Misrepresenting the COTUS and Beck

Response to: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/01/hitchens-201101 

America is a Constitutional Republic.  The Constitution specifically defines the
limits of authority delegated by the Sovereign Citizen to the federal
government.  Mr. Hitchens obviously neither understands nor respects the COTUS; nor does he fairly describe what Beck does: attempt to get people to learn about what has always made America exceptional, by learning our founding documents.  He always emphasizes that no one should adopt his beliefs but should develop their own based on our founding principles.

Unlike Obama, Beck has no ability to force his opinions or beliefs on anyone; an important distinction that his detractors refuse to acknowledge.

Is it more racist/sexist/elitist to hold everyone to a common standard (equal justice under law); or to declare that some people are inherently inferior due solely to their race, gender, lifestyle, etc. and therefore must be treated prejudicially under law?

Because America is a Constitutional Republic, there are only two categories of people in the US: Constitutionalists and Anti-Constitutionalists.  Every other distinction is meaningless and diversionary.  Political parties exist solely to pervert the electoral process.

The Founders did everything in their power to limit the power of the federal government so that Citizens could enjoy the unalienable rights endowed us by our Creator without tyrannical interference by government.  On that the COTUS is indisputable.  Beyond the Bill of Rights, most Amendments have been politically motivated to limit personal freedom or enhance corruptive capabilities of our elected representatives.

What is a Constitutional Conservative?

In response to: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/02thu4.html?ref=opinion

To understand Constitutional Conservatives the first requirement is to read and understand the Constitution (COTUS). With the Bill of Rights (BOR) thrown in for good measure, it’s about 7700 words; or the length of a decent sophomore term paper. I have yet to discover a Liberal /Progressive who understands the COTUS.

Candidate Obama decried that “…the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: … Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government …must do on your behalf…”. VP Biden doesn’t even know which Articles define the authorities and responsibilities of each branch of the federal government after he has spent a life-time in government employment! Such ignorance of the document that creates and defines the federal government is inexcusable! Mr. Caplan are you too ignorant of the COTUS?

According to the 9th and 10th Amendments, the COTUS specifically delineates precisely what the federal government has been delegated to do; and any responsibility or authority not specifically delineated is specifically and intentionally denied. Got that Mr. President?

Mr. Caplan, you will not find a single mention of “equality” in the COTUS. You may have us confused with France: they do believe in equality. In America we believe only in “equal justice under law”: or at least we did until we started gerrymandering our laws to placate and politically manipulate myriad special interest ‘minorities’ (clearly un-Constitutional by the way).

Americans who support tyranny are those who expect someone else to provide for them under penalty of law: who think that the government has a right to confiscate private property without just compensation; who believe that it is okay to murder one human being for the convenience of another (5th Amendment be damned eh?); who believe they are above the law; who believe that gender or race or lifestyle entitle them to advantages over others not like them.

Read the COTUS Mr. Caplan and you will learn that we elect a federal government to accomplish the delineated responsibilities, within their clearly defined and limited authorities: and to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the COTUS’: only this and nothing more.

You won’t find anything in the COTUS about political parties, liberals, progressives, socialists; nothing about ‘popular mandates’ or ‘political mandates’; or PACs; or lobbyists; or political contributions. You’ll find nothing about gerrymandering voting districts to favor one group over another. You’ll find nothing about entitling representatives to be excluded from the laws they pass to control, or tax, or obligate the Citizens they allegedly serve.

You won’t find in the COTUS any authority for Congressmen to bury us in regulations, mandates and restrictive practices solely to empower themselves to sell exceptions to the highest bidder; accruing for their personal enrichment and empowerment alone.

You won’t find anything about adapting the Constitution because technology changes: the “papers” of a Citizen are protected the same if written with quill on parchment or written in electrons on magnetic media; the government has no more right to search and seizure without a properly defined and justified warrant if a Citizen is in their home or in an airport. You won’t find any support in the COTUS for the concept that a wise Latina is smarter and more qualified to judge than 200 years of Caucasian males.

