"In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." Eleanor Roosevelt
March 20, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
In a kingdom not so long ago, there was a queen who wasn’t real sure of herself and as a result she made sure those around her were miserable.
She’d had a lousy childhood, so she decided to return the favor. You just had to remember her rules. She was the prettiest, the smartest and if you criticized her, you would pay: She wouldn’t talk to you and she would make certain that she or her underlings took you down.
She had a beautiful daughter named America, but, sad to say, America didn’t know she was beautiful, and there was a reason for that.
Every day, come rain or shine, over the years, the Queen would tell her she was homely and that America shouldn’t think that she was "all that.”
But because America was a strong woman and believed with all her heart that her mother had her best interests in mind, she let all the Queen’s words roll off her back and poured her energies into her work.
Since she had a good head for business, she figured she would work hard, use her innate entrepreneurial skills to advantage and make her mother proud.
And lo and behold, she succeeded in everything she tried. She had a lot going for her, but that didn’t even matter. It was the fact that she worked hard and played fair. That was what made her a success.
And the Queen praised her daughter when she was out in public, especially when she was giving speeches off her Teleprompter, but she also made observations about America that were very mean.
And once these speeches started coming, the criticisms became more frequent. After a couple of dozen meet-and-greets with the Queen "apologizing” for her daughter, sometimes locally, sometimes in other countries, people had to admit, America was looking a little pleased with herself, with all her wealth, just like her mother said, and they asked, did she share enough of what she had with the rest of them?
It was true many of them had been the recipients of her kind and generous largesse, and they had always genuinely liked her, but after listening to her own mother pointing out her shortcomings, they started to look at America in a new way.
And they had to admit that they kind of agreed with news commentators when the new Holy Father was being chosen and those covering the event stated that now an American pope could be chosen because America was no longer a world power.
America just felt sick to her stomach. How did this happen, she asked. Could it be…the Queen? No, she said. No, that couldn’t be. But the Queen continued with her observations.
"America is good at business and has a lot of money now," the Queen would say to people. "But don’t you think she’s a little show-offy to those who can’t do as well at business as she can? I mean, really, don’t you think she’s kind of flaunting her money in front of all the less fortunate?"
And even though everyone liked America, after hearing this type of talk, they started to wonder if she was as nice as they thought she was.
And yes, when they came to think of it, she did kind of make them feel bad about themselves, being so smart, so successful right in front of them and they admitted feeling so "Third World” about themselves when she performed so effortlessly and so well in all she turned her hand to and they weren‘t able to do that.
It wasn’t fair. Was it?
Yet, despite her excellent work ethic and a positive outlook, it soon came to pass that when America needed to borrow money, the lenders refused her.
And when her credit rating plummeted from really good to OMG!, America despaired, but the Queen said to her, "Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t really mean anything. And really, who are you to think you should have the best credit rating anyway?”
So America went along, never questioning her mom’s judgment, deferring to what she had been told was her mother‘s superior economic expertise.
Sure, there were some businesses that went belly up that her mom had and continued to back as being surefire winners and that seemed strange to her daughter. Especially with all the "economic” advice the Queen received from her trusted "economists” in the ivory towers of academia.
For instance, it turned out that solar panels made in China didn’t take off like the Queen thought they would. But that was probably just a fluke, bad timing, America said in defense of her mom’s economic judgments.
And the huge infusion of the country’s money that was invested in quite a few crummy business ventures was troublesome, especially since the Queen kept pushing for more of these companies and the list of those who failed grew and grew.
But since her mother had taken a vow to country and family to "do no harm,” America just continued trusting.
America explained it by saying her mom only had the best interests of the country, and her daughter, in mind. Plus It’s never easy being green…But, to be frank, even she started to wonder, about a lot of things.
It was probably just a coincidence since the Queen was always cheerleading for small businesses, but oddly enough, as soon as each of America’s small business ventures took off, regulations were passed that made it impossible for her to make a profit.
She’d always thought that was strange, but she pressed on, working hard, believing everything was okay and that whatever caused her businesses to struggle was only coincidence. She never traced it back to her mom because she knew her mom would never do anything to deliberately hurt her.
She’d always liked coal and natural gas because she thought it was smart for her country to be self-sufficient energy wise. And since she was proud to build up her country in her own small way, she decided to invest her time and money in a coal mine and in natural gas pipelines and offshore drilling.
She knew fracking was safe because she had done her homework, even though her mom’s Hollywood friend made a movie saying it was not and her mom thought it was not. But she hung in because she knew it made sense and seemed the right way for her and the country to go.
