Immorality and our Politicians

In responding to a thread about, what ended up being a discussion of whether we can say we care about immorality if we support Trump, with his past and continuing indiscretions, I provided the following feedback that I wanted to share here:

I think the problem is much larger than who is president, or which immorality we are willing to tolerate. The problem is more fundamental. If the office of president was fulfilling its constitutional role...and only what is proscribed in the constitution, much of this would be of no consequence. From the very beginning of the country, and all the way through until today, the office has been filled with flawed men...and many profoundly flawed. Petty, immoral and corrupt men. But, we have elevated this office, in practice and in culture, to a much higher level than it should ever have been. We were never to have a replacement for a king. The fact that we build monuments and carve the sides of mountains as tribute to these men is the problem.

It seems to be a condition of mankind...we want to be ruled over rather than free. Even Israel demanded of Samuel that he appoint a king. This was NOT God's desire for them, but he allowed them to have it.

1 Samuel 8: 6-20:   But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.  As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.  Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 

Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.  He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.  Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.  He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.  When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 

 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” 

 Government is NOT the answer. It ruins everything it touches. The only hope is to reduce it as much as possible...keep it at bay for as long as we can. And, unfortunately, that always seems to to leave us to a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Aftermath

I'm a bit too shell shocked to go into any real analysis of the election, so I just wanted to get down some of my general thoughts:

• This is now the second presidential election in a row where the Republican party decided it was best to run a "nice" campaign.  They are so kowtowed by the threats of being called racist, that they would not deal directly and firmly with Obama's history and record.  They allowed the Democrats to continue to distort facts with very little response.  This is a complete lack of leadership and the Republican party deserved to lose.
• It seems to me that we have now become a country, as a whole, who is willing to follow Europe down the socialist debt hole toward insolvency.   Alexis de Tocqueville  is credited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”  We seem to have reached this point.  We no longer ask what we can do for our country, but want only to know what our country can do for us.  We seem to be willing to sell our legacy for free health care, food stamps and Obama phones.
• The nation has reached a state of shallowness and vapidity from which I fear only truly hard times will shake us.  I saw polling information that said something like 43% of those responding to exit polling said that President Obama's handling of the hurricane Sandy disaster was "very important" to their decision.  This is absolutely astounding...and more than a little distressing...to me.  That someone could, after four years of broken promises, failed policy and nonexistent leadership, see the President acting "presidential" in a brief, staged photo-op after a storm and think that made him a good president is incomprehensible.  The fact that the response of the Federal government has been less than stellar since then means nothing to the Obama groupies with stars in their eyes.
• Half the country seems to be hopelessly invested in class warfare...just like the Russian people were before the communist revolution...or the Germans before the Nazi take over.  This has caused them to draw stark, black and white lines in their minds.  Corporations are always evil and Unions are always good.  Democrats always acts for the good of the people and tell the truth...Republicans are selfish liars who only care about what's best for them and their Corporate overlords.  The rich have stolen everything they have from the poor. They are blind to the fact that absolute power corrupts, absolutely...regardless of party, occupation or income.  They are easily fooled by 20 second sound bites and focus-group tested tag lines.
•  Facts and details mean nothing to many people.  They will not hear the truth that the largess they vote themselves is financed by trillions of dollars of indebtedness to our enemies.  They will not see that the policies of their chosen representatives have caused the financial woes we have been experiencing.   No discussion of corruption...no discussion of the rule of law moves them.  They mock, scoff at and ignore anything that does not agree with the approved party line...and this is on both sides of the political divide.  When confronted with hard issues, they do not answer them...they will only excuse, obfuscate or ignore them...but never deal with them.  If all else fails, they just blame Bush.
• There are no statesmen left...only power hungry politicians. 
• The Republicans are only marginally better than the Democrats...but we were unwilling to move even incrementally toward smaller, less intrusive government.
• I fear for our future.

Debt Limit Looming...Again!

In July of 2011, I did a post with two videos arguing against raising the Federal debt ceiling.  Well, of course they did it...they raised the ceiling.  At that time, we were about to come up against a $14.2 trillion debt limit.  We were told we had to raise the debt ceiling or we would be in default...a lie.  Now, less than a year and a half later, Newsmax,com reports that, "The Obama administration said on Wednesday that the nation would hit the legal limit on its debt near the year's end..."  That's right, now the Central Spending Machine is only "$235 billion below the $16.4 trillion statutory ceiling on the amount it can borrow."  The Debt now exceeds the GDP of the entire country at just over $15 trillion.

