going to take a stand.” You want to feel alone, 188 surrendered by 4,000, they didn’t pick the place or the time of their fight. They wouldn’t have done it at a mission. If they could have picked anywhere, it wouldn’t have been there. They just knew that their cause was just. They just knew that their lives were worth lying down for what was right. They just knew that there was something bigger and more important than them. How did they know it? Why didn’t they desert? Why didn’t they surrender when they saw 4,000? They did it because they were committed to the idea of liberty. They did it because they felt they owed it to one another: “If he stands, I’ll stand. I ain’t going anywhere with your brother. We’re in it together.” When you feel connected to somebody else, you don’t give up. That’s how soldiers in the battlefield or P.O.W. camps rally around each other because he’s standing; I’ll stand. It’s not about ideology. It’s about our commitment to each other. It’s about knowing that you’re not alone and letting someone else know that they’re not alone.

Even when you can’t see the people fighting with you, even when you’re in the Alamo and you’re all alone, just 188 of you and you don’t know if that army is coming tonight or never, you just fight on because you’re not alone.

It’s not just some crazy history lesson about the Alamo. These people didn’t die to defend the Alamo which is now some place where you go on vacation and have your picture taken in front of it, and most people don’t even know what it means or what it stands for. They didn’t just die for protecting the Alamo or even Texas. Today they died to teach us a lesson, to fight on, to never give up. You’re not alone.

And in response to your forthcoming question, “what do you propose we do then?” – Nothing! Let the bad companies fail. We owe them nothing. We’ve been through worse and made it out alive WITHOUT multi-trillion dollar spending packages. It’ll suck, but let the market work.