But she was stymied when Environmental Protection Agency regulations made it impossible for her to make the most of her businesses. Clean air, clean water, you name it, and all those environmentalists and their causes that her mother so loved, tied her hands so that doing business was a nightmare.
Difficulty in obtaining oil drilling leases, foot-dragging for approval on natural gas projects, it was very frustrating, not to mention costly if one believed being in business meant turning a profit.
And then a funny thing happened. Her employees -- she had 49 of them in each of her businesses -- blamed her at the start of this year because she took extra money out of their paychecks. It didn’t matter to them that this was part of the "tax break” the Queen had put in place at year-end 2012. They didn’t get mad at the Queen because the Queen didn’t print their paychecks, did she, they said.
No. It was America and the place they worked that hit them in the pocketbook.
When the burdensome healthcare "Everyone Is Covered Act” started to click in at the start of the year, she was forced to keep her workforce below 50, forced to cut hours and enforce part-time hours on many of them to make ends meet and her workers really hit the roof.
"It’s the new healthcare act,” she groaned to them. "It’s not me. I don’t want to do this.” But they blamed her anyway, especially when she had to inquire into their weight and health or deny them coverage.
They resented her, blamed her, but they never blamed the Queen. They opposed the Queen’s policies, but those policies were never deemed to have any effect on what was happening in the country.
Even as the "Everyone Is Covered Act” swung into its third year, America talked to other small business owners and they all had the same reaction: Nothing had gone right for the plan since it became law.
The long-term care insurance program (CLASS Act) had to be cancelled because it was financially unsustainable. High-risk pools for individuals with pre-existing conditions was so low that it, too was cancelled. And the process for small business tax credits was so complex and burdensome that only 7 percent of 4.4 million businesses bothered to claim the credit.
When America talked to her fellow entrepreneurs, to a man they were standing by their belief that the "Everyone Is Covered Act” was largely to blame for the weakest economic recovery since World War II.
"There is tremendous confusion and fear among many of my competitors and other business owners in my network, particularly about what you have to cover and how you have to report,” said Hugh Joyce, owner of James River Air Conditioning in Richmond, Va., speaking to The Washington Post. The Post added that small businesses, even at this late date, are uncertain how the "Everyone Is Covered Act” will affect their bottom lines, because:
"Nearly three years after the Act was passed, federal regulators have only recently begun to define its terms.”
The rumor was that there were taxes upon taxes coming down the pike, everything from taxes on your pet’s care to higher health costs which already had hiked up by double digits, but no one really knew for sure.
But the Queen handled it by never commenting, by ignoring the protests and the issue itself so that, over time, everyone thought someone else was to blame.
That was until a Prince came from another district in the kingdom, a place called Johns Hopkins, and the people’s ears perked up at his words.
Old people wrote letters thanking him, saying they had given up and were just waiting to die until they heard his ringing words of hope.
Simple taxes, plain, straightforward solutions to problems the Queen had pronounced "complex” and then had gone on to talk about the jobs she claimed she had created and how her vacations had nothing to do with closing down the Castle to her subjects.
But most of all what the people liked about the Prince of Johns Hopkins was his peaceful tone, his courage in the face of ridicule and his lack of an agenda other than the betterment of the kingdom.
And the Prince liked these qualities, too. He mentioned the Prince of Kentucky who he said "thinks quite logically and has the courage to take a position that other people won’t.
"There are those,” the Prince of Johns Hopkins said, "who lack courage, who always want people to adore them and are not willing to take a stand based on real convictions.”
Hmmm. Of course, the Queen didn’t respond, but she did go on a "Look at Me, I’m Nice,” tour which included the Kingdom of Israel, and she hobnobbed with her Congress, breaking bread and making nice.
But it remained to be seen if her subjects saw her actions as genuine, since in the past the Queen had never been too keen about the Prince of Israel or whether the Prince of Johns Hopkins looked better to them.
The media were won over, as always. They liked the Queen and never questioned her about much of anything. But the Prince of Johns Hopkins had a take on that, too. It was right after the Queen’s press secretary gave a non-answer to whether the Queen should tighten her belt and put the kibosh on her extravagant get-aways during this difficult Sequestration time.
When asked if he would trim such spending and what cuts he would make if he were president, the Prince of Johns Hopkins said he would give managers of each department discretion because they knew where the fat was and that they would cut the fat, not the muscle.
"It seems to me that the ‘Queen’ is trying to cut in places where it hurts the most in order to prove a point,” and he added.
"If ever the mainstream media reaches the point where they recognize that if we destroy this economy and this nation, that they too will be destroyed, at that point they will start to ask the tough questions.”
Hold the line, America.