In an October 2011 post, when we were a mere $14 trillion in debt, I tried to put the National Debt in Perspective.  In that post I said:

"In 2010, The US government spent more than $413 Billion on interest payments alone. This is more than was spent on The Department of Health and Human Services…The Departments of Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce…hold on, I’m almost done…The Department of Treasury, Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration …COMBINED. Just to service current debt. And, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the interest payments on the debt are projected to be $1.1 Trillion a year by 2021, a mere 10 years from now."

I also pointed out that then it would have taken 384 years to pay off the debt if government stopped spending any other money and just paid $100,000,000 a day on the debt.  That time frame has increased by 65 years to 449 years...in a year and a half.

Let me remind you that candidate Obama said of President Bush's addition of $4 trillion to the debt in eight years, "That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."  Which I agreed with.  Now Obama will have raised the debt by more than $6 trillion in four years.

The Debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the last decade, from $5.9 trillion to $16.4 trillion. And now, the Treasury is already calling for another hike, "As we saw last summer, it is important that the debt limit is raised in a timely manner," said Treasury Assistant Secretary Matthew Rutherford.  

Our credit rating has already fallen.  Our spending is out of control.  We cannot continue to raise the debt ceiling.  We cannot continue to pass results of the current government's irresponsibility down to our children, grandchildren ..and great, great grandchildren.  We need to take responsibility.  We need people who do not allow their votes to be bought with government hand-outs.  We need serious adult leadership in government.  We need to reduce the size and scope of government...and we can't put it off.

Challenge Your Beliefs

Once upon a time, I was a confirmed Neo-Con.  Then I began to read history.  I studied  the founding fathers and principles.  I looked at the history of our government to the present day.  What I realized was that I had a lot of preconceived, and wrong, ideas.  I saw that the Republicans are almost as bad as the Democrats when it comes to big government, centralist policies and solutions.

I am much more of a libertarian or a classic conservative now.  I am not really happy with any party out there...the two major parties or the other, smaller parties.  Have you challenged your own long-held beliefs lately...or ever?  In the video below, Professor Jason Brennan challenges us all to question our beliefs and helps us to know How To Vote Well.

Electoral College Prediction

Okay...I'm going out on a limb and am going to predict a Romney win by 286 to 252 Electoral votes.  The map below, which I created from the Real Clear Politics Create Your Own Map tool, is how I'm calling it as of today.

Analysis from political science professors Kenneth Bickers of Colorado University (CU)-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver actually gives Romney the win with 330.  Their analysis has been applied to all presidential elections back to 1980 and have accurately reflected the actual results of those contests.  Their model gives New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to Romney, which I give to Obama...an additional 44 Electoral votes.

I believe that the anti-Obama vote has the most motivation...and the more people see of Romney, the more they like him.  In July, Gallup reported that Democratic voting enthusiasm is down sharply from the 2004 and 2008 election cycles.  In October, Forbes reported that one of Obama's biggest challenges was voter apathy.  The Forbes article points to analysis by NBC's Chuck Todd that showed "an ‘across the board’ advantage for Republicans in the enthusiasm race."

No one should take any of this for granted though.  It is highly dependent on voter turn out.  So, if you care about the future of your country:

GET OUT AND VOTE!

Top Priority? Really?

I always tell people in my business life that when everything is a priority...nothing is a priority.  Obama has done nothing positive for any of his many so-called "top-priorities."

Obama in his own words:

How Do We Balance The Budget?

Regardless of who wins the upcoming Presidential election, there are hard decisions to be made to avoid a financial disaster in our country.  Federal spending is out of control with no apparent end in site. At the time of this posting the Federal debt exceeds $16 Trillion.  That's:

$16,000,000,000,000

In past posts I have put this kind of debt in perspective (and that was in 2011 when the debt was only $14 Trillion)...I have shown that it is not a revenue problem, but a spending problem.  Raising taxes can't fix it, because you could tax corporations and everyone who is considered rich at 100% and still not have enough money to feed the government's spending habit.