The COTUS doesn’t need to address technology or popular social fads: it is structured solely to deal with immutable human nature: the understanding that delegated power will always be abused. You should note that the Founders were prescient enough to realize that politicians and public servants are not to be trusted with power or money; and history has proven them wise beyond modern comprehension!

You won’t find anywhere in the Constitution authority for any federal officer to ‘fundamentally transform the USA’: in fact that is a violation of the sacred oath of office required of every federal officer BEFORE they are endowed with any federal authority. Nor will you find any authority for any federal officer to pick and choose the laws that they will ignore or enforce. As the Chief Executive, the president is required to ‘take care that the laws are faithfully executed”.

The offending arrogance is not from those who love, honor, and respect the COTUS; it is from those who trample it: who bend and twist it to fit their warped personal concepts of social justice or elitist privilege. These are the very evils for which our Founders sacrificed everything to eliminate from earthly governance.

The good news for those who don’t like the COTUS or it’s strict constructionist interpretation is that there are more than 200 countries in the world where they can live unobstructed by the COTUS: but the US isn’t one of them! Even better, most of those alternatives offer cradle-to-grave government coddling and universal wealth redistribution! Delta is ready when you are.

So, Mr. Caplan, I suggest that you make a list of everything you think the federal government should do for you and along side each entry, list the Article, Section and paragraph where, in the COTUS the federal government is specifically delegated the authority and responsibility to provide it. Anything you can’t do that for is not a legal authority of the federal government.

I suspect you’ll be happier living somewhere else rather than in an America where Constitutional governance is rightfully restored: but know that you will go with my best wishes and with my prayers for your happiness.

The power of Lobbyists

$17 Million was contributed to the 100 Senators who voted yesterday to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010.  Was it passed because it is the best thing for Americans, or was it passed because it was the best thing for raising campaign funds? 

This is one vote, by 20% of our Congress: $17 Million! 

In 2009 Lobbyists spent $3.5 BILLION to influence government regulations.  Keep in mind that Congress meets for less than 160 days a year: this means that lobbyists are spending more than $40,000 PER DAY, PER MEMBER of the US Congress.  Is it any wonder that candidates
are willing to spend millions to get elected?  Is it any wonder that our elected representatives-even those who have never held a private sector job, are virtually all millionaires?  What are citizens getting in return? 

The Gulf oil spill was caused by the failure of the federal government to enforce regulations in place for more than 8 years: even though the president noted two years earlier problems with the MMS that is responsible for compliance with those regulations. 

The spill was permitted to spread 48 miles to shore because the federal government did not have the containment and recovery equipment on site as required by federal regulations in place for more than 8 years before the spill. 

The Shoe Bomber and the Panty Bomber were able to board aircraft in spite of draconian and grotesquely ineffective Homeland Security regulations and procedures.

Voter registration and voter intimidation abuses impact every election despite volumes of regulations designed to prevent them;

the Healthcare bill adds more than 160 new bureaucracies and buries small businesses in absurd, debilitating, and worthless paperwork, without providing a single additional doctor or
nurse.

We have immigration laws and regulations designed to protect us from illegal immigration that are being ignored in violation of the COTUS. 

We have volumes of regulations to prevent the illegal distribution of classified materials, but obviously they are powerless to do that.

Clearly having more regulations does nothing to protect Citizens: they only serve to enrich
our elected representatives. 

The real problem that must be corrected is the high cost of getting elected to public office.  Our elected representatives spend ALL of their time raising funds: not governing.  This is also why lobbyists write ALL legislation: because our elected reps don’t have any time for anything but fund
raising:  whomever contributes the most money gets to author the legislation that affords their interests the greatest return, regardless of what is best for Citizens.

What is Mainstream?

Most studies indicate that Americans self-identify themselves as:

45% Conservative
35% Moderate
20% Liberal

Of course there are small variations (a couple of % at most) between categories, but this is reasonable and it has remained fairly constant over the past couple of decades.

The Main Stream Media is overwhelmingly Liberal to Progressive: print, radio and TV, except of course FNC, WSJ and a handful of others.

