Back in the summer of 2001, most tax payers in the country received a check from the government. Around $300 for most people. When it was first proposed by the Prez, it was to give back to Americans part of the surplus from the late 90s. When the checks finally came, it was to relieve the economy after the bubble burst. It was supposed to get the economy right again. For many millions in the country, it was the last time they had anything to do with the tax system. They lost their jobs and now get to enjoy the paradox of income tax: if you don't make any money, you don't have to pay taxes anymore.

The economy did not get better because of those checks. The millions of people who lost jobs over the last two years are still trying to claw their way back into the work force. Because businesses have to fix their budgets or go under, the businesses have learned to do more with less. Because the government does not have the same restrictions, they are doing less with more: we now have the highest federal deficit in the history of the world.

What were those checks for again?

After September 11th, the Prez declared war on Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and his gang of terrorists were in that country. We had to take them down. We took down something. We're still there, and the only thing that seems to have happened is we spent a ton of money to move the balance of power from the Taliban to bands of warlords. Heroin production has increased from almost nothing (the Taliban was against drug production and kept a tighter grip on its production than U.S.-occupied Afghanistan) to one of the biggest exports in the country. All under the table of course.

And Osama bin Laden. The biggest bad guy to grace the world since Saddam (I'll get to him in a minute) is still at large almost two years since he became public enemy number one. And we're still fighting in Afghanistan. The country is not stable. We're going to be there for years.

Of course, the Prez and his people say the point wasn't to take out just one man, it was to take out the terrorist network. But he was the biggest bogeyman for a while, wasn't he? Always good to have an enemy.

Just like the Satan of the 90s, Saddam Hussein. He got pushed back up to biggest baddie in the world after the public decided to give up on caring about Afghanistan. The Prez stumped for about a year to convince everyone we needed to go and beat up on Iraq again. He gave us tons of reasons to do it, too. A reconstituted nuclear program. Chemical weapons (tons of them). Other WMDs (tons of those, too). Torture, suppression of rights, killing his own people, being a tyrant, saying bad things about the U.S. and trying to kill the Prez's dad a while back. Funny, the Prez didn't mention the oil. But those oil wells were the first things we protected. Because, you see, that oil belongs to the Iraqi people.

So here we are, months after "heavy" fighting has been declared over. The U.S. has certainly stopped with the heavy bombing--mostly because we blew up pretty much everything. It's no fun to blow up something that's already in pieces. Not so dramatic. But Saddam is still alive and taunting us. And the Iraqis, who we supposedly have liberated, don't seem so happy about us being there. Doesn't matter. We're gonna be there for a long time.

And which reason does the Prez like to bring up for going to war? Oh yeah, bringing democracy to Iraq. Now, I don't quite remember democracy being the focus of the Prez's campaign to blow up Iraq, but I'm sure he probably said it a few times. I was just listening to the imminent threat, the WMDs, the nuclear weapons thing. You see, this was a pre-emptive war. Meaning we started the war on the pretense that Iraq was about to do something horrible to us or our allies with all those big, bad weapons of mass destruction. So you're saying we spent over 60 billion to bring democracy to a country? Y'know, if we had left them alone, we could have fixed our electrical problem with that 60 billion.

Which, of course, brings it all back around to the power outages on Thursday (many people are still un-juiced, even as I type on my computer). Everyone is blaming everyone else for this snafu. The Prez, apparently not aware we've got the biggest deficit in the history of the world (sometimes you have to repeat yourself), seems to think we've got some money socked away to fix the problem. I'm surprised they haven't decided to blame God for the hot weather that caused everyone to turn up their air conditioners. Because, y'know, God told him to go to war against Iraq. You'd think He would've let the Prez know it was going to be a hot summer while He was discussing foreign policy.

But I think the mayor of Toronto might have had the best line of the weekend: "When is the last time the United States took the blame for anything?"

Someday, we're gonna realize our own worst enemy isn't some crazy-headed despot halfway around. Once we get to the bottom of all of our problems, we'll find we're the ones who are wrong. Of course, we'd have to actually get to the bottom of our problems, something we have a hard time doing.

Matt Worley has always been a problem child.