"Lottery Desperation"

Last week America had its largest lottery prize ever at a record of $640,000,000!: that is a huge “chunk of change” by any standard; that is even more money than Barack Hussein Obama lost on the SOLYNDRA debacle! All across the country, people were trying to buy tickets to have a chance at this gigantic sum, after all, it was over half a billion and that is certainly worth a buck!

Yesterday, I stopped to top off my gas tank, five gallons cost me $20.00, and that will last me the rest of this week; I don’t drive very far. That $20.00 could have been spent on the “dream ticket”, but cars don’t run on dreams.

I’m retired now and I’m pretty careful with a dollar; some of my friends probably think I’m cheap. I like to think I have my priorities straight when it comes to finances. Those of us that are in our “golden years” are a bit more frugal than the young and impulsive folks. Many people over the last few years lost much of their life savings due to the recession and this stagnant recovery, but what is worse, is that many Americans have not been able to advance from poverty because of these severe economic conditions and things seem hopeless to them.

Friday, the network news programs showed lines that were blocks long, filled with people waiting to buy that “special ticket”; what they failed to show was the amount of poverty level folks that were spending their money on that “special ticket”. People who are making $13,000 or LESS are spending 9% of their weekly income on different lottery games on a regular basis! Last Friday, Americans spent $1,491,082,267 on this lottery jackpot. The chance of winning this jackpot was 1 in 176,000,000; it would be much easier to be hit by a comet at midnight at the North Pole, during an eclipse, than to win this lottery prize!

Our nation is on the verge of great financial destruction as fuel prices rise and employment is at a crawl. People have watched every failed attempt of the Obama Administration to find a remedy and our populous is becoming desperate. When you have a weekly income of $225, and you are spending $25 on lottery games, you are a desperate person; you see no opportunity, and you are grasping at straws because it looks as if there is nothing left.

As we continue to face skyrocketing fuel prices, Mr. Obama refuses to do anything other than offer platitudes about his clean energy program, and asks for even more funding for programs like SOLYNDRA. He has touted the building of “half a pipeline” as a victory, even though he had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. He offered a budget that was so ridiculous that not a single representative, neither Democrat nor Republican gave a positive vote. Although employment numbers have moved slightly, they are well below what is required to move out of this recessive cycle, yet Obama claims success.

If America wants real success, we need to make a real change in Washington. We need a responsible Senate and a responsible White House. If that change doesn’t come in November 2012, we might as well wait at the North Pole during that eclipse so we can get hit by that comet, because things won’t be getting any better here any time soon!!