Monday, January 31, 2011

Debt Ceiling…

Does anyone really believe that the “concessions” Speaker Boehner is talking about will be realized? What confidence should we have with the republican leadership that has shown that they lack the fortitude to manage a budget by their past actions? They were very happy garnering the Tea Party vote to get another chance at the helm but the Tea Party has little patience for more budget shenanigans.


We just added a Trillion dollars to the budget deficit in the last year. We should cut a Trillion dollars this year. I agree we need to pay our bills but there are bills that if reduced now would make paying the debt service doable.

I am having a hard time understanding how we add a Trillion in debt but the answer is to cut a $100 billion? I am no mathematician but we added a thousand billion and we are cutting 100 billion and we are good? Something is not adding up on my calculator.

The federal “budget” is $3.5 trillion give or take a billion. First, a budget in the private sector usually bases its spending and investment on the revenue coming in the door. But the federal government doesn’t really care that taking in $2.5 trillion and spending $3.5 trillion doesn’t add up. They have our credit card to borrow the deficit so balance be damned. The math is easy so why can’t we just balance the budget?

The biggest problem is that about 60% of the budget is redistribution of wealth. That means that the federal government is taking dollars from some of us and giving it to others through Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, both personal and corporate, Education, Social Security (even though some have paid in - the way it is run is wealth transfer), and a million little programs that would take a thousand pages to list. What does it all mean? That 60% of the budget battle will pit one group against another.

Even if we balanced the budget in 2011, the debt that has been created by the federal government (yes under both republicans and democrats) has to be paid with the promised interest. But raising the debt ceiling is yet another temporary measure. It puts off a few more years the inevitable fact that we are spending too much on federal largesse.

The debt ceiling is being used as another tool by politicians unwilling to make the hard decisions they need to make. If the politicians offered up a balanced budget by making the necessary cuts, the debt ceiling would no longer be the argument, we would be able to pay the debt. The debt has an exponential effect and we need to get the deficit to 0 before we can dent our debt obligation.

The debt ceiling offers the politicians another escape hatch. It is time to face this crisis head on. Our children deserve a real solution and a balanced budget. We created this mess; we need to fix it…

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The State of the Union is Divided…

There is no doubt that the 50 United States are at a point in history that will define whether we remain a constitutional republic or become a national disgrace. The disgrace is our inability to abide by the law of our land at every level of government. The disgrace is we can’t pay our bills and we continue to spend on inefficient government largesse.


President Obama is not the only President to expand the federal government but he has been the most reckless at running up debt. It is by no means a new phenomenon. It has just reached a point that the founders knew would eventually come without constitutional adherence; a bankrupt nation both economically and morally.

The federal government has promised lavish pay and pensions to government workers, created a tax code that rewards corporations that make political contributions and punishes small businesses that work hard, undermined the American dream for millions of poor inner city Americans, and as a people we have forgotten the things that have made us special; our constitution grounded in our Christian faith. The state of this union is broken.

The optimist will say that defining moments can be a great turning point to help us state clearly who we are as a people. The pessimist would say it is too late to turn around this country to become the shining city on the hill again. It is the President’s job to be the optimist but he has spent his entire life criticizing the United States and what it stands for. This president believes we are the problem in the world and not the last best hope. He thinks we are on the same par as China. He has never experienced the things that most Americans have because he had spent so much of his life outside of America. He sees this country in a way that is alien to most Americans.

He will give a good speech but it will be empty. It will pull on heart strings and point to some utopia but it will be empty. He will cite how government has a responsibility to take care of the people but that is a sentence of despair for those that believe. The elephant in the room is that we have a president that has no idea how to manage our republic.

The left in this country wants us to abandon our constitution and become “more like Europe”. The Tea Party wants a return to constitutional government. We have a president that agrees with the left but is about to go into election mode, and to be re-elected he can’t show his true intentions. We have a House that has been injected with new Tea Party members that will begin a tug back in the direction of constitutional government, and a Senate that is evenly divided and worried about an election like the president. We have real economic problems like massive debt and spending beyond our means. We have people saying we need to spend more and people saying that spending must be stopped.

