Parking lots are full.  I am not sure if the cash registers are full locally but my experience the past week has been full parking lots at The Marketplace, Target, 2^nd Street and other retail areas.  Whether Long Beach shoppers are just shopping and filling the lots, or actually buying I do not know.  It has been encouraging however to see the full parking lots around town.

 

The Christmas tree lot was sparse.  Not sure if that is because we bought our tree later than normal and that is the reason we had slim pickin’s, or if the lot has been busier than they anticipated with their orders.  I did read where the Christmas tree is one item most families will not cut from their December budget. 

 

Members of Congress certainly do not have to cut their Christmas budgets.   They gave themselves a $4,700 raise this week.  We have spent the last several months listening to various members of Congress disparage Wall Street executives for their fiscal follies; berate the CEOs from Detroit for their arrogance in flying in private jets to Congressional hearings; hold press conferences deploring the excesses of corporate America; plead for “common American worker” and the “struggling middle-class” and the “working poor.”  Blah, blah, blah. 

 

I guess Congress figures they have nothing to lose.  Most of them were just re-elected to their offices, despite their poor performances the past term.  They have, according to Rasmussen poll, a single digit approval rating; yes 9% of Americans feel Congress is doing a good or excellent job—no one I have met (but evidently about 150-200 of you reading the Long Beach Post every day) thinks Congress is doing okay.  Evidently they think they are doing okay as well, and do not mind the evident hypocrisy of their complaints about Wall Street and others while taking a raise themselves.

 

And let’s not forget their pensions, healthcare, travel budgets, etc. etc. If you want financial security, get elected to the House of Representatives.  Are you as glad as I am that Congress has changed so much since Pelosi became Speaker of the House? 

 

Governor Schwarzenegger did the right thing with his veto this week.  As I mentioned in my post last Monday, any budget bill that hits his desk that does not address and correct fundamental problems in the budget should be vetoed.  Democrats in the Assembly and Senate tried to play Noah Webster and redefine the word “tax” so that taking money from citizens is instead a “fee.”  Sophomoric antics like that are why I am glad we have a two-thirds requirement for raising taxes in our state. 

 

Mayor Foster may have been defeated by the voters with Measure I for funding infrastructure for Long Beach, but he has not given up the fight.  Lobbying Congress for funds through the various economic stimulus packages, plus presenting to President Elect Obama’s advisors a pitch for over $400 million for Long Beach, the Mayor is determined to fix our city.  Whether there will be funds in the hundreds of billions, or trillions, that will be spent by Washington in the next several months is still to be seen, but if no funds are headed Long Beach’s way it will not be because of lack of effort by our Mayor.

 

Because you will not read about it in any of the local papers, or the New York Times or Washington Post; Bernard Madoff—the guy with the $50 Billion Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors, many non-profits included, anyway that guy.  Madoff is a major contributor to the Democratic Party and its candidates, especially Hillary Clinton.  I mention it only because, as I said, our print media has an inability to identify wrong doing by those who do not have an (R) in their resume.

 

As was evidenced once again by the rains last week, before we spend hundreds of millions of someone’s money, yours, mine and ours as taxpayers, to tear down the breakwater let’s spend a few bucks to keep the crap and trash out of the Los Angeles River.  I’m sure each of the cities upriver whose trash ends up in our waters has a Green Policy to protect the environment. 

 

Merry Christmas everyone, may your stockings be filled with joy, your presents filled with happiness and you not be alone under the mistletoe.

 

 

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