So what should congress do?

There are a lot of proposals that congress could enact that would help to stimulate the economy. One of the best ideas that I have seen recently is H.R. 7309, introduced by Congressman Gohmert (R-Tex). The resolution would suspend employment and income taxes for the first two months of 2009.
Imagine that your paycheck was complete for the first time in your life. When you deposit your check it will be for the actual amount of money that you earned during your pay period, free from withholding and social security taxes.
This resolutions intent is to replace the second half of the $350 billion bailout by leaving worker's earnings in their pocket to spend or save how they would like.
I would definitely prefer to have that money utilized by the American people to stimulate the economy, rather than have our magnanimous Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson dish it out as he pleases.
If you think this is a good idea, I recommend you contact your representative here, and if you want to get more information, read this op-ed by Congressman Gohmert.

He got robbed!

Sam Bradford won the Heisman trophy last night, edging out Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow. Not to say that he did not deserve it but I cant shake the feeling that his stats were hyper inflated. The fact that he played against sub par defenses(8 of the them 70th or worse), combined with the fact that he was never pulled early in spite of large leads by his team, puts into question how good his stats actually were.
His stats were playsationesque, but the fact that two other Big 12 quarterbacks had similar numbers, degrades those stats in my opinion.
As for Tim Tebow, he faced 10 defenses in the top 50, and was pulled in the fourth quarter or earlier in 8 of 13 games he played in. He is by the best player in college football and he will prove it when the Florida Gators face the Sooners in the national championship game.

What a solution!

There are many reasons the economy is in its current shape. I'm only going to focus on one of those reasons today--Debt! The housing crisis in itself squelched so much purchasing power from Americans that our economy is now officially in a recession. The fanatic borrowing as home prices soared over the last few years while interest rates were kept low (Thank you Alan Greenspan), started a great unraveling. So many people thought that prices would just keep going up, rational thought be damned.
Buy a house, home prices soar, take out home equity line, buy a ton of stuff, sell home, pay off line, buy larger home, take out another line, spend the money (its our patriotic duty right); and the cycle keeps repeating.
This is no natural cycle, so here we are, a debt saddled people. We are shown that through debt we can achieve so much, that the thought of not having a car payment, a mortgage payment, a student loan seems alien.
So what solution does our government come up with to cure the ills of its people and our economy. Ding! Ding! I know, to solve this problem we will mortgage the future of our country and go severely into debt collectively. What a great plan, we will pass a $700 billion bailout to shore up our financial institutions solvency issues (ie too much debt on the books) and spend an additional 7 to 10 trillion through the Federal Reserve.
Where did the government get all this money, well they borrowed it of course. So lets keep adding to our $10 trillion current national debt($34,000 per person) and do not forget the $40- 50 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security.
Yeah what a great idea, I cant wait for inflation to kick in and be able tell my kids that I used to be able to have lunch for $5, and they will look at me like I'm THE alien. They'll say, $5 you cant even buy a stick of gum for that.......

Work for $1 a year?

As the auto bailout gets closer and closer to fruition, I can not help but wonder what goes on in the minds of our elected officials. The demand that auto executives should work for a dollar a day, and executive bonuses be cut, while the companies they run are struggling is actually a good first step. If my business was struggling to pay our bills, my compensation would be one of the easiest items to cut if we were running out of liquidity (Luckily we are not). The hypocrisy I see with our illustrious members of congress is that our country is in financial distress, only they choose to turn a blind eye. Where are the calls for our leaders to cut their pay, will President-elect Obama work for a dollar during his first year as President while our country struggles with an ever growing deficit and debt? Will House Speaker Pelosi give up her private jet (taxpayer funded of course) and fly commercial on her next jaunt back to San Francisco. If every member of the House, Senate and Executive branch suspended their pay for one year, that would save the taxpayers approximately $100 million dollars. To me, that would be a pretty good start to getting government spending under control. I have a gut feeling that if our elected officials in the Federal Government had to go without pay until they came up with a balanced budget, that some excessive government spending might magically get cut. You may think this a bit simplistic, or that $100 million is but a drop in the bucket of our $500 billion projected budget deficit. Their always has to be a first step toward recovery, what better way to shake the denial out of our government. A friend of mine recently told me that it was too late for the US, that we had already passed the tipping point and that our era of global dominance is nearing its end. He may be right, but lets just say that I have some Hope of my own, and I do not think it is too late to Change the way we do business. If I am wrong then no matter what we do today, the United States Government will spiral ever deeper toward bankruptcy. Will you join me in calling for our elected officials to work for a dollar a year? Barack Obama and his family will not be strapped for cash, Joe Biden might be able to get by, and Nancy Pelosi surely will not have any issues paying the bills. While were at it maybe George Bush will give back the $3.2 million he made over the last 8 years. So lets stand up and ask for some sacrifices from our elected officials. One can only hope......

We can't drill our way out of this?

I've heard this statement many times when the topic of $4 gas is brought up and when people start talking about this desperate situation that we find ourselves in . Drilling only will not solve our problems, but a comprehensive solution that includes further development of our domestic resources is a basic first step toward energy independence.

Lets kick this thing off

Well, you talk about doing something long enough, eventually you better follow through with some action. I don't have a plan for everything yet, but given enough time anything is possible.