I realize just saying “Fox” is like waving a red flag at a bull, but please bear with me. According to media watchers, Fox viewership in many prime segments exceeds that of all of the Liberal to Progressive (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) cable channels combined. Of course, viewership is purely voluntary since none of the media outlets can compel viewers to watch. What that means is that the media can’t dictate anything to anyone. As is proven with the Progressive media, if people don’t believe what you are pushing, they simply don’t watch.

Given that there are 4 times as many self-avowed Conservatives and Moderates (those most likely to watch FNC) as there are Liberals, these viewership numbers are reasonable.

If in fact Conservatives and Moderates compose 80% of America how is it that they are continually referred to as “the fringe” by the MSM? 70% reportedly object to ObamaCare and want it repealed and replaced: how is it that these can be the “lunatic fringe” or those who just don’t understand how good ObamaCare is? Isn’t 20% more of a ‘fringe’ than 80%?

Media in this country is allegedly free enterprise, and if the market for Moderate/Conservative viewpoints is 80%, why are media promoting a Liberal/Progressive agenda that 80% don’t want implemented? Could this explain why Fox is growing explosively while the MSM are collapsing on themselves? Newsweek magazine, a staple, recently sold for $1 (and it’s sizeable debts).

If 70% of the population objects to ObamaCare, why does the president continue to promote it rather than find a different solution that accomplishes basically the same objective but in a manner acceptable to the 70% (rather than try to drive his solution down our throats)? Does he not understand that the president exists to serve the Citizen, not the other way around? Is he so presumptuous that he thinks that he knows what is best for us better than we do?

Why the Obama administration is in trouble

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575565811875371180.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

Had the elitists in DC been paying attention on any level, the incumbents would not be in the position they now find themselves in.  There has never been sufficient Citizen demand for HCR to justify the political effort, but Congress chose to ignore that and instead told us to shut up and sit down because they knew what was
best for us.

They lied to us about costs; they lied to us about coverage; they lied to us about choices; they lied to us about rationing; they lied to us about the impact on deficits; they lied to us about availability; they lied to us about who makes treatment decisions; they lied to us about posting the act on the Internet for our review before it was passed and before it would be
signed by the president; they lied to us about special interests crafting it; they lied to us about transparency; they used faulty logic to cost justify it as though we were too dumb to notice; they lied to us about federal funding for abortions; they broke major pieces of the legislation into separate acts to make it look more affordable: as if we were too blind or too dumb to
notice:  and for this we should be thankful?  For this we should return them to office?

They took a Trillion dollars we don’t have, allocated 91% of it to sustain or expand governmentand government; scheduled it’s disbursement for maximum impact at the mid-term elections; and lied that it was going to stimulate the restoration of our economy.  They made up asinine numbers of ‘jobs saved or created’ and when that didn’t flush changed
it to ‘jobs impacted’ whatever that is supposed to mean.  They lied that spending this borrowed money ould prevent unemployment from going over 8%. We told them they were lying and they called us racists for our efforts.

To advance their progressive agenda they manipulated our financial system removing long-proven qualification safeguards for borrowers; they foolishly made capital abundant and nearly free to create a predictable and devastating real estate bubble that nearly destroyed the global financial system and then blamed everyone but themselves (Barney Frank and Chris Dodd we know who you are): they broke the chain of accountability and responsibility by permitting bundled derivatives; they eliminated risk from the irresponsible
profit takers and transferred it to the American taxpayer via Freddie, Fannie
and AIG.  They restructured the American financial structure to punish their enemies and reward their friends; they stole Chrysler and GM from the lawful shareholders without just compensation; they extorted the bondholders; they suborned the bankruptcy laws of the US;
they gifted the auto manufactures to their Union supporters and foreign competitors; and then accepted millions of dollars in political contributions from these companies that are still surviving solely on taxpayer bailouts.

