In China, this is the Year of the Horse. In America, this is definitely not the Night of the Bronco. Denver’s problem is they play at mile high and this game was at sea level. Too much oxygen. The Seattle Seahawks won their first Super Bowl championship in a blow out, 43 to 8.

We’ve been talking about a new Farm Bill for three years and one was finally passed by the House. It calls for spending almost $500 Billion over the next five years and a lot of people are complaining that it provides too much for farmers and not enough for food stamps.

It might surprise you to learn that more than half of the Farm Bill is for food stamps. More than half? Yes, actually more than 80 percent. We’ll spend more on food stamps in the next five years than the total amount, 100%, of the previous 5-year farm bill. Certainly, when we have so many people without a job and they’re hungry, we want to feed ‘em. But it might be a good time for Congress and the President to figure out how to put these folks to work instead.

President Obama is focused on income inequality, calling it the “defining challenge of our time.” In particular, he wants employers to pay women the same as men. Somebody pointed out that of the people the President himself hired for his White House staff, women make about 85% as much as men. Maybe that deficiency will be taken care of when we elect a woman President.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

    “A man that don’t love a horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love horses then there is something worse the matter with him.” WA #88, Aug. 17, 1924

 “Mr. Hoover delivered his prescription to Congress on the ‘condition of the country.’ It was 12,000 words; that’s how bad shape we are in. And he hinted to Congress that they was the one that got us that way, but that if they would get busy and do something at this session, he hoped to cut our ‘conditions’ down to maybe 6,000 words.”  (after the October 1929 stock market crash)

  “These people that you are asked to aid, why they are not asking for charity, they are naturally asking for a job. But if you can’t give them a job why the next best thing you can do is see that they have food and the necessities of life.” Radio, Oct. 18, 1931