We are a nation divided. We have a leader that is divisive and is more comfortable in partisan elections than being Chief Executive of the country. It is a curious and anxious time in America. The constitution was designed to be our blueprint for success. We have ignored that blueprint and we are living with the repercussions.

“Mr. Speaker, the State of the Union is divided!”

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Honoring the Chinese Dictator Hu?

Does anyone really believe we should honor anything about the brutal communist dictatorship called China? The Chinese people are brutally subdued into compliance with government laws that deny free speech, free markets, and basic liberty. To treat as an honored dignitary, the leader of the Chinese communist party is a slap in the face to everything we stand for as a people.


The Chinese economy is a house of cards because it is built on deceit and lies. The only thing propping it up are greedy corporations looking for cheap labor to exploit. Corporate officers turn their heads on the atrocities but their heads should truly be bowed in shame. By investing in China without human rights reform is to reward evil. The Chinese government is evil.

Free market economists argue by investing in a country’s economy we lift up the lives in those economies. For some of the lucky few that may be correct, and there is probably an argument that you plant the seeds of freedom, but how long do you allow complete oppression of a people before demanding reform from that government?

It does not surprise me that Obama is the first president to hold a State Dinner for the Chinese. I would speculate that he is envious of the Chinese leader’s ability to avoid the messy process of a representative republic governed by a constitution. How easy it would be if one man or administration could decide what was best for all. How much more we could do if we would all just work together for the good of the collective state. If we could just shut up the critics at will, our problems could be solved. The government is so much more effective at determining what is good for its citizens. That is the left in a nutshell.

Obama is honoring Hu because he envies Hu. The left would much rather live in a world they control than all of this “We the People…” stuff. The food we eat, the cars we drive, the amount of electricity we use, the size of our house, the education we receive, the medical care we have access to, would all be so much better if we had an all empowered government to watch over us. We wouldn’t have to worry about climbing the corporate ladder or providing for our future. All of that would be handed to us and decided by government officials. The paradise we are depriving ourselves is only a constitution away.

There isn’t an American citizen stupid enough to want to trade their US citizenship to become a Chinese citizen. The Chinese are using capitalism to fund a power structure so they can expand their communism when necessary in the future. We are funding their plans to one day dominate the global economy. We are funding the communist government’s destruction of human decency and freedom. We are funding the most polluting country in the world. We are funding child labor and labor camps. We are funding our greatest enemy both physically and philosophically. The Chinese people deserve better from the United States of America. The Chinese people deserve an ally in the fight for freedom not an adversary that is funding their greatest oppressor.

Shame on us and shame on Obama…

Monday, January 17, 2011

The Financial Sky is Falling…

Just like Chicken Little, the political class, bankers and investors are warning that fiscal responsibility will destroy our economy and send us into political chaos. We can’t maintain the borrowing ceiling or the government will default on our debt these people warn. We will have to bail out the municipal and state bond holders or the result will be a downgrade of the “full faith and credit of the United States” shout the Chicken Little’s to the uninformed minions.

The reality is there are many avenues to fend off bankruptsy beside more borrowing and spending. The simple fact is that the representatives of this country have chosen to expand government beyond sustainability. The solution is to cut the federal, state and local budgets to the level tax payers are willing to support.

Federal state and local municipalities need to end all union membership. Civil service is already protected by law and does not need a third party to represent them. The unions are simply a political tool used to increase taxes and spending to fund the employees in the government and their union coffers. The pensions and healthcare benefits need to be indexed to the private sector. The pay of beauracrats need to be tied to private sector wages and the police and fire fighters need to be scaled to a schedule similar to the federal wage system and the expectation of wage growth needs to be known so anyone entering these professions understand there is ultimately a cap on wages when a certain level is reached.