The Fed has been running the currency printing presses since January 2009 around the clock; they threatened the bankers and financiers that if they made risky investments (like cash flow bridge loans to small business) that they would be punished to the full extent of the law, essential shutting down the small business job incubators; they lent money from the Fed to banks at near zero interest so the banks could buy Treasuries  and thereby monetize the debt (immediately after promising not to do so); they publically castigated private sector
financial institutions but ignored identical behavior at Freddie and Fannie.  They took absolute control of government education loans and in the process gave themselves the power to direct those funds to students of their choosing without oversight or appeal.  They crafted unknowable legislation to ‘reform’ our financial system and in the process granted themselves absolute power over any privately-owned business: to modify it, destroy it, disembowel it again without oversight or appeal.  The same deviants Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd, who destroyed the financial system, were entrusted to reform it.

They gave us a disaster in the Gulf when they sold a lease that netted the federal government $2.3 BILLION but failed to provide any oversight to assure and verify compliance with Federal laws in place since March 2009 even though candidate Obama in 2007 acknowledged terminal deficiencies in MMS.  Those regulations require the federal government to have spill containment and correction resources on site when drilling is under way; but there was none.  To add insult to injury, the president denied permission for assistance offered by the world’s most qualified and experienced crews and equipment from 35 different countries rather than temporarily suspend the Jones Act and theoretically threaten a handful of Union jobs of his 2008 political contributors; giving the oil pollution time to reach the ecologically fragile rookeries and shell fish habitats. Then, over the advice of his ‘panel of experts’ the president slapped a moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf pending an investigation, knowing that it would send 12,000 high paying oil platform workers from the Gulf that needed that income to recover from the disaster- off to Brazil to sites funded by the IMF at Obama’s request and partially owned by one of Obama’s wealthiest
and most powerful political contributors: George Soros.

In 2008 a sufficient number of voters decided to vote for ‘change’ thinking that it couldn’t get any worse, only to learn that it could (and did) get infinitely worse.  Not only did we elect a president with no leadership experience, but he lacked respect for and any comprehension of the Constitution, free enterprise, free markets, job creation, finance, American history and the fact that free people anywhere in  the world enjoy freedom solely at the expense of American blood, sweat, and treasure.  And for that he thinks he should apologize.  What an insult to all Americans past, present, and future!

Let us all pray that we don’t make the same mistake again.  Let us pray that we weed-out all those federal officers who neither know nor respect the Constitution; and let us pray that we
replace them with humble, honest, public servants who do.  Otherwise we will be no better off than before.

Gerrymandering violates the COTUS

According to the COTUS, representation is solely a function of population.  There are no valid political party considerations, there are no valid social considerations.  To grotesquely configure districts to accomplish political or social objectives (as is now considered the ‘normal’ spoils of politics) is a gross perversion of the electoral process.  It is no different than stuffing the ballot box or otherwise attempting to pre-determine election results.  Anyone attempting gerrymandering should be subject to the strictest penalties available under law because it undermines the very foundation of our Constitutional Republic.

Any effort at redistricting should be to adjust for gross population shifts and should be absolutely blind to any other considerations.  ‘Equal justice under law’ requires that every Citizen be afforded equal representation in Congress.  Elected representatives should be focused on the needs of every constituent according to the COTUS, not some artificial or personal political agenda.  The COTUS defines the authorities and responsibilities delegated
to the federal government.  We elect a government to meet those responsibilities within the strictly limited delineated authorities; and to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the COTUS’:  only this and nothing more.

The COTUS does not validate any concept of ‘popular mandate’; ‘political mandate’; or ‘elections have consequences’.  These are simply perversions of the administration of our Constitutional Republic.  It is time for Citizens to demand an end to gerrymandering; and to demand an end to the abuse of the COTUS by power-mad, elitist representatives who manipulate our political processes for their personal gain and personal aggrandizement.

Why Healthcare costs keep rising

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/10/04/newsmaker_interview_with_ceci_connolly_107400.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States 

Healthcare in the US is so expensive.

MLR: Medical Loss Ratio may just explain why medical costs are skyrocketing in America.  MLR is the ratio of claims expense paid to premiums revenue received.  The State and federal governments require the ratio to be in the 80% to 85% range: ostensibly to ‘prevent insurance companies from making too much money” by effectively mandating how much premiums can exceed costs.

So, if a procedure costs $100, it means the insurance company has $15 to cover overhead and profit. If a procedure costs $1000, they have $150 to work with; and for a $10,000 procedure, it’s $1500.  Are you beginning to see how we get $1 tissues?

