America! Motto: Women And Children First? Who You Trying To Kid?

Man. Things have gotten so bad in this country even the president has to take a bus to get around. Well, on the bright side at least we got the debt ceiling crisis resolved before it cut into Congress' vacation time. Now those elected representatives are about to come home to hear from the voters who sent them to Washington to do the people's business. Um...at least the ones who live close enough to public transit because hey, who can afford gas to drive around? Plus, if you're living in your car you don't really want to move it, or you may not get your mail anymore.

What's that you say? There isn't any public transit anymore? Well, no matter. Who has the $15 price of admission to open-to-all Town Halls anyway?

You know, maybe it doesn't matter. We mean, these Congress people know what the problems are. They don't need us to tell them that the country needs to cut back on domestic spending so we can be ready for the next terrorist threat in Wangdangistan, or wherever. Just think what another aircraft carrier will do to the morale of those goat herders living in Pakistan, huh?

See, in America it's all about hard choices, and the folks we sent to Washington are all about taking on that responsibility and have been doing it since before this whole mess started.

Across the nation, the research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009. As a result, 14.7 million children, 20 percent, were poor in 2009. That represents a 2.5 million increase from 2000, when 17 percent of the nation's youth lived in low-income homes.

Now, you might think that's  an alarming statistic since in a democratic society children's fundamental value is their potential to expand and improve on the society we leave them because open societies like ours are as much about the individual legacies we leave to those who come after as they are about any other accomplishment. You probably heard it all the time in your Civics class (well, before Civics was replaced with math test prep class). Your teacher would say, "What do you want your tombstone to say? 'Here lies so and so who made a million', or 'Here lies so and so who made a difference'?"

What a bunch of baloney. See, our elected representatives, who are tasked with making the hard choices know that children, by and large, don't work (not to worry though, the president's on it). And since they don't work, they don't have any money. No money, no money to contribute to campaigns, so it's like they're little leeches on the body politic anyway. Now let's get real here. Do you know how much money it costs to educate just one of these little resource hogs today? Sure we try and dump as much of that on the parents as we can, but yeesh. Public schools. Whose idea was that?

"People who grew up in a financially secure situation find it easier to succeed in life, they are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to graduate from college and these are things that will lead to greater success in life," said Stephen Brown, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "What we are looking at is a cohort of kids who as they become adults may be less able to contribute to the growth of the economy. It could go on for multiple generations."

Oh boo hoo. Look we have it on good authority there's going to be an increased demand for domestic help and custodial staff in the near future. And the good news? It's going to happen off shore, so by the time these little ragamuffins grow up we'll be exporting them faster than corn to China.

And you know what the best thing is? None of this would be possible if it wasn't for our representative form of government.