Written by Madeleine Kando   

I turned on my radio just in time to catch a conversation with Barney Frank, in which the Massachusetts Congressman explained why he voted against the Budget Control Act, which was just signed into law by President Obama.

I like this guy. He talks rough and is a straight shooter. He tells it like it is which is quite unusual for a politician. He voted against the bill because he knows that it is going to be devastating for the middle class. He also knows that his no-vote wasn't going to cause the country to go into default.

This bill will create cuts in every imaginable government funded program that make our lives more humane and livable. Our roads, our parks and our schools are going to suffer. Old people are going to suffer, sick people are going to suffer.

This whole debt-ceiling affair was like watching a fist fight between a street-smart hoodlum and an average Joe, a 9 to 5-er. The hoodlum doesn't care if he gets hurt or even dies. The average Joe will be more careful and is thus at a disadvantage. Now that the hoodlum has won it remains to be seen where exactly, the cuts are going to be made.

Why does the US have a debt ceiling to begin with? And why wasn't it challenged in the past? The cost of living is going up for everyone, including the government, so obviously the debt ceiling has to be raised. Besides the debt ceiling is not for future expenses but to pay for things already spent. Money spent on two wars that the hoodlums have started. Money spent on corporate tax loopholes.

That is why Barney Frank didn't vote for the bill. He refuses to pass the cost of those two wars on to a 78 year old who lives on 19K a year. Wars that nobody knows why they are being fought and for which he didn't vote.

A good analogy would be to compare the country to a big building. The money spent on the hundreds of bodyguards is there. Not only around the building, but around all the neighboring houses as well. (Yes, we are subsidizing other Western countries' military). The money is there for the corporate bosses who live in the penthouse. But grandma, who lives in the basement, is going to hold the short end of the stick. Her small Social Security check is going to shrink, her health care is going to deteriorate. The family of four who lives on the first floor won't have enough money to buy books for their children.

If you ask me, Obama should have invoked the 14th Amendment, which would have allowed him to unilaterally raise the debt-ceiling. It might have made America look like a dictatorship, but I would rather be ruled by a benevolent dictator than be blackmailed by a bunch of ruthless criminals.