Though everyone knows that we have an unsustainable debt problem...that our deficits continue to grow, government continues to expand programs...and therefore spending.  Not only that, but the government has been actively advertising and recruiting to get more people on the roles of programs like food stamps.  Today the Washington Times reported that "Overall, welfare spending as measured by obligations has grown from $563 billion in fiscal 2008 to $746 billion in fiscal 2011, or a jump of 32 percent."  While welfare programs were cut during the Clinton administration, the Obama administration has been redoubling their efforts to increase this spending.

We are headed in the wrong direction.   I agree with then candidate Obama when he said of the much smaller debt under Bush, "That's irresponsible.  It's unpatriotic." We must first stop the bleeding, and then begin to return to fiscal responsibility and prudence.  This can only happen through a return to the principles of limited and decentralized government.  Come on folks, let's get patriotic again.

Professor Antony Davies has another great video on the issue:

Obama: Redistributionist

Who can deny that Obama is a communist?  You might play semantics about the definition of communist, or socialist, etc, but these all come from the same root philosophers and thinkers.  Karl Marx did not make such distinctions.  To him, communism was just one type of socialism.

Obama's own life and words point to his communist beliefs.  His near idolization of his Marxist, anti-colonialist father...His childhood mentoring by communist Frank Marshall Davis...his Grandfather's move to Washington state to enroll his mother in an openly communist school.  In Obama's own words, he sought out Marxist professors in college...he surrounded himself in adulthood with Marxists.

And now, in the audio clip below, he admits that he believes in redistribution of wealth.  Taken along with his background and another interview where he complained that the Warren Supreme Court "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society."  I think it pretty obvious that, no matter what you call it, Obama is a communist/socialist/central planner.

Two cornerstones of communism/socialism are central planning and redistribution of wealth.  The central planners are the ones who can make all the decisions about how to redistribute your wealth...who to steal from and who to reward with that stolen wealth.  Obama believes that he is the one who is smart enough to make these decisions...though I would remind him that "there are a lot of smart people out there."  So why are he and his cohorts any more qualified to decide where our money gets spent than we are?

It's A Miraculous Life

No need to add anything.  Whittle nails it.

Government Exploitation

In light of the ridiculous statements Obama has been making about the nature of success in this country, which I covered in my previous post, I thought I would share this video by Matt Zwonlinski, PhD on the subject of whether capitalism exploits workers.  He gives a very well reasoned and succinct coverage of the topic.

Dr. Zwonlinski concludes that while capitalists want to exploit workers, they can't very well in a free market society because of the competition for good labor.  Interaction between business and labor is voluntary and mutually agreed on.  Government, however, has the coercive power to exploit the ordinary citizens.  It is, in fact Government that poses the most danger of exploitation...and, therefore, danger to our liberty.

“The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison; Federalist No. 47.

Success? That's No Big Deal.

"If you got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen." ~ Barack Obama

This kind of thing has me heart sick for our country.  Not because Obama said it; I expect this kind of idiocy to come from Obama and his operatives.  What deeply saddens me is that he can say it and not be booed off the stage...that so many average Americans seem to be buying into this collectivist, anti-American drivel.  Not so long ago we were not afraid to condemn this kind of socialist rhetoric as dangerous to our very way of life...to our liberty.  Now, it resides in the White House.

Obama says, "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system we have that allowed you to thrive."  While this is all true, Obama wants us to draw the conclusion that since, as John Donne famously penned, "No man is an island, entire of itself," we should not have a problem giving more of our money, time, and freedom to the collectivist, central government.  In the mind of Obama and that of  his ilk, the government is the font of all opportunity, all provision, all wealth, and all power...but only when they are in charge of it.

Success, regardless of what Obama thinks or says, does not happen because of the goodness of government.  Taxes, fees, regulations, and bureaucratic red tape place ever-larger road blocks in the path of small business.  This makes the already difficult task of business success almost impossible.  No, success happens in spite of government, not because of it.  


Successful entrepreneurs are not necessarily the smartest, or hardest working in our society.  But they are the ones who have used the intelligence they have, worked very, very hard, taken the risks, overcome the failures, and continued to strive toward their goals. They must have the right product or service, in the right location at the right time.  They risk their own money, sweat, and family lives to get the business started, and then more than 50% go out of business in the first five years.  Many successful entrepreneurs have failed multiple times in the process of learning how to succeed.  These are costs that the average American is not willing to pay.


