Daily Verse | Ruth 3:9b
“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer.”

Thursday’s Reading: 1 Samuel 1-3

Thursday and I’m back from burying my mother-in-law and seeing my own mother for a couple of days. Don’t take the time you have with them for granted. Average life expectancy in the U.S. is 76 years for men and 81 years for women. If your mom is 80 years old and you see her once or twice a year—you may have only 2 or 3 visits left.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for me and my family while we were gone.

We’re just exiting a pandemic that has wrought untold suffering and destruction on our society by the unscientific imposition of mask and vaccine mandates, the forced erasures of local businesses, and the unprecedented power grabs of our rulers who lord it over us rather than fear us. Our economy, which less than 18 months ago was absolute fire, is in shambles, shredded by Joseph Robinette Biden and his illegitimate junta through anti-American policies such as anti-fracking and anti-Keystone Pipeline, leaving us at the mercy of evil state actors like Russia and Iran and Venezuela. Gas prices, of which I had personal experience over the last 9 days, are stratospheric and show no signs of returning to reasonable levels. This, after we had finally achieved energy independence under Trump’s pro-America policies. There’s a war in Ukraine, creating the greatest flood of refugees since World War II and threatening to tip all of us into World War III.

And what do our betters in Washington, D.C. do in the midst of the greatest inflationary economy in 40 years and the greatest cultural chaos in a generation? They vote themselves a 21 percent raise.

As Americans face an economic crisis, historic inflation and surging gas prices, Congress released a $1.5 trillion omnibus bill on Wednesday allocating $5.9 billion of fiscal 2022 Legislative Branch funding to boosting the allowance and salaries of their staff.

The legislation would grant $774.4 million for the Members Representational Allowance, which funds the House budgets for lawmakers, including staffer salaries and $1.7 billion for House operations.

“This $134.4 million, or 21 percent, boost over the previous fiscal year marks the largest increase in the MRA appropriation since it was authorized in 1996, according to a bill summary by the House Appropriations Committee,” Roll Call reports.

The bill does not technically provide a raise for members of Congress, who earn an annual salary of $174,000. But House staffers, who members use to run errands, and family members of Congressional lawmakers who are often put on payroll, will see a pay increase.

True, the members of congress don’t get a 21% pay raise, but see what they did there? While you and I get our annual 2 percent pay raise (if we’re lucky and have “met expectations”), the thieving people’s representatives take more of your money in order to give it to the lackeys and family members they hire to do the work that we hired them to do so that they have more time to lounge in their tony Washington apartments and homes while dealing themselves sweetheart stock trades to pad their financial portfolios.

The greatest lie in D.C. is the word “revenue” as in “Internal Revenue Service.” Revenue is “the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods or services related to the company’s primary operations.” Do I have to remind you that Washington, D.C.—the government of the United States of America—doesn’t produce anything tangible to “sell” to the American people? Oh, sure, they provide some “shovel-ready” jobs and produce interstate highways, space shuttles, and military weapons. But what they “sell” are promises and ideas that they conveniently outsource to three-letter bureaucracies that have to be funded by taxing those of us who actually provide services that other people want.

The House on Wednesday passed a $1.5 trillion, 2,727-page bill to fund the government this year, and at least the Members don’t have to worry about inflation. They’ve got the government covered.

The DC Leviathan is like Audrey II in The Little Shop of Horrors.

Once people realize they can demand that more money be spent for things they want, but don’t necessarily need, the government steps up and says, “Feed me, Seymour!” The government collects ands spends so much money that it can’t all be accounted for and anyone who’s been around a while knows that a good percentage of it winds up lining the pockets of greedy and immoral men and women (don’t want to be a misogynist).

Can anyone tell me what the government has done for us lately? In what ways have they given you more freedom and let you keep more of the money you earn?

Anyone?

Bueller?

This will only stop when the people stand up and say, “enough!”