Weekly Comments: Will likes new Treasury plan

COLUMBUS: This historic week we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King on Monday, then at noon Tuesday we inaugurate Barack Obama, kind of a product of Dr. King’s influence.

No inauguration has been more anticipated, at least since 1933. And no President since Franklin Roosevelt has arrived with more problems piled on his plate.

Our new President has brought in experienced hands to run the government. Only one having any difficulty with Congress is Tim Geitner. Everybody in Washington and on Wall Street says he’s got to be the Treasury Secretary because he is the only man in America that understands how the economy works today. I’m not sure that’s right, but if it is, they should change the economy back the way is was when us common folk could understand it.

Now I’ve got to admit I kinda like Tim Geitner’s plan to stimulate the economy. See, if we follow his example, you keep all the taxes you would normally pay in 2009 and 2010, and then pay ’em in a lump sum in November 2012. But you only pay ’em then if you get offered a big government job. The Geitner Plan ain’t as complicated as the one Congress is arguing over, but it’ll work faster and eliminates overhead.

I spent a few days last week with 800 farmers in Indianapolis. You might remember that a year ago these same farmers voted in the “National No-Till Farmer Presidential Primary”. Barack Obama won for the Democrats and Mike Huckabee for the Republicans (McCain was second). Look at the millions of dollars saved if the country had accepted those results and jumped right to the general election. Well, this year those farmers learned about Fertilizer, mainly how to get by with less by using it in the right place at the right time. You still produce the same crops, but at lower cost. Now if we could do the same with politics, maybe we could get out of this financial rut and back on solid ground.

America got another hero last Thursday. Sully Sullenberger showed us how to land a plane on water without the benefit of pontoons. The Airbus folks deserve credit for designing and building a plane that held together. Next they gotta figure out how to add a safety device that’ll knock those wild geese out of the way, like a cow catcher on a locomotive.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Just been prowling around with the farmers. They have about given up hope of getting farm relief and have decided to fertilize instead.” DT 3494, Feb. 26, 1928

“America hasn’t been as happy in three years as they are today [Inauguration Day]. No money, no banks, no work, no nothing, but they know they got a man in there who is wise to Congress, wise to our big bankers and wise to our so-called big men. The whole country is with him. Even if what he does is wrong they are with him. Just so he does something.” DT #2054, March 5, 1933

“It’s news if you can get anything out of the government, but if the government gets anything out of you, that ain’t news, that’s just a habit.” DT #2076, March 30, 1933