All I Want For Christmas Is Some Sodium

Well, it looks like our elected brain trust will finally roll over and give the Detroit Disasters $14 billion of our tax dollars. It comes as no surprise as anyone who was paying attention knew this was a done deal before all the public posturing started. The bailout package calls this hand out a loan and has some ridiculous riders that demand internal changes at the automakers or else the loan will be recalled forcing the nonconforming companies to file for bankruptcy. If there are too many union votes to allow a Chapter 11 to happen now there is no chance that a bought and paid for Democrat Congress will develop the orbs to force bankruptcy protection in 6 months.

Wall Street and the financial community are still looking for their piece of their $700 billion bailout. This money will continue to be doled out slowly as the political advantage dictates and used as it was recently in Illinois as a instrument of blackmail.

In Illinois union members want the government to step in and force banks to give loans to companies that don’t have any possible way of paying it back. In California the state government is looking to Washington to keep them solvent. And all over the country faithful Democrat voters are looking for everything from mortgage assistance to a car loan subsidies. My wants and desires are somewhat simple compared to these history altering cash infusions. I want some salt.

Actually I don’t want some salt, I need some salt. As happens every 12 months in the greater Northern Midwest we are gripped in the early stages of winter. Al Gore and the other global warming kooks aside, it looks like it will be another normal bone chilling, water freezing winter. The bone chilling part I can deal with because thankfully I do not have to make my living outside in the elements. It’s the water freezing part that has me in a state of mild, though ever increasing, panic.

Because of the latest “shortage” the price of ice melting sodium chloride has skyrocketed. Much like the freezing rain and snow this should come as no surprise as it also happens every year. But with budget the constraints most of the suburban Chicago area is facing most of the suburban city counsels find themselves now short of the only commodity that allows for death spin free driving.

The current justification for not using salt on frozen roadways is that it may be needed for later in the water freezing season. This makes about as much sense as not washing the dishes because somebody is just going to eat off them again. Suburban towns and villages are rationing the ice melter like a World War 2 sack of sugar. Major intersections are being treated enough to avoid anything over an eight car pileup. Side streets are completely sans salt and most other roadways are hit and miss at best, with the emphasis on trying to miss that which is sliding to hit you.

I am completely unable to accept any of the myriad of excuses being proposed by the incompetent elected politico’s. Most towns are left at this early stage of winter with just enough salt to coat the rim of three margarita glasses. Did these folks in whom we invest our trust and tax dollars think that global warming was real? All the jobs programs in the world to help get unemployed people working will make no difference if these new employees are unable to traverse the frozen tundra which used to be Main Street.

The federal government has instituted subsidies for peanuts, wooden arrows and fish oil. There are programs for sugar beets, soybeans, ethanol and left handed crab claws, but nothing for salt. Now don’t get me wrong, I like me a good PBJ, take fish oil daily, use sweetener from sugar beets, drive my car with a gas ethanol mixture and love shooting left handed crabs with wooden arrows, but I would gladly self-impose complete abstinence of all these things if I could be assured of driving my car over the next four months on something other than the Ice Capades main stage.

How is it possible that the town where I live spent copious capital on flowers and landscaping this past spring and summer, $50,000 on a report explaining why most residents hate the police department, hired lawyers and consultants to investigate creating a homeless shelter and then importing some homeless to be sheltered, but have no money to salt the damn streets?

Regardless of what the feds are spending on union autoworkers jobs or Wall Street investment bankers all politics is local. Not having any salt to allow for a fatal free driving experience is certainly a “change” from years past. I wonder if He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken will send us poor saps in his home state a shaker or two of peace of mind. Or maybe Jesse Jackson Junior would chip in the $500,000 he was going to give to Governor Throbbing Rob Blagojevich to buy the “Chosen One’s” senate seat?

Or Santa, if your listening………………………………………