Every federal agency needs to be targeted for cuts of 40% over the next 5 years. The military and VA should be excluded but still need reform. We need to help the VA reflect the true values of our nation. It is one of the few constitutional responsibilities of the federal government, and we have failed miserably in our treatment of Veterans.

We give away our tax dollars to foreign nations, we encourage dependence, we subsidize failing and politically connected corporations, and pour billions into a failed education bureaucracy which all need to be slashed. There is so much waste fraud and abuse at the federal level and 40% may not be enough but it’s a start.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all need to be reformed. We need to start with the SS accounts being out of bounds for our politicians. We need to transition the money leaving our pay checks and place them in accounts with our names on them. A percentage of the SS tax will need to support current retirees but each year more and more will go into our own accounts and the ponzi scheme will become history. Medicare needs to be market driven just like the rest of our healthcare needs a market based overhaul. Medicaid needs a complete overhaul and transitioned into a charitably supported non profit model.

By focusing and eliminating the waste, fraud, and abuse, the benefits that go to non citizens, foreign countries, and bloated corporations we can bring our financial house in order. By reducing government on all levels with clearly defined plans the market can plan for and understand, they will react to and reward this move to fiscal responsibility. The Chicken Little’s are the people making money off of our government tax dollars. Many of these Chicken Little’s reside and hide under a guise of free market private sector organizations but they have been siphoning off the treasure of the United States by electing officials and garnering political favor. They are the big corporations that have made bad choices and must be allowed to fail.

If the market and the people see a true move toward fiscal responsibility and constitutional government the sky will not fall, it will shine bright with hope. Hope that we have finally turned a corner to return the opportunity to all Americans to achieve the American Dream…. On their own without government interference…

Monday, January 10, 2011

“Climate of Hate” Built on Lies…

Conservatives are angry with the way their government has ignored their call for fiscal responsibility. Conservatives are angry with the way their government ignores the constitution. Conservatives are angry with the assault on their freedom and the intrusion of government into their private lives. Conservatives are active and engaged in the process we call democracy. Conservatives are not prone to violence against their government. Conservatives use the political process at the ballot box to make the changes they see necessary when reforming government. That is what happened this past November.


Paul Krugman’s article “Climate of Hate” is a pack of lies. Conservatives do not have a propensity toward violence; it is the left that leans on violence to get their way. Every violent disturbance this country and the world witnesses are funded and flamed by unions, community organizers, college students, and environmentalists. They call it “social justice” and they rarely use the legitimate political process like elections because their agenda is usually rejected by the citizenry. You see the dirty little secret is the majority of people live their lives as conservatives. Conservatives take responsibility for their lives, pay their mortgages, work hard and save, and simply don’t have the time to burn flags, piss on crosses, apologize for American success, and undermine the moral fabric that holds this nation together.

The idea that Fox or talk radio or conservatives are bad for America is preposterous. The idea that conservative talkers promote violence is an absolute lie. What Krugman has done in this article is to flame the fires of lies that have no standing in fact. This latest assault on innocent victims was conducted by a mentally unstable individual that leans left not right. There is no connection between the good conservative Americans and this violent tragedy in Arizona. These families are being prayed for in every conservative home in America while the left wing continues to expel religion from our society. The compassionate soul of this country is collectively coming together around the victims of this tragedy while the left uses this as a political tool to promote their agenda. Krugman should be ashamed of this article. And the NYT’s should be ashamed that they printed it.

Is Krugman suggesting we limit free speech? Or just conservative speech? Is Krugman accusing someone specific on the right for this tragedy? Is Krugman using the NYT’s to promote a dialogue to discuss our political differences? What exactly is Krugman doing with his article? Who did the fact checks on this article? Who believes this tripe?

Limiting disagreement about our government is unconstitutional so what is the answer? Let’s start by telling the truth…

Tragedy and Disappointment…

Our hearts go out to all of the victims in Arizona. It was a horrific tragedy for the families that ended up victimized by a deranged individual. This individual was telegraphing his mental instability to all those that knew him and of him. He was a deranged individual period.


