Act 2 Coming Up (or) The African Connection

The curtain falls on Act One of the Great April Crisis. The players fade to silhouettes behind the scrim. We greet the intermission with relief tempered by knowing Act Two is on the way. In a few weeks, the drama returns as the cast portrays grownups pretending to understand the wisdom or folly of raising the national debt limit, which we will do.

By then all Americans will be experts on why funding or defunding Planned Parenthood is the ultimate determinant of national survival.  I vote for telling PP to try its hand in the marketplace.

So on to a bigger money pit called "the rest of the world" which we must borrow more money to help. Africa for instance.

Now, Africa is a big country place, and it's a little easier to understand if we use one small place country there to illustrate the point.

I pick Malawi.

You can follow the link or just accept my summary -- a pretty hunk of southeast Africa on the shores of big Lake Malawi. It used to be called Nyasaland, full of tribes with spears and war clubs and cook pots  big enough for speech-capable bipeds. Queen Victoria stole it from the indigenous personnel in 1891.  The Brits   ran things until 1964 before giving it back to the natives who set up one-party state, then decided to go modern. They got a democacy, some corruption tutors, an army, a navy, and aids.

Most important, Malawi got itself on the list of places where Uncle Sam is required to do good. And how.

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Hillary's State Department is pleased the we forked over a little more than $60 million to Malawi last year for just one program. That was so much fun she's asking nice, compassionate Americans to dig a little deeper this year -- $79 million.

The way that works out is that Malawi gets a 25 per cent pay hike because, eeerrrr, because uuuhhhmmmm, I guess because it is Malawi and things suck there. (If you dare mention that you're not getting a 25 per cent raise,  why, you're an Ugly American and ought to shut up because it's for the children, their children, not yours,  but never mind that.)

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Okay Jim, once again, as in your bike-trail rant, you're pissing and moaning about pocket change; $79 million could get lost in  Harry Reid's belly button lint. 


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No, I P/M about one example of a huge con job on Americans who bust their butts to pay their taxes so the congress, Hillary and His Obamaness can parade world capitals, tossing greenbacks from their floats at every tinhorn operation with a sob story.

The 2011 budget for this USAID Global Health and Child Survival program is a tad over $3 billion. Africa's cut of that is about $1.4 billion. Even Russia gets a little.

I have an idea. Let's quit doing it for at least as long as we have to borrow it from  Chinese money lenders.

To prove our hearts are in the right place we can send Madonna back.