3/10/2023

My dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            What is your relationship with money? Are you a spender or a saver? Do you like budgeting? Did you frequently count the cash in your piggy bank back in the day?

            I did. At any given moment, I could tell you exactly how much $ I had, so I always knew when my brother absconded with some of it. I banked it when I had more than $30 – keeping $10 & depositing $20. I liked getting interest, but I also liked to have cash on hand to buy Archie comics. After saving my babysitting money (75 cents an hour) for 2 years, my first big purchase was my Olin skis.

            I am still a saver, but not a budgeter. I don’t like wasting my time imagining my expenditures & worrying about whether I will have enough in the future.

            The Bible suggests a similar logic, manna from heaven, loaves & fishes, a spirit of abundance keeps fear at bay.

            So, all the press on your $6.8 trillion government spending plan, $31.4 trillion debt, etc., is not my favorite topic, but it is inescapable. I’m grateful that you have some brilliant Black women working on this with you. It’s too bad that Cecilia Rouse is returning to Princeton sometime soon. Luckily, Shalanda Young remains.

            I am disappointed to see $885 billion in defense spending. Given that WINTA, let’s cut back in this area rather than increase the budget by $26 billion more than the current FY 2023 & nearly $100 billion higher than FY 2022. I speculate that this spending fuels the defense industry, in essence providing $$ to the GOP through campaign contributions of the folks profiting from this business.

            I am sorry to report that the news from Burma the day after International Women’s Day is discouraging.   Defiant female prisoners inside Mandalay's Obo prison were beaten severely by guards who then refused to give medicines to the injured prisoners. Please do what you can on that front.

            BYBS,