Under this system, who is motivated to keep costs down?  It isn’t the insurance company because for them, 15% of a big number is better than 15% of a little number.  It isn’t the healthcare facility, or the doctor for the same reasons.  The patient doesn’t particularly care as long as their insurance covers it; and most don’t have a clue how much their medical insurance costs when it is employer-provided (60%) or government provided (28%).  Less than 10% buy their own.  As long as the insurance company is able to pass the costs on to the patient, they don’t care how much it costs.

In a free market, the scope and the cost of healthcare would be determined by fair and open competition. Insurance companies and healthcare providers would derive their profit by constantly driving costs lower.  Lazik eye surgery is an excellent example because it is not covered by insurance.  As more practitioners get into the business, competition drives the price down even as quality is continuously improved to differentiate one supplier from another in order to attract paying patients. 

Without collusion between the government, healthcare and insurance interests to continually increase costs, the free market continually reduces costs while increasing quality and convenience. Because the buyer is paying for the service out of his own pocket, he is
motivated to find the best value; and as is always the case it is that which creates competition.  Unfortunately this is NOT how the majority of the healthcare industry works.

How did we get to this point?  Insurance companies are highly regulated by State and Federal authorities.  Clearly there has been collusion between the regulators and the regulated to take advantage of the sick and infirm at their weakest and most vulnerable.  The genius stroke is to do so in such a manner as the victim is duped into believing that the metric that exploits them is the vehicle by which they are separated from their funds.

It’s the classic con: fleece the pigeon but make them feel good about it.

The Medical Loss Ratio epitomizes the state of the healthcare industry in America today: runaway costs, enriching everyone but the patient while making it appear that a benevolent government is protecting their interests even as it exacts it’s share of the spoils in the form of generous political contributions to keep the con working.

Government mandated healthcare is simply a heavy-handed effort to force the entire populace to participate while simultaneously changing the rules to give the government, not insurers or the providers, the upper hand and thereby take control of this con.

This is what happens when Citizens trade liberty for the appearance of security.  This is what our Constitution was originally crafted to protect us from.  And this is just one example of why we must restore Constitutional governance in America.

Privatization of Social Security

1. Some folks don’t want Social Security to be privatized, which means they are responsible for their own retirement savings (though they must participate by government mandate and there would be regulations and controls on the individual (to guarantee their mandatory contributions) and the investment broker (to limit the riskiness of investments, administrative costs, etc)).


2. Don’t people realize that Congress has stolen every penny paid into Social Security over the past 70 years?

3. Don’t people realize that therefore the government doesn’t have any money to pay Social Security benefits that have accrued and are due?

a. The Fed is simply printing worthless script to cover Social Security benefits now, but that can’t continue as more and more Baby Boomers become eligible to draw on the benefit that they have paid into all their working lives.

b. Sooner or later the worthless script being printed to cover the exploding federal debt; and the exploding federal entitlement will become just that: worthless script.

I don’t have a solution, but if insanity is ‘continuing to do the same thing, but expecting a different results’, it seems to me that leaving Social Security in the hands of those who have stolen every penny of it, qualifies as insanity.

I’m guessing that folks who don’t want Social Security privatized are afraid that bankers might do what the government has already done.

Those who argue against privatization of Social Security are refusing to acknowledge that Social Security doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t since the mid-1960’s when Congress took all the money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and moved it to the General Fund so they could waste it on their pet projects (which most likely assured their comfortable retirement income).

Those of us trying to live on the false image of Social Security are doing no more than “whistling past the grave yard”; praying that the inevitable destruction of the dollar, (due to years of printing worthless script), won’t hit until after we die and no longer need the benefits that we have paid so dearly for our entire lives.

Will those who hate business ever get to the realization that what they hate about business is not from the conduct of business itself, but the abuse that business is able to accomplish as a result of unfair advantage purchased through political contributions? They may not care about the difference, but business is what has brought mankind the kind of prosperity and ease that subsistence farming and hunter-gathering could never accomplish. Government corruption is what enables businesses to exploit people and to take taxpayer money unfairly through government subsidies, worthless grants, useless foreign aid to despots, senseless wars, excess, non-competitive compensation to unions; excessive cost for healthcare (that has existed and expanded on government subsidy for more than 50 years): the list is endless.

