Like, a small, fun appetizer to whet your appetite for the meal, or repas en Français.
Luck o’ the Irish?
Perhaps not. Today, the new House Speaker vowed to slash Medicare and Social Security. Guess what today is? My 65th birthday, the very day that I am eligible to reap the benefits I’ve paid for so dearly. The Republican solution to any issue that involves helping people is to reduce or eliminate benefits because they won’t fix the problem with any other tax solution.
Conservative Tax Solutions
I can understand wanting to help rich people even more, as the new House Speaker wants to do. But why not a new tax break or enhancing a current one? First of all, attaching foreign emergency aid to domestic spending cuts is a no-no for a reason. Second, the savings are illusory, actually adding up to $28 billion to the deficit. Third and most important, he’s sending a message that it’s good for rich Americans to cheat on their taxes. Let the IRS keep getting $199 here and there from single moms working three jobs who make an error on their earned income tax credit. Yeah, that sounds fair.
Whenever Congress makes the tax code more complicated, really smart tax attorneys get to work, as they should, finding loopholes for their rich clients. It’s gotten to the point that the IRS doesn’t have the time or internal structure to spend years concentrating on billionaires who cheat the government. It was high time to anticipate turnover and bring in new talent, eliminate backlogs and phone wait times for simple questions. That funding was needed by the very entity that raises the funds for which Congress determines spending priorities and limits. And conservatives want to encourage cheating by the wealthiest Americans. My opinion is that if the poor gal down the street is filing her 1040-EZ by the rules, so should they.
Wintry Menus
The weather here is crazy, today it just got sunny at a little after eight in the morning and it’ll be sixty degrees this afternoon. That after a lot of rain and some cold weather. Tomato plants and herbs are in the living room sun right now, just starting to really produce.
There was a Fall party last Friday featuring chili so I made some cornbread to go-along. I had a package of Jif in the pantry so baked that in a 9″ skillet. Skillet was too big so it was a large hockey puck. Embarrassed, I made a basic cornbread recipe from scratch, substituting medium grain cornmeal for some bite and a corner taste. Now that I baked in an 8″ square Pyrex pan and it turned out moist and perfect. The little kids who weren’t partaking of the chili got squares of my cornbread instead and were happy. Sad to say there was no comparison, Jif. There’s just something about that 5 Tbsp. of melted butter…
Hope you like the snippets. I forgot some from over the weekend but will come up with some more, if you like. Cheers! Dee
Cooking with Dee 