Little confession: I am completely ignorant about the American political process of passing a bill.  Not the you're an arrogant dumb-ass kind-of-ignorant thrown around to insult someone.  My ignorance is in the true definition of the word...lacking knowledge.  Nay.  I HUGELY lack knowledge, therefore I am HUGELY ignorant.

You know, I'm pretty sure this topic was covered at some point during my formal education.  I can't imagine my high school skipped American Politics as a subject.  Could I have gotten through 4 years of college without the topic coming up?  Not sure.

There just hasn't been a NEED for me to understand the process in the *ahem* 20ish years since then, so I haven't bothered taking the time to understand it.

But now?

There is a bill out there that will have a large impact on my family.  [understatement]

It's HR 4213, aka The Tax Extenders Act.  First it was part of this whole jobs bill that is in headlines.  Then it wasn't.  Now it is again, I think.

I don't understand the process and that frustrates me.  It was supposed to be renewed before it expired on January 1, 2010.  

A little catch up if you're new around here:  I talked about going ALL IN back in June.  My husband had just taken a position as VP of Ops in a biofuel business.  Not just that, but we invested in the business.  It was in start up mode at the time and we budgeted out a plan for him to work for pennies until the end of the year.  

So, we've been scraping and sacrificing since June, coincidentally with January 1, 2010 being the supposed light at the end of our tunnel.

Just so you know, at the time, we did not set our own family finance goals based on this business tax credit from the government.  I had a vague knowledge that it existed and it was helpful to the cash flow of the business.  If the business did well, my husband would actually collect a decent salary again.  And we'd have health insurance better than paying through the nose for COBRA every month.  In other words, we would be allowed to live without huge changes in our lifestyle.  You know, like we'd be able to keep paying our mortgage on our house.  Small things.

He set goals and met them.  The company was doing well. 

In December, when the government sat on their hands and focused on other things, this little bill was pushed aside.  At this point, no one is sure if/when it will pass.  The holding pattern is practically KILLING the biofuel industry.  I can't even tell online if it is still part of the jobs bill currently on the table.

Needless to say, our ability to breathe again in 2010 did not come to be.  In fact, the light at the end of my tunnel turned out to be an oncoming train.

Can someone tell me...what the heck is a filabuster and who the heck invented it anyway?!  An angry 10 year old?!

I'm actually watching C-SPAN this week, people.  C-SPAN.  It's almost as riveting to me as LOST.  You know, minus the whole smoke monster and alternate universe parts.  Although I have wished that the smoke monster would come and eat up a few politicians on my screen.

If anyone is able to give me the 101, please do.  Knowledge is power.  I am feeling very powerless about this...and when I feel powerless I've been told I give off a vibe that looks somewhat like this:

Just the vibe, people.  I'm not really walking around like this.  Although I wish my hair looked like that all the time.  Someone dried it for me with a diffuser and it actually stayed curly instead of kinda curly with a lot of frizz.  Which is such a tease.  Because I absolutely cannot afford to buy my own diffuser right now.