Obama does not have a clue as to what it truly takes to succeed in business, and he continues to show his ignorance through his policies that have given us an economy that continues to falter with dismal unemployment numbers.  How dare he lecture us on what it takes to succeed!  It is not the teacher who gives the business owner money and stands by them through the long nights of paper work and planning.  It is not the road worker or the fireman who share their anguish about how they will make the next payroll.  It is not the government bureaucrat or politician who gives them the motivation and drive to keep going, even when it seems impossible to win.  No, these business people are out there to fail or succeed all on their own.   


And what about this "unbelievable American system we have" that allows them to thrive?  How can they get their supplies or ship their goods without the roads provided by the government?  What about electricity, communications, water, sewage infrastructure?  The small businessman didn't build those, but he uses them all for his success.  This is true...SO WHAT?!  All of those things are the natural outcome of people interacting together in a society.  Everyone is doing what they can to make a living by providing products or services to his fellow man.  The carpenter frames the storefront.  The electrical worker brings power to the building. The construction worker builds the roads to bring customers to the store.  All of these people ply their trades for their own self-interest.  The store owner owes them nothing.  They have been paid in full.  This has nothing to do with government.  We do not need government's permission to do it and we do not need their interference to make it happen.  See my earlier post, Why Feed The Pig, for more on the subject of government's involvement in infrastructure.


Without people interacting in this way there is no wealth creation, and, therefore, no money for government.  Business came first...people came first.  Government is a creature of the people.  Nothing -- NOTHING --of value originates with government.  In this country, The People institute government to serve them, not to rule them.  That is the principle of republicanism.


It has not been very long ago when the majority of people in this country celebrated success.  How then, can so many people now buy into its denigration, as if it is only a matter of luck and the largess of a benevolent government?  This attitude has not come about overnight.  It is the result of years and years of continuous programming.  Over the last decades we have been fed on a  diet of  class warfare that has told us that the rich have only succeeded on the backs of the poor.  We have been lead to believe that the economy is a zero-sum game where the more the rich make, the less there is for me and you.  We have had the self esteem movement inflicted on us, which tells us that everyone is special, whether you are a doctor or a welfare bum.  Multiculturalism has also told us that all cultures are equal, whether they have brought us wealth, art, and science, or they stone their women for talking to a man, or kill each other in clashes between warlords...one's as good as the other.  All lies!


All of these things have been designed to convince us that no one is special.  We all "deserve" a trophy.  It's "only fair" that those who have more should "share" it with those who have less...after all, they were just lucky and were helped along by all the rest of us.  It is all a scheme to bring down the very idea of American exceptionalism.  If Americans believe that their system of liberty, capitalism, and "small r" republicanism is nothing special, no better than any other country's system, then "fundamentally changing America" will be much easier. And now, after more than a hundred years of Progressive (socialism in sheep's clothing) teachings and propaganda, the average American has just accepted much of socialism as facts of life.  They have been dumbed-down as citizens in that they don't know or care about how their country operates...or is supposed to operate.  They just believe that government involvement is necessary for any real success.  They can't imagine how roads or infrastructure could possibly be built without an all powerful central government.

After Obama has made moves to take control of banks, auto companies and the healthcare industry, we hear that businesses are just a product of the collective.  Why then shouldn't they be controlled by the central nexus in Washington D.C.?  It only makes sense, right?  This is the central message of socialism.  Too many are either too busy worrying about the next winner of America's Got Talent, or have just become so jaded by the whole process that they have chosen to ignore it and Hope for some good Change.

If there's any hope to save liberty in this country, we must rouse ourselves from this stupor.  We must pay attention.  We must understand the foundations of our freedom and how it is being threatened.  And then, we must act to correct the damage.  In 1790, John Curran rightly said that, "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.”  Are we lazy?  Are we common?  Or are we Americans?  Then, let's stand, as Americans, vigilant against threats to our liberty.

Obama Care - Still a Bad Idea

Regardless of whether the Supreme Court found it constitutional or not, I thought it was time to remind everyone of why Obama Care is still a bad idea.  The basic facts have not changed since I did a post about the Democrat's wild rush to pass this monstrosity back in July of 2009. At that time, Gallup polls indicated that 56% of likely voters believed that passing some form of healthcare reform was important.  This past week, Rasmussen reported that 53% of likely voters support repeal of Obama Care.  Gallup reports that, "Americans are more likely to say the 2010 healthcare law upheld by the Supreme Court last week will hurt the national economy (46%) rather than help it (37%), while 18% say they don't know or that it will have no effect." Which agrees with what the Congressional Budget Office said in 2009 when it reported that the Obamacare legislation would raise federal health care costs"to a significant degree" while not reducing health care costs in general.  This tells me that while people thought there were problems with the health care system, they do not believe that Obama Care is the right solution.  But, the majority of Americans have continued to say that they do not want a government takeover of health care all along.

The very basis of Obama Care were the claims made by supporters that a large number of Americans were not covered by health insurance.  Here's what I wrote then, which is still true:

The President and the Democrats trot out all of the normal, emotionally charged statistics to back their claim that we are in a health care crisis. Particularly they point to the last U.S. Census data that shows that nearly 47 million were uninsured as of the 2006 census. Taken at face value, this seems like terrible thing, but once the data is broken down you begin to see a different picture. For example, 10.2 million of this number is made up of non-citizens. 8.3 million are between 18 – 24 years old, a group that typically chooses not to spend their money on insurances. Another interesting group is the 9.2 million with household incomes of $75,000/year or above. Now that number does not seem nearly as tragic, does it.

So, the lie is revealed.  The 47 million who are tragically uninsured is really more like 19 million.  Of these, many were only temporarily uninsured do to job changes but were reported in the snapshot of the 2006 Census.  But, let's take 19 million as the number.  That is 19 million of a population 310 Million, or 6%.  Should we completely overhaul a system that is working for most Americans for 6%...a number that seems to be high to begin with?  Should we trust the central government to control one-sixth of the economy?  From my earlier  post:

What in the history of the Federal Government or the career of Barack Obama recommends them to be able to run health care any better than the private sector? I submit that, in fact, the opposite result is indicated. Government never has to compete…if they fail; they just raise taxes or print more money. More Americans (45%) trust doctors and hospitals to address the problems than either the Democrats (33%) or Republicans (10%). Beyond the trust issue, the Federal Government has long been known as a paragon of inefficiency. While large corporations can have their own level of bureaucracy, they seldom pay $2,000 for a toilet seat or hammer. Companies are responsible to their stock holders and must compete against other companies to survive…unless they are a bank or auto manufacturer, I guess. The government mostly exists to further its own size and power.

Look, we didn't want it when it was Hillary Care, and we don't want it now.  Let's repeal Obamacare.  Let's dump the largest tax increase in the history of the country.  To do that, Obama Must Go!  Elections do indeed have consequences.

Who's Money Anyway?

On Monday, President Obama called for extending the so-called Bush tax cuts for anyone making under $250 Thousand a year while letting the cuts expire for those making more than that. While everyone can agree that raising taxes on the middle class during this troubled economy, Mr. Obama continues to use one of the major tools of socialists everywhere...class warfare.

One of the most troubling parts of his speech was when he said, "The money we're spending on these tax cuts for the wealthy is a major driver of our deficit, a major contributor of our deficit, costing us a trillion dollars over the next decade."

Okay, where to start? First of all, Mr. Obama, like all statist, central planners seems to think that all money belongs to the government. He believes that letting the wealthy keep their money is spending by the government. This is in direct opposition to the principles of this country's founding. The power...and the money, for that matter...comes from the People. It is ours first and we decide how to invest it in government. It is not the other way around. When we keep more of our money, it is not spending by government.

Let's look at an example of how this kind of thinking would work in another part of society. Say you go to a car dealership to buy a new car. You want something nice, with decent gas mileage numbers, but can't afford anything too extravagant. You decide on a Ford Fusion. You go to the dealership and pick the car you want. Now, when the paperwork is being completed, the manager of the dealership comes and tells you that you make too much money to buy a Fusion. You have to buy a much more expensive Lincoln MKT. "You see," he explains, "We are behind our quota and our budget is already overspent. We can't afford to spend the difference between the Fusion and the MKT on you this month. We will have to sell you the more expensive vehicle."

