Do not adjust your screen. This post is in fact leaning to the right.

As I've declared many times on this blog, I am a Democrat. My husband has a tendency to lean a little more in the other direction. There is one rant, however, that I go off on every so often where Lincoln waits for me to finish before chuckling to himself as I wrap up by saying "Yes, I know that is a bit of Reagan-era trickle down economics but I don't care."

If you earn your money, you should have the right to spend it however you want. That's not to say that I think the wealthy shouldn't be taxed more. I definitely think they should. I mean, if you can drop a down payment on a Porsche you should chip in a little more than the single mom working three jobs and still barely putting food on the table. I'm just saying....

But that's not the point of this post.

I absolutely hate when people say "I can't believe they spent so much money on that!"

For example:

I can't believe those celebrities spent $1 million dollars on their wedding! Don't they know there are homeless people in Los Angeles that could have used that money?

OR

I can't believe the President went on vacation at Martha's Vineyard when I don't have a job. Not everyone gets to take a vacation this summer thanks to this mess of an economy.

OR

I can't believe she spent $1200 on a washing machine! Doesn't she know that some mothers have to go to the laundry mat with their 3 children in tow?

Let's just take a look at these situations one by one, shall we?

You're right. That celebrity could have run to Las Vegas and eloped therefore freeing up that $1 million dollars to be donated to charity OR they could have done exactly what they did and put $1 million dollars into the event planning industry thereby helping the businesses of florists, caterers, security companies, wedding planners, and limo drivers and the hundreds of employees that count on them for their jobs. Better that than them snorting it up their nose in a drug fueled binge on the flight to Vegas.

Yes, the President of the United States went on vacation where he paid for his vacation rental with his own money. He earned it. His wife earned it. They worked hard for their money before he became President and they work hard for it now. Let them spend the damn money -once again - helping shore up the financials of the person who rented the house to them as well as many of the businesses on the Vineyard that benefited from the First Family taking a vacation in their town. What would you rather he do with the money, mail it to you so that you can go on vacation yourself? If you deserve a vacation you will have earned your own damn money.

As you can tell by the "Blogs I Love to Read" on the side of this page, I read Heather Armstrong's blog at http://www.dooce.com/ and also follow her on Twitter where she has well over a million followers. She recently purchased a washing machine for $1200 and it didn't work. She got into a battle with the manufacturer because she was having trouble getting it fixed. People called her a bully for publicly pressuring a company to make right on a brand new piece of equipment that didn't work. God forbid she spent money "frivolously" AND expect it work. The horror! A local appliance company volunteered to give her a free machine (she's a bit of a celebrity in the mommy blogger world) and she in turn donated that machine to a women's shelter because she could afford to buy her own machine. Wasn't that nice of her? No. It wasn't enough for the angry masses. They were appalled that she would have bought a $1200 machine in the first place when there are people out there that can't afford a washing machine at all. But she can people!!! Let her spend her damn money on whatever she wants. Isn't everyone screaming these days that sales are dragging and bringing down our economy? If she wants to but money into the economy let her! Or your (admittedly stereotypical) unemployed ass sitting at home spending WAY too much time meddling in the lives of others will never find a job in this current economy.

And now I'm going to step down off of my soapbox and move it back firmly to the left after one final thought.

If Brad Pitt wants to build a habitat for his kids' gerbils I am sure that those in the pet, building materials, and animal waste removal industries don't mind that he dropped $80,000 on such a stupid thing. It's not like if he didn't build the gerbil habitat he was going to send the money to you anyway - so shut up and quit your bitching.