Any business that relies on government subsidy to exist obviously does not warrant existing on it's own merit.  The beauty of the free market is that such businesses are permitted to perish.  When one has poison-ivy growing in the yard, no sensible person attempts to pluck each leaf to protect themselves: they find the root, up-root the plant and the problem is permanently eliminated.

Our Founders understood human nature: they realized that delegated authority will always be abused (it’s Man’s sinful nature [that liberals hate to acknowledge]). Because human nature guarantees that delegated authority will always be abused the Founders specified in the Constitution that the federal government would have very strictly limited authority; and NO authority to directly tax Citizens.

If we limit our elected representatives to the authorities and responsibilities originally delineated in the COTUS; the rape of the American people; and the destruction of the American Dream will be stopped.

The cure for 'structural unemployment'

A response to Paul Krugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html


So, Mr. Krugman, suggesting another World War to solve the 'structural unemployment problem'? Sorry, the world is a different place and the nature of war has changed. Time to look for more productive solutions.

The US Treasury is empty. The Fed is printing toilet paper as fast as the presses can go. We don't have any money, and what there is, gets less valuable with each passing moment. The government cannot finance another wasteful and ineffective spending spree.

No one has sufficient understanding or control over the future to know what programs or policies to implement to restore our economy: that’s why Central-planning solutions have never worked. Therefore the federal government needs to concentrate on removing all non-essential obstructions to entrepreneurialism; and on eliminating all non-value-added costs that they have imposed on American business for the past 100 years. American business has been continually streamlining their processes for 40 years. It’s time for governments (federal, state, and local) to catch-up. The free market will reveal the ‘natural’ opportunities when it is freed of the suffocating detritus that accumulated when American business did not have to compete for consumers.

The most promising solution is to repeal the 16th Amendment and implement the Fair Tax as presently structured. With the stroke of a pen, everyone who is employed gets a 23% boost in their take-home pay; US exports become 23% more competitive in the global market; monthly pre-bate checks provide an offset for the taxes on essentials and provides cash flow to every household; and the Trillions of dollars sheltered off-shore can come back into our economy to fund the expansion that results from improved export posture.

The only way our economy is going to get better is for Americans to become more productive. The only way to become more productive is to become more competitive in the global market. Therefore we have to eliminate the non-value added costs that accrued during our 25 year, post WWII monopoly on global manufacturing capacity.

Longer-term we need to restore the historic American ideals of individual resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, and accountability; even as we erase the deadly acceptance socialism promoted so disastrously over the past 50 years.

Productivity is the only key to Prosperity

This is in response to a Jesse Jackson Op-Ed in the Chicago Sun Times


http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/2655308,CST-EDT-jesse31.article

Jesse, it’s comforting to see that your incomprehension of reality extends beyond race. Labor brought as much to the prosperity of America as you have brought to understanding between the races: thuggery, extortion, and destruction: nothing more.

Henry Ford, not the labor unions, created the Middle Class. He accomplished that by eliminating waste in the manufacturing process. He was able to eliminate so much waste that he was able to empower workers to be so productive that he could double their wage; cut the work week from 60 hours to 40 hours; all while improving the quality of his products and cutting the selling price in half (or less). That was accomplished by one factor and one factor only: relentless pursuit of productivity solely by eliminating waste in every form.

The labor unions have done nothing but destroy productivity. Their ability to do so was empowered solely by the manufacturing capacity monopoly that America enjoyed between 1946 and 1970 as a result of global manufacturing capacity being destroyed during WWII. Without competition, unions could make any idiotic, destructive, non-productive demand of their choosing (and happily did so). The only drawback was that Americans had to pay more for everything, but they had no alternative.

By 1970 there was sufficient foreign manufacturing capacity that they could start competing for American consumers. The labor unions and government created modern Detroit, Akron, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Flint, et al by sucking the life-blood out of American business. Productivity is the key to prosperity and no amount of liberal drivel will alter that.

