The Blaisdell Blog

  I had slept in, taken my morning walk late and was just making my first cup of coffee when my daughter called me.   “Mom,” her urgent voice said, “I saw the plane fly into the tower.   I saw it, Mom!   I was watching the television in the break room and that plane just flew into the second tower.”   That is how I learned that our country was under attack.   America began its emotionally tumultuous day—Pearl Harbor laid out before our eyes.   My husband and I are in the habit of having a glass of wine with dinner and toasting any small, significant or touching thing that happens during our day.   That night, as I raised my glass, we both quietly spoke the words that were uppermost in our minds, “To the United States of America.”               Of all the lessons that can be taken from that day, one of the least discussed and most poignant is what happened to St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel, l...

In the past three months the House of Representative has been in session exactly 12 days.   Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has now cancelled the last two weeks of the session scheduled for the last of September and all of October.   The House will not be in session again until after the midterm elections.   Despite a backlog of legislative responsibilities, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has canceled the final two weeks of the September legislative session.   That leaves House lawmakers only one more 4-day work week before the midterm elections. The chamber won’t be reconvened until mid-November.   That amounts to over 100 days of paid vacation.   The average salary of a member of the United States Congress is $174,000.   That puts them in the top 5% of income earners in the United States. If you divide that salary by the days they have been in session, they are making about $608 per day.   I ask you, are you getting your money’s worth? ...

Let’s start with a situation of which almost every one of us has personal knowledge.   You have overspent your income, probably without intending to, but stuff happens.   You are running behind on your bills and think, “I just need enough money to get by for the next month, then I can get things under control.”    So, you take out a loan, pay some bills, buy some groceries and get the kids some shoes.   But at the end of the month, you are more in debt than before.   You try for another loan, and then another, and another.   Soon the only people who will loan you money are demanding you pay exorbitant interest.   You know you have hit bottom when you are thinking about a pay day loan. The United States government does the same thing.   When a government needs to raise money that it hasn’t raised in taxes, it sells bonds.   But if all they do is pay interest on the debt, instead of paying down the debt, we keep getting in more trouble. ...