Anyone serious about tackling deepening financial crisis?
(PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
If someone in Washington doesn't wake up and do something meaningful about America's deepening financial crisis, it could be the end of the road for this once great nation.
It's been clear for some time that we can't continue in the direction we are headed, yet Washington just sits on its collective hands: our lawmakers keep spending money they don't have, while refusing to make any serious cuts.
Take a look at where we are today:
- For starters, the deficit commission that's supposed to come up with some solutions has issued its final report... but has pushed back its crucial vote until friday.
- After promising to ban earmarks, the Senate voted not to - typical. These people are strangers to the truth.
- Nothing yet from Congress on the Bush tax cuts - as we hurtle toward the biggest tax increase in American history on January 1. Meanwhile, polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans want at least some of them extended.
- Unemployment benefits start expiring today for two million Americans - since the senate failed to renew them. If people can't find jobs... what happens to them now?
- President Obama wants to freeze federal wages for two years, but he says nothing about reducing the size of government.
- The States face a collective $41 billion budget gap.
- As the war in Afghanistan drags on, it's looking like Korea or Iran could be next up. where's the money for that going to come from if it happens?
For all these reasons and more - the national debt now tops $13 trillion... some estimate it's growing at the staggering rate of five billion dollars a day.
Here’s my question to you: Is anyone serious about tackling the nation's deepening financial crisis?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Why won't Congressman Charlie Rangel just go away?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
The case of New York Congressman Charlie Rangel is bordering on pathetic.
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After being found guilty of 11 ethics violations after a two-year investigation, the full House is set to vote on censuring the New York Democrat on Thursday. It's sort of sad really.
The Ethics Committee overwhelmingly recommended censure last month, which is the harshest punishment short of expulsion.
The 80-year-old Rangel is asking the House for the lesser penalty of a reprimand. Rangel claims that censure should only be used in cases where corruption was proved.
There was a time before the guilty verdict that Rangel could have simply walked away with his reputation intact. But apparently his monumental ego wouldn't allow it. Now it's too late. By continuing to whine publicly about his treatment, Rangel, who has served in Congress for 40 years, diminishes himself.
He came out of the Korean War a decorated combat veteran, was elected to Congress and has remained there for 20 terms. In fact, he was just re-elected in spite of the ethics cloud hanging over him.
Among other things, Rangel was found guilty of not paying taxes for 17 years on his rental home in the Dominican Republic, failing to report assets for a decade, misusing a rent-stabilized Harlem apartment as a campaign office and misusing congressional resources to raise money for a college center named after him.
Rangel has apologized for what he calls honest mistakes and wrote his behavior off to "sloppiness." The House Ethics Committee found otherwise.
The ethics scandal cost Rangel the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee and more than $2 million in legal fees.
Here's my question to you: Why won't Congressman Charlie Rangel just go away?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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