Dear Ms. Management,

The other day I was feeling unhappy with my low-quality job. Then I read where Bush campaign assistant Susan Sheybani said, "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"

Right on! Unfortunately, my low-quality job does not come with prescription drug benefits. I shared my unhappy feelings about this with my boss, and he too suggested I get one of those new jobs instead.

By the way, where are the new jobs?

Fired Up in Philly

Dear Fired,

Darn, Ms. Sheybani was hoping you knew. (Oh, no reason.)

Dear Ms. Management,

I'm a small-business owner with a finance question. If I listen to 25 speeches about the fabled $100,000 annual expenses deduction for office equipment, but I'm so broke I couldn't buy a box of used paper clips, then I add my nonexistent share of the 11 percent by which after-tax incomes supposedly increased after 2001, factor in the 50 percent decrease of tax audits on big business, and double the number of working poor being investigated by the IRS, how long will it take for a speeding bus to get from D.C. to Crawford, Texas?

Ticked Off in Tacoma

Dear Tick,

Please have all documentation, receipts, your checkbook, your property, its contents and your DNA ready for our agents at 8 a.m. sharp.

Dear Ms. Management,

Wake up! Wake up, everybody! Sorry for shouting, Ms. Management, but millions of people are about to lose their right to be paid overtime. New federal regulatory changes issued by the Bush administration would drastically increase the number of workers who could be classified as professional, administrative or executive -- and thus make them exempt from overtime coverage. This is terrible! But even the people whose very survival is threatened by this significant loss of income seem blissfully unaware. Why is that?

Concerned in Connecticut

Dear Con,

Did you know that one of the first TV shows ever to win a Peabody Award was "Howdy Doody"? And that the name of the horse who played "Mr. Ed" was Bamboo Harvester?

Later today on CNN Michael Musto will discuss Britney Spears and Madonna. As they say on NBC, "The More You Know!"

(Um, that is the whole thing. And then they, like, do this little shooting star/rainbow thingy. Is this microphone still on? Am I talking?)

Dear Ms. Management,

Hey, I'm trying to run a business here and some turkey in the Washington went and shut down the Equal Pay Initiative. Now he wants to eliminate the Small Business Administration micro-loan program and the SBA Prime programs.

Maybe he doesn't understand that several thousand women-owned businesses helped create the prosperity of the 1990s. I guess Laura doesn't, either. She went to a temporary job placement center in Wisconsin to announce that rolling back tax cuts would harm small businesses.

Maybe someone should send her the memo from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which states that more than 96 percent of small-business owners receive no benefit whatsoever from the Bush tax cut.

I'll say this much. Giving the speech out in the parking lot made perfect sense. Considering what an increasingly hard time small-business owners are having as they struggle to afford payroll, energy prices and the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, putting them out on the street was an apt move.

Worried in Wisconsin

Dear Worried,

You're leaving out the first lady's most important point: "President Bush wants America's families to keep more of something they never have enough of, and that's time -- time to play with their kids, time to take care of their parents, or to volunteer in their communities."

Yes, that's what the president's economic policies really come down to -- taking us all back to the simple life by eliminating the troubling phenomenon of money from our lives, transferring it to a safe, undisclosed location, and replacing money with an unseen force capable of acting on people -- just not feeding, housing and educating them. Good times! Or at least plenty of time to forage for food stamps.

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