Idiotic union work rules that destroyed productivity; coupled with idiotic government mandates and social engineering follies multiplied non-value added costs that make it impossible for American manufacturers to compete using American labor in American cities. Every new mandate; every new cost; every new restriction; every new entitlement chipped away at domestic employment until we are where we are today.

The financial collapse was solely the doing of liberals in Congress and the White House; not conservatives; though they contributed by not un-doing the destructive practices being implemented. The Barney Franks and Chris Dodds forced banks to lend to people totally unable or unwilling to repay their loans. The Fed (liberals all) made credit so cheap and so readily available that it created one bubble after the next as speculators drove prices far beyond intrinsic value: be it tech stocks or real estate. This was exacerbated by Fannie and Freddie that transferred all risk from the private sector to the backs of the taxpayers. The coup de grace was nationalization of AIG that took all liability and stuffed it on the taxpayer.

The BP catastrophe was caused by the failure of the federal government to assure that regulations in place since March of 2000 were implemented. Had they been implemented, the well failure would not have occurred; and had there been a blow-out, on site containment and recovery equipment required by the same regulations would have mitigated the damage so it would never have reached the shore. Keep in mind that the federal government netted $2.3 Billion from the lease that included the Deepwater Horizon site: that should have paid for at least some supervision and oversight. Keep in mind too that president Obama noted in 2008 that the MMS was rotten, yet Billions of dollars and two years later, he still had done NOTHING to correct the problems that he admitted were there. The Gulf disaster is solely the fault of the federal government’s failure to enforce regulations long established. Also note that the cleanup could have been started 3 MONTHS earlier than it did had the president not stupidly refused to make an exception to the Jones Act to permit highly capable and supremely experienced foreign men and equipment from 30 different countries to participate in the clean up: all to “protect” a handful of union jobs.

To add insult to injury, the president then arbitrarily slapped a moratorium on all deep water drilling (which was forced on the industry by making shallow water sites arbitrarily off limits) in the Gulf: driving the rigs and the jobs to foreign destinations. The icing: the president lied about the recommendations of his “expert panel” who unanimously counseled against a deep water drilling moratorium: More government interference destroying jobs.

How many real, productive jobs have been created by PUSH, the UAW, SEIU and AFSCME? The answer is “not a single one”. These organizations exist solely to suck the lifeblood out of employers (and employees) by doing everything in their power to destroy productivity. That in turn destroys jobs as is indisputably proven by the extinction of fruitful jobs over the past 40 years.

If those 570,000 registered voters would get their heads out of their butts and their hands out of other people’s pockets and instead use their God-given abilities to create real jobs based on providing top quality products and services in the most waste-free productive manner possible, there would be reason to hope for a better tomorrow. As long as they continue to be manipulated and lied-to by PUSH, UAW, SEIU, AFSCME and Congress et al they will continue to sink lower into the abyss.

America wasn’t built by government make-work projects or union featherbedders; it wasn’t built as a welfare state; nor was it built by rainbow coalitions of social malcontents. It was built by individuals ecstatically overcome by the opportunity to accomplish their dreams and to reap any rewards there-from; driven by the reality that if they failed to produce a useful product or service they would be back where they started: with nothing.

Our Founders were wise about human nature and that is why they created a federal government with very little responsibility; less authority; and prohibited to directly tax Citizens for the revenue to run a limited government.

The first, and necessary, step to restore America is to restore Constitutional governance. Anything less is counter-productive, and only productivity earns prosperity.

Fundament Restoration is what is required.

The critical issues to the Tea Party Movement are not Republican or Democrat: they are economic and Constitutional. America is in a mess because the federal government, over the past 70 years, under both political parties, has engaged in policies, programs, and entitlements that they have no Constitutional (ie Legal) authority to implement.


Gov. Christie is fortunate that he is dealing with problems with fairly straight-forward and achievable solutions (though admittedly solutions that all of his predecessors have lacked the courage to implement).

The Congress on the other hand has been stealing from the American people and their forced "contributions" to Social Security and Medicare for generations. In addition, Congress has been using these vehicles to promise expansive benefits far exceeding receipts (notwithstanding that the sleazy Congress stole them anyway).

