Tag: budget deficit

Sunday’s Theme Music: Promises & Empty Words

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 8, 2026.

The clocks have been turned, the deed is done. We’ve sprung ahead until the autumn, when we’ll fall back. I admit, I’m not a fan.

It’s 50 F out there with birds on the utility wires silently eyeing the house under a bright blue dome. 66 F is the expectation today, a short drop from yesterday’s high. Flowers are blooming and all signs are trending toward spring.

Happy birthday to my youngest sister! I vividly remember when she was brought home and how we crowded around, adoring our newest little addition. May she receive the joy and happiness that she so often brings to others with her attitude and helpfulness. Love you, sis.

You know, consumer confidence was slightly up in February of 2026. That was BTW — Before Trump’s War, which he started in Iran at the end of February. The confidence reading was also before data showing how much the deficit has grown under Trump was released, and the terrible jobs report. With oil and gas prices rising and expected to push up costs, and the U.S. burning through its armament, I wonder what the confidence reading will look like in March.

My own consumer confidence remains low. Insurance premiums, food prices, and energy prices are caving in my consumer confidence. Doesn’t help that the non-profit running our local hospital cut back its services because it wasn’t pay enough money to the parent organization, even though it showed a net operating income of $10,000,000 for its last reporting year.

As an aside, I’m amazed that I’ve been reading about how people didn’t vote in the last election because they blame both parties, so, gosh, they gush, none of this is their problem.

Meanwhile, Trump in his wisdom, has decided to escalate the attacks in Iran, vowing to hit them very hard in a Truth Social message.

“Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.”

Complete destruction and certain death are certainly impressive aspirations for a ‘peace president’ and unifier.

Thinking hopes, promises, and optimism ended up with The Neurons filling the morning mental music stream with a song by the Cranberries, “Promises”. The 1999 song is about “all the meaningless and empty words”, a phrase going through my mind about Trump’s past promises. Although I like the song’s style and enjoy Dolores O’Riordan, the video is, ah…unusual.

Wonder what promises Trump will break next? Already broke promises to never golf, start no new wars, lower prices and end the Ukraine war on day one, improve healthcare, reduce the deficit, better the economy, release the Epstein files, bring back manufacturing…

Hope this finds you well and your day satisfies you in all the ways you need.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music – Trump’s Failing Magic

Ashland, Oregon — Saturday, March 7, 2026.

51 F outside, curdling high white clouds clout a diluted blue sky. Today’s high might be 68. The snowbank level is at 39% of average, a worrying portends as we speed toward summer.

In some quick hits, I saw that Target’s new CEO vows to bring customers back to their stores and restore growth and profits. His idea is more fashion, failing to miss the point that Target rolled back DEI and was a quick and early supporter of Trump’s agenda and inauguration.

I don’t know about others but I’m not going to walk into their stores to shop until they restore DEI. Target said it was just a coincident that they were terminating their DEI programs, claiming that they’d already decided to end it before Trump declared his war on DEI.

Some coincidence.

Other quick hits have me musing about the economy. The news is days old that the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. January and December’s numbers were revised downward. January had net growth but lost some of that, while December, which had shown job growth, now showed a contraction of 17,000 jobs.

It doesn’t help that 2025 was the worst year for jobs growth since 2020. Trump was in the White House back in 2020, too. KIn fact, the U.S. had negative jobs ‘growth’ for the first time since 2010. Interestingly, 2025’s job growth total was well below President Biden’s economy, which added over 2,000,000 new jobs in 2024.

Prices continue high and are expected to rise more with the Trump Iran war as gas and oil prices go up. With uncertainty about Trump’s goals and how long the war will last, fears of stockpiling gas and oil might push prices up, as has happened in the past.

This is all ‘older news’ but I bring it up because it shows the continual haphazard way that Trump functions and its deleterious impacts. Many of us who aren’t drinking Trump’s magic potions and don’t agree with Project 2025’s plans and intentions aren’t surprised. We saw the effects that tariffs would have, and we understand the history of mid-east wars on gas and oil prices. We also understood what would happen when Trump broke trade agreements, and nullified or withdraw from alliances.

