While health care legislation and political party battles have dominated proceedings of this 111th Congress, there are “number one” priorities that have gone unserved, mainly the economy and war. First, Congress critically needs to limit spending drastically. The country is in a financial mess, not because of its inhabitants, but because of their government which went on a spending spree during the first 10 years of this century, a trend that continues today.

The main difference between Cuba and Haiti seems to be that Cuba finally gave up waiting around for the powers-that-be in Washington to do right by it and decided to go its own way — whereas Haiti was pretty much forced to stay sheltered under the wing of American corporatists’ benevolence for the past century. Cuba now offers all of its citizens a free education up to and past university level and there is no one starving in Cuba. Just compare that to the shape that Haiti is in now — and was in even before the earthquake.