An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Are there sour grapes because the Democrats took over control of congress? Perhaps.. Will the D's tax and spend? Likely. Is it hard to take back control because of the power of incumbency: indubitably. That's why an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But that prevention wasn't with the campaign, but with the spending habits of the Republicans going back 6 years. They had it within their power to cut spending and balance budgets, and chose not to do so. That was their mistake.

How about taxation? It's not how much a person owns, but how much they make that drives the economy, and thus, gets taxed (except for some greedy D's who want to tax what you own as well with so-called 'imputed income' which is an invented income based on the value of your house).

My concerns for the future are with respect to the economy, because I want to continue to be gainfully employed, and I want the nation to do well economically. Think about an individual who makes $15K a year. What will happen if the D's raise the minimum wage. Who will suffer first when that happens. Many of the poorest among us will suffer because when squeezed, companies respond first by laying off employees because they can't afford to employ, say 100 employees at $9/hour, but they could when it was $6/hour. So perhaps some 20 employees loose their job because of the very thing that the D's say will help people. Ha. Tell that to those 20 dopes who voted D and will be out of a job. Raising the minimum wage appreciably has also been shown to cause inflation, because it bumps everyone's salary up along the line. And one more item: when they lay off those 20 people, the remaining 80 are forced to work harder to keep their jobs; those 80 have more stress and need more health care, it's a vicious spiraling circle. A better solution is to let the free market take care of itself, without government mandates. People will eventually gain skills that make them more valuable to employers, and will move up the ladder.

Or else consider the Alternative Minimum Tax which will kick in to middle class people like me next year. If the D's don't push the definition of 'rich' to a number which really reflects 'rich' then that will cause people like me and all the rest of us who make $42K-single / $62K-married to pay another $2K to the government next year. That means that we all have that much less money to spend in the economy. That means a probable recession. That's incentive enough for the D's to fix that overlooked item which kept coming up in congressional debates all this year but never got passed into law.

The child deduction is another thing, which, a few don't necessarily like it or think it is fair, but it is supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans. Take that away and there will be a big outcry: a platform the R's may run on to try to regain congress in 2 or 4 years down the road. And a good platform for Giuliani in his run for president. If people really want fairness, instead of griping about this deduction or that, we should embrace the one truly fair tax: The FairTax!

In a way I hope the D's do act as their leftist base wants them to, and tax us all more: that will give the R's a chance of regaining the congress down the road. But that is sour grapes talking again. Logic dictates that they really should keep taxes as they are and they should spend less. But we all know that the D's and R's both like to spend other peoples money as if it grew on trees. What chance is there that the D's will spend less than the R's now that they have control: I give that thought about the same chance as the idea that a snake could walk.

How about the environment? Without a strong economy, the first thing to suffer will be the environment, just look at third world countries. I've heard horrible stories about their poor economies, and the resultant pollution. The clear-cutting of trees is overwhelmingly a problem in these countries. There goes one possible solution for global warming.

I am especially concerned about the national debt. The only difference between myself and the Democrats is how to remedy the problem. The D's will advocate more taxes to relieve debt. I advocate two things: Keep taxes as they are which actually grows the economy; and secondly: cut government spending: cut entitlement growth, cut unnecessary programs, cut earmarks, cut pork, cut back on the department of Homeland Security and other wasteful departments, cut government growth down the line; and yes, cut the military too.

Now that the D's are in power, my current position is that we need to get out of Iraq in a slow withdrawal. I just hope that the Iraqis are able to defend themselves from their own insurgents. Hope is not a bad thing. I'm looking at the long term situation. If the cost of this so-called war is great now, just think how much it would cost if the insurgents take back control. An ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure.