I apologize for writing an article last week that was much too long. I will attempt to rebut some of Bobby’s accusations in a much shorter article this week. Bobby began his article last week by saying that I must be over my operation since I lambasted the actions of his Bush administration. First of all, my operation was for a hernia and not a brain operation. My mind still recognizes the blunders which the Bush-Cheney regime keeps making. Bobby says that I am talking the country into a recession. I didn’t know that my rhetoric was that powerful, but I don’t have to talk the country into a recession because any sane person who goes grocery shopping and or buys gasoline knows that we are already there.

There were 63,000 jobs lost in February, the largest number lost in the last five years, and the second month in a row for job losses and negative employment. Bobby boasts that the stock market recently hit an all-time high, but what he failed to tell us was that the market has been going south for some time now and the slide takes the market back to an eighteen month low. It is now in the 11,000‘s which is a 20% loss.

Bobby says that the home losses were due to people who bought homes when they couldn’t afford them. That is partially true but not for the majority of home buyers. These were the same homes that Bobby boasted about last summer when he said that the Bush economy had made possible for a record number of home owners. That’s typical Republican rhetoric, when things are going well, take credit, when they are going wrong, blame the Democrats. There are 900,000 of these homes where the loan value is greater than the assessed value. This situation is due to the devaluation of the dollar. A dollar doesn’t buy as much as it did a few weeks ago. The Euro has much more buying power than the dollar and Europeans are paying much less at the pump for gas accordingly than we Americans are paying.

Bobby likes to talk about us Democratic Liberals and the social programs which the Democrats always champion. Last week he made the statement that 60% of the national budget went to entitlement programs and may go to 70% soon. I am neither a historian nor a statistician but I knew that these figures could not be correct. I immediately went on line and here is how I found the breakdown of the national budget. Human Resources, including social programs—30% or $789 billion. General government.—11% or $304 billion. Physical resources ——5% or $117 billion. Past military —18% or $484 billion. Current military—36% or $965 billion. Fifty four percent or $1,449 billion go to the military while only thirty percent or $789 billion go to social programs. I felt it my duty to correct this mistake since it was intended to make us Democrats, who look out for the less fortunate, look worse than we really are. What do you think? Reach me at jamesfugate606@yahoo. com

Two Wal-Mart greeters were taking a break on a bench in the foyer when one said to the other , “I hurt all over, I don’t feel good at all. You’ll be 79 this month. How do you feel?” The older man said,” I feel just like a new born baby.” “Really”, replied the younger man, “just like a new born baby???” “Yep”, replied the older man, “no hair, no teeth and I think I have wet my pants”.