Does this seem like a ridiculous example? Why, because the dealership doesn't have armed agents to force you to buy the more expensive car? Or, maybe because nobody voted? What if all of the car dealers in your area voted and decided to give themselves the power to force you to buy a more expensive car? Would it be okay then? No, huh? Okay, you're a tough customer. What if everyone in your state voted and a majority said dealerships could force people of a certain income level to buy more expensive cars than they wanted? Then it would be okay, right? I mean everybody voted and all. Okay, still not convinced? What if they told you that they were going to take part of the extra money you spend for the MKT and help someone with less means buy a Fiesta? That would be nice...you could help someone else own a car.

Well of course it is a ridiculous example. It is your money...money you earned. What do you care if the dealership has mismanaged their business and are in financial trouble? If you don't buy a car that is twice as expensive as the one you want, the difference is not spending by the dealership. It's money they never had and were never entitled to in the first place. Helping someone with a lower income than you buy a Fiesta does not make any of it more acceptable. Why would it be more acceptable, or moral, when government does it? I propose that it is not.

Secondly, the President contends that the so-called "spending on these tax cuts for the wealthy" is a "major contributor of our deficit." This also is a ridiculous assertion. As I have chronicled in several past posts, which I list below, our deficit is not caused by a lack of taxation...of revenue...but by out of control spending. Deficit is the result of spending more money than you have...deficit leads to debt. Recent estimates are that the revenue raised by the allowing the tax rates for those over $250,000 in income to return to the pre-Bush levels would fund our deficit for about eight days...eight out of 365, or about 2% of the deficit.

This president is not serious about fixing the economy. With this assertion, Obama just presumes that every bit of government spending is absolutely vital and legal. He has no plans for cutting spending...in fact, he only continues to propose new spending. He has raised the nation's debt by more than $5 TRILLION in less than four years, more than all other presidents combined. Joblessness under this administration continue to be dismal. And all he seems to have to offer are repeal the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, a move which many in his own party don't even agree with, and the largest tax hike in the history of the country through Obamacare. This is the same man who said, "The private sector is doing fine. Where we are seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with State and local government."

What we can no longer afford to spend on are big-government solutions that have caused massive deficit and debt. We can't afford policies that kill jobs and ruin whole industries. We cannot afford to allow politicians to invest taxpayer money in business of their choosing to see those companies fail and take our money with them. What we cannot afford in this country is Obama and his like-minded Marxist, central-planning cronies. This man...this total failure of a President...must go, and we need to sweep his type of political theory out of government behind him.

Related Posts:
A Spending Problem

Are You Getting It Yet?

The Debt from Two Perspectives

The National Debt in Perspective

Follow The Money

In a discussion about money's corrupting influence on politics, I told my friend that it affects both parties, not just the Republicans.  He said, "Follow the money."  With little effort, I was able to find some very good data from OpenSecrets.org.

The following lists show the All-Time Top Donors, and the Top Individual Contributors in the 2010 election cycle and the percentage given to Democrats and Republicans.  The links on the headings will lead to more information.

All-Time Top Donors:
# 1. ActBlue - 99% Dems; 0% Rep
#2. AT&T -  43% Dem; 55% Rep
#3. AFSCME - 92% Dem, 1% Rep
#4. Nat. Assoc. Of Realtors - 45% Dem; 47% Rep
#5 NEA - 74% Dem; 5% Rep
#6. Goldman Sachs - 57% Dem; 39% Rep
#7. Service Emp. Intl - 75% Dem; 2% Rep
#8. American Assn for Justice - 88% Dem; 8% Rep
#9, IBEW - 96% Dem; 2% Rep
#10. American Fedn of Teachers - 87% Dem; 0% Rep.


Top Individual Contributors (2010 Election):
#1. Stephen Bing - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#2. Haim & Cheryl Saban - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#3. Fred Eychaner - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#4. Steve & Michele Kirsch - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#5. Bernard & Irene Schwartz - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#6 Jon S & Joanne D Corzine - 98% Dem; 0% Rep
#7. Melvin & Brenda J. Simon - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#8. Peter G & Georgia K Angelos - 99% Dem; 0% Rep
#9. John M. O'Quinn - 100% Dem; 0% Rep
#10. Roland E. & Dawn Arnall - 34% Dem; 66% Rep

Funny, Koch doesn't appear until #54, under a lot of heavy weight Democratic donors...though the Left would have you believe that all political evil originate from Koch Industries.

