Black Friday and Politics

Black Friday won't be anything different for me. I am not doing any shopping. I am going out to church this morning to help decorate the church for Christmas. Then around noon I am going over to Bob's for dinner with his children.

Bob came over last night and we watched A Time To Kill. I had seen it before but he hadn't. It was a good movie with a great lesson for us all about prejudice.

We went to Leslie's home for our Thanksgiving dinner. My pies were good but the crusts stuck to the pie plates...both of them. I don't know why. I didn't do anything different. I did have foil on the second shelf and I wonder if that reflected too much heat back up to the bottom of those pies. Next time I bake a pie I will take that foil out and see if that makes any difference. I left the half pumpkin pie with my daughter and sent the half pecan pie and the leftover Waldorf Salad home with Bob.

Anyhow, I had been reading Bob's book, an autobiography of Andy Williams, and I finished it yesterday. It was a relaxing day for me that way.

Bob called awhile ago and asked me if I wanted to come to Eggberts and have the small biscuits and gravy with him. I agreed and we met there.

Tomorrow I will go back to Bartlesville for the funeral of my friend's husband at 2:00.

Now back to politics:

Republicans and Democrats mean very different things when they use the word "Small Business," and there is already too much of this word being used as we face the (imaginary) "fiscal cliff."

Republicans use a Small Business Administration business that has expanded over the years for bestowing greater political favors. For instance, Donald Trump has split his business empire into a number of separate entities, many of which (intentionally) qualify as "small business" under SBA guidelines.

On the other extreme, Some qualify as a "small business" due to the way they bill their services, but no one is employed. Democrats like to include these in their count.

So there is no single governmental action that favors small business or hurts it. Health care is one example. A small pizza chain owner, who provides health care to his 70 employees, was complaining about how Papa John's, who does not, can undercut him on price by using more part-time and no-benefit employees.

In many ways, the best thing that could happen would be to go over the "fiscal cliff." First of all, it is not a cliff. Nothing dramatic happens on January 1. Your taxes will likely go up a small amount in each paycheck. If you are truly concerned about the deficit, this basically solves our deficit problem in one fell swoop.

The biggest benefit would be that the Grover Norquist "no tax increases" pledge goes out the window, and we can get that nonsense behind us.