Elliot Pollack shows some emotion in his newsletter this week.

The Ugly

The inability of this Super Committee to come up with a solution that would entail bridging a 2.5% gap in Federal Government spending over the next decade ($1.2 trillion out of an expected $46 trillion in total Federal budgeted spending over the next decade) is akin to a family that made $75,000 per year having to cut A TOTAL of $1,950 out of their budget over the next decade. That’s $195 per year. Are you kidding me!!! What makes it especially shameful is that included in the $46 trillion is an implicit INCREASE in spending over the decade of $9 trillion. So, there is NO cut here. Even if they agreed, the increase in government spending would still exceed $7 trillion over the decade. There is not a family, who, if faced with the same issue, could not resolve it. Why should you expect less from your government?

(I added the bolding.)

The Good

Year to date, Arizona [retail] sales are up 11.4% over the prior year. This is a solid performance.