That's Irresponsible. It's Unpatriotic.

By Bob Gorrell - June 14, 2012

In the video below, Candidate Barack Obama blasts President Bush, and rightly so, for adding $4 Trillion to the national debt.  He said, "...we now have over nine trillion dollars of debt, that we are gonna have to pay back.  Thirty thousand dollars for every man, woman and child."

Today, with less than one term in office, compared to Bush's two terms, the U.S. national debt is more than $15 Trillion.  That is more than $50,000 for every man woman and child.  This is a $6 Trillion increase over the debt level that candidate Obama railed against.

Once again, we should take President Obama at his word:

"That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."

A One Term Proposition

"I will be held accountable, you know, I've got four years...A year from now, uh, I think people are gonna see, uh, that we're starting to make some progress, but there's still gonna be some pain out there.  If I don't have this done in three years, then there's gonna be a one-term proposition." ~ Barack Obama, 2009.

The economy is in such a bad way that we should certainly take Mr. Obama at his word, hold him accountable and make him a one-term president.  He hasn't gotten it done!  We can't afford to give him another shot at it, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this time he can improve things.

I am not a big Mitt Romney fan, and would rather see someone else running in opposition.  But he can not do worse than this current president has done.  If Romney doesn't get it done, he should likewise be a one-termer.  Then, maybe we will all get serious about voting for serious candidates...statesmen instead of politicians.  We should have this same attitude about our Senate and House candidates..and state and local candidates for that matter.  This is not a game, folks.  This is our lives, our future, our liberty at stake.



Thanks to VideoSeattle.

A Spending Problem

Revenue - Spending = Deficit 

It is a simple equation, really...why does Washington not seem to understand it?  Our country's debt problem is simply a matter of spending more than the available revenue.

Government revenue historically averages about 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  This seems to be the level that the voting public and the economy will stand.  But, tax revenue per household, adjusted for inflation, as Professor Davies explains in the video below, has risen, by about 300% since the 1950s.

So, if revenue continues to grow over the years, but we also continue to have deficits, what is the problem?  I'll wait a little while for some of you to catch up...That's right, it's spending!  Our rate of spending continues to grow at an even faster rate than revenue.  Professor Davies explains the issue very clearly and succinctly in the video below.



Related Posts:
Federal Spending and the Economy

D or R...Government Keeps Growing

Jack Hunter nailed it again.  This is what I'm talking about...and why I'm not very hopeful that the next Republican president will really offer much in the way of solutions.

The chart on the left illustrates what Mr. Hunter is saying in the video below...namely that government grows no matter who is president.  It also doesn't matter who runs Congress.  It always grows.

This is why we must look to the States to reign in the out-of-control Federal government by nullifying any Federal law that is beyond the Constitutional power of the central government.  We must also ween the States from the Federal teat...refusing to take Federal money as a bribe to knuckle under to Federal usurpation of State power.

Don't get me wrong....we must defeat Obama!  He is on the verge of the single largest peace-time power grab in the history of the country.  He must be booted out.  But, the Republican party has become the "just not quite as big government as the other guys" party.  They are still big government...still power mongers.

Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment!

Enforce the Tenth Amendment!

Related Posts:

Budget Cuts Across the Board!

Budget Cuts - No Sacred Cows:
Why Feed the Pig?
Like the 10th Amendment? Repeal the 17th!

It's the Debt, Stupid!

Professor Anthony Davies of Duquesne University recently put together this informative video for LearnLiberty.org about the dangers of too much national debt.  As you watch it, remember that President Obama asked for an additional $1 TRILLION in debt within the past year.



Related Posts:
Budget Cuts Across The Board

Play Nice

"Treat people kindly but ideas harshly."