The disappointment with this event is the way some are trying to assault our First Amendment rights by leveraging this tragedy. The First Amendment was enshrined in the Constitution specifically to guard against the conversation taking place in the media today. Too many are talking about the political dialogue taking place in or country is somehow responsible for this deranged individual’s act of terror.

Any individual that has studied our history understands the political rhetoric in this country has always been heated and passionate. Our founders knew the government’s propensity to try to stop the people from speaking out against their government, and incidents like the one in Arizona are exactly why we need the First Amendment. Without it our politicians would have already passed a law restricting your speech. The political debate is so heated and passionate because politicians, government officials, and the media have stopped listening to the people. The people in the government are bankrupting our country and it is every citizen’s duty to speak out against the outrages of this government. We lose our freedom when we stop speaking out against the corruption that permeates today’s politicians and administration. It does not mean that because we speak out we are fueling some kind of violence. People that are violent will find any excuse to act out. To blame political rhetoric is an act against our constitutional principles.

The First and Second Amendments will come under assault in the coming days and weeks. The left and some of the Republicans are going to try to make people feel uncomfortable speaking out against government. They will say the level of rhetoric is “vitriolic”. Don’t fall for it. This is the same group that has allowed television to become the perverted arena it is today. They use the First Amendment to protect pornography, foul language, and terrorists that want to kill us. But now all of a sudden it is the people speaking out against the government is a danger we can no longer accept. These people are transparent and enemies of the republic. That’s right, I said enemy of the republic. Is that “hate” speech?

If you have the opportunity to talk to someone that supports modifying free speech, ask them to be specific. Ask them; which words are off limits; what context can we use certain words; who will decide what words are considered inflammatory; what will be the consequences of speaking out against our government? Get specific and watch them squirm. Just keep asking questions about what, who and how they intend to monitor free speech?

When they attack the Second Amendment ask how people will protect themselves against the deranged individuals that never let the law get in their way when it comes to getting guns. Guns allow law abiding citizens to protect themselves from criminals, and as the founders feared from the power of an out of control government.

This is a constitutional battle that is taking place as a result of this tragedy. The families of this tragedy deserve our prayers and support. The effort to chill free speech deserves our full attention and we must fight back and stand tall because we know our rhetoric is needed to protect against a tyrannical government and politicians that are positioning to steal our free speech…

Monday, January 3, 2011

A Constitutional Showdown in 2011…

President Obama has promised to govern through regulation instead of legislation since the voter “funded” Republican takeover in November 2010 took away the one party rule advantage he abused to govern for the past two years. He ignored the people while he jammed unpopular legislation through an incompetent congress, and is showing that same lack of penitence with the voters and their obvious wishes to change direction in 2011. The 2010 election was an obvious rebuttal to this president’s agenda but allowing the voters to have their say is not something this president will let stand in the way of his radical unconstitutional agenda. He has basically said to the American people; the Constitution be damned.


Well the Constitution is the law of the land and will be enforced in the 112th congress and beyond. The Tea Party activists will ensure the compliance or in 2012 they will again send candidates with constitutional principles to replace the representatives that fail to legislate based on constitutional principles.

The best way to stop the Obama agenda is to defund the bureaucracy. Defund the EPA, FCC, and every other agency Obama intends to use to implement his agenda against the American people. The House has the purse strings and it is time to battle. It is not time to compromise on constitutional principles.

The Obama administration is also “warning” Tea Party republicans they must vote to raise the debt limit or the consequences could be devastating. They will be devastating but not because the country will default but rather the federal programs that are funded via debt obligations will be targets of reduction and elimination. Every federal program should be targeted for a 50% reduction with the exception of Social Security, the military, and Medicare which should be frozen until a more comprehensive solution can be determined.

The federal government is the only body that has not had to cut back. They are like an alcoholic being told they can’t drink. It won’t be easy to stop the drinking but in order to save itself from destruction it is the only solution that will work… It is time to help the country learn to be “dry” when it comes to growth and spending…