We also knew that when he claimed to be the peace president and that there would be no new wars, war and military action was inevitable. Trump is a liar and wanted to use the military in his first term but was restrained by seasoned individuals. With those people gone, Trump rushes to war as a salve and distraction against falling approval ratings, a terrible economy, and the Epstein files.

Note, too, that Trump crows about this showing how strong we are. However, true military experts have noted that the United States is running through its inventory of high-tech precision weapons. These are expensive and take time to make. As we’re not on a ‘war footing’, manufacturing has not ramped up to support the current demand levels. That increases our nation’s vulnerability and reduces our safety and security.

In the last quick bit, note that the growing costs of these military costs won’t do anything to help our budget deficit. It’s growing; we’re now projected to pay more in interest than we pay for defense. Staggering.

And again, many of us outside of Trump and the MAGA world saw this coming. They didn’t because they live in a make-believe existence — to our detriment.

Today’s music selection by The Neurons is “Young Lust” by Pink Floyd. Released in 1979 from The Wall album, the song is residing in my morning mental music stream because I got the words wrong when I first heard it.

The song is about Pink, the hero of the album, having sex while he’s touring. The lyrics say, “I need a dirty woman.” Somehow, I heard that as, “I need a magic woman.” So the song came up today because I was contemplating how wrong Trump’s magical thinking is and thought, “He needs a magic woman,” with a laugh. My cheeky Neurons just ran with the mondegreen.

Hope you enjoy the video. Look how young the Floyds look. *smile*

I hope your day is joyous and safe, wherever you roam and whatever you do.

Cheers

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Twozdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

My thoughts are drawn to our local political scene. Ashlandia is a small town, dependent on tourism for most of its business revenue. Ashlandia is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which puts on several plays from March to November. A local university, Southern Oregon University, supplements the employment base by hiring people for its needs. Adjacent to rivers and a ski resort helps draw more tourism for us. We also have multiple local breweries and wineries. Other than that, we’re mostly restaurants, coffee shops, a couple bookstores, head shops selling THC and CBD products, and several grocery stores.

With tourism down, we’ve been struggling as a town. Tourism was driven down over ten years ago by droughts which lasted several years ago, deepening into a serious problem which called for water rationing, followed by smoke pollution from wildfires. Plays were cancelled due to these threats. Outdoor activities were curtailed. Then the pandemic struck, with all that it delivered to the table. Finally, Trump has struck. Just as tourism was beginning to rebound, his xenophobic policies and tariffs take another axe to our numbers. Local services were also curtailed due to grant cuts and budget cuts. SOU enrollment is down…again. Tuition is up…again. SOU programs and classes were cut…again.

With all this afflicting us, the city was strapped for cash and has a budget deficit. Besides those issues, we also have a homeless problem. Trump’s cuts did us no favors on that front.

Into this cauldron of difficulties come our local government leaders. Their solutions.

  1. Cut back on park maintenance and add service fees to local utility bills to make up the parks deficit.
  2. Build a new park. Mind you, they’re short of funds to take care of the existing parks, but WTH.
  3. Shut down the senior center and pool. Because they’re short of funds, they couldn’t hire the people needed to keep those open. But let’s build a new park that we don’t have the money to maintain.
  4. Give BIG pay raises to the city management staff, especially the city manager. Because, hey, with this budget deficit, revenue down, and tourism down, we need to ensure they’re better compensated than We the People, the Ashlandia denizens.
  5. And let’s cut essential service staff after giving those pay raises because you know, less people are better. We’ll also cut the hours to the utility and city offices because we need to cut expenses.

They even, from time to time, talk about doing away with the police department because it costs too much.

The city manager states, without evidence, that the new park will draw tourists. Ashland already has Lithia Park, Hunter Park, Garfield Park, Clay Street Park, and a half dozen more. Their facilities are being closed because of budget deficits. Sure, the water park shut off the water this summer because we lacked the funds for the water and staff to run it, and Mountain Park is mostly closed for the same reason, but let’s build another park to draw more tourists.

That makes a lot of sense. Not.

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