In a recent article by Sandy Ikeda on The Freeman web site, he addresses Friedrich Hayek’s approach in opposing socialism in the book Road to Serfdom.  Ikeda points out that by dedicating his book "To the Socialists of All Parties," Hayek was not mocking or assuming his intellectual opponents "were stupid or evil," but that they were "ignorant and mistaken" and there were "things that they didn't know."  In other words, Hayek assumed that his opponents were well-meaning, but misinformed.  He saw it as his job to teach them to think properly.

Ikeda brings this approach into focus for the current political environment:

"In a world of heated ideological differences and partisan political conflict, it’s tempting to paint our opponents as stupid and evil, as calculating opportunists. Again, often they are, and from their point of view often so are we. We need to get past that. We need to keep learning."

"Learning, though, means exposing yourself to ideas that you find strange, perhaps even repugnant at first. Even if we end up rejecting them, we will, having been able to correctly state the opposite case, have a better idea why we reject them. Learning through personal interactions requires dialogue, and genuine dialogue between grownups who disagree cannot begin with name-calling and smirking cynicism. No. Genuine dialogue means treating our ideological opponents as people of goodwill with the hope that they will treat us the same way. Only then can we learn and grow."

"As a young libertarian scholar recently summed it up, 'Treat people kindly but ideas harshly.' Exactly!"

I agree with this approach. I don't believe, however, that it requires compromise of your principles. I also believe that if it applies to your opponents, it should apply that much more to your friends.  The current Republican primary is a case in point.

In a primary, each candidate for nomination works very hard to depict themselves as the the best choice to represent the views of the voters in their party in the general election.  While each candidate is sure that they are the best choice, only one candidate will be nominated...no matter how many run for office.  Knowing this going into the process, I think all of a party's candidates should fight hard for nomination but also plan for what happens if they don't win.  Not being nominated, does not necessarily mean that a candidate has "lost."  They can still win support for their ideas and make a positive impact on the direction of the party and the country.  But, too often, this is not that happens.

"Learning, though, means exposing yourself to ideas that you find strange, perhaps even repugnant at first."

I don't think any of the current crop of Republican candidates are perfect and without fault.  I do, however, believe that any of them would be immeasurably better than Obama.  And, like him or dislike him, Newt Gingrich had the right idea when he said that he would not attack his fellow Republicans because the real opponent was Barack Obama.

What I am seeing now, as the primary season grows shorter, is the knives coming out between  Republicans while the Democrats sit back and laugh.  The Republican Party encompasses a range of people from the  establishment to the libertarian...personified in this election cycle in Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, with everyone else somewhere in between.  And somewhere in between is where I stand, though I'm much closer to the libertarian end of the scale than the establishment end.  The supporters of establishment end call Ron Paul fringe and crazy when it comes to foreign policy.  The libertarians say that Mitt Romney is bought and paid for shill of the big banks.  Libertarians say they can't support the Establishment candidates...Establishment begs the libertarians not to go third party.  None of it is helpful...it only serves to tear down...not build up.

Neither side should compromise their convictions, but, they should plan for what happens next.  If Ron Paul wins, how do the other candidates have an influence to temper what they see as isolationist foreign policy?  How do they keep their supporters from sitting out the election and handing Obama a second term?

If Mitt Romney wins, how do the libertarians make sure that their ideas of limited government and non-interventionism continue to be heard.  How do they keep their supporters from going to a third party and, once again, handing Obama the win?

First, all of the name calling and muck-raking has to stop among Republican supporters.  Then, they need to deal honestly and openly with their ideas and issues.  Many in the party believe that Paul has great ideas when it comes to the fiscal operations of government.  It is widely agreed that Romney brings real-world business experience and understanding to the table.  Gingrich has a good grasp of government's historical role.  Perry and Huntsman have good executive experience  as governors of States that are doing comparability well.  Santorum and Bachman have track records of tirelessly working for conservative principles in Congress.  While no candidate is perfect for every voter in the party, they all have their strong points.

We must then find our common ground and stand united.  There will plenty of time to continue the discussion after Obama is defeated...

Each candidate should strongly promote their views and say why they may disagree with the views of their fellow candidates.  But, lets all look to the good of the country and plan for what happens next...once one candidate is chosen.  We must then find our common ground and stand united.  There will plenty of time to continue the discussion after Obama is defeated...if we have not made enemies out of each other in the process.

For the good of our republic...for the future of our children...let's play nice with each other and defeat the failed ideas and policies of the Left.