As Boomers reach "retirement age", after "contributing" to mandatory government insurance programs for 50 years or more, they are finding the cupboard bare. Long nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, SS and Medicare are now forced to pay the piper and there are no resources to do that with. Where Christie is faced with $Billion problems, the federal government is facing $100 Trillion in problems.

Making matters worse, we are saddled with a president and his administration who have never held nor created a real job in their lives. Without any real-world experience they are mesmerized with idiotic wealth re-distribution schemes learned from ivory-tower outhouse philosophers that have failed every time they've been attempted since the beginning of time.

There are indeed hard choices that must be made, and expanding entitlements knowing that there is no imaginable way to pay for them simply makes an impossible problem even worse: So clearly so that any rational person should be questioning the ulterior motives of this administration.

We don't need "fundamental transformation" we need fundamental Restoration of Constitutional governance.

Journolist terminally perverts the 4th Estate

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/07/whats_so_bad_about_the_journol_1.html


“American democracy is unthinkable without the two political parties, so partisanship can't be all bad”.

Dear Mr. Cost, obviously you have no understanding of what is America. I’ll try to explain it to you.

First, America is most intentionally NOT a democracy; which is best described as two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. America is a Constitutional Republic: that means that we are governed by a Constitution, administered by representatives elected by Sovereign Citizens.

The Constitution of the United States (COTUS) is the contract, crafted by Sovereign Citizens, to establish and define the federal government created to do a very limited range of clearly defined responsibilities within a very narrow range of clearly defined authorities.

We elect a federal government to do two things: to exercise their Constitutionally defined responsibilities; and to “preserve, protect, and defend the COTUS”: Only this and nothing more. Within the COTUS there is no such thing as a “popular mandate”: there is no authority for “fundamentally transforming the USA” (which in reality is a clear violation of the oath of office required of every federal employee before we grant them any federal authority).

Second, you will find nothing in the COTUS to encourage, support, or authorize political parties, which our Founders rightly considered an anathema to our Constitutional Republic. Political parties exist solely to pervert the electoral process.

So, if America is not a democracy (it is not); and political parties are an anathema to our form of government (they are) partisanship is in fact necessarily all bad. Partisanship presumes that there are two or more perspectives on an issue, but in a Constitutional Republic there is only one perspective: that specifically defined by the Constitution.

While the history lesson was honestly fascinating it merely denotes that partisans have been doing their damnedest to pervert our form of government since the beginning. That’s why the Sovereign Citizens amended the COTUS by adding the Bill of Rights listing a number of authorities that the federal government was intentionally, and specifically denied: including the admonition that just because some authorities had been delegated, no other authorities not listed, are. Finally, just in case there is any is any confusion, in the event that someone may think they meant to include some unnamed authority the Sovereigns said “Nope”. Any authority not listed is retained by the Sovereign Citizen unless they have specifically delegated it to the States.

It is patently clear that no elected (or appointed) federal officer has any authority not specifically listed in the COTUS.

Since the role of the federal government is clearly defined (by branch); and since none in the any of the federal government’s three branches has any authority to alter those definitions, the Founders excluded the press from federal control in the 1st Amendment to enable them to freely be the peoples’ watchdog: to keep the federal government “on the straight and narrow” in compliance with the COTUS.

Of course there has always been a partisan press, but the rightful role of the press is to objectively report the facts so that Sovereign Citizens have the honest information required to make an informed decision. Unfortunately in the current age, the press has so badly abdicated it’s essential responsibility by corrupting their reportage in order to shape the debate to their own terms, that they have destroyed their credibility and thereby, destroyed their usefulness. That explains why the 4th Estate can no longer support itself: they no longer provide a useful service.

Mr. Cost, you may find a deceptively partisan press acceptable, but clearly the Sovereign Citizens do not.

In the Founders age anyone that did what the Journolist participants did (pervert the political process for their own gratification) would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. In the modern age they are simply bankrupted and run out of business. Good riddance to them, but it’s such a shame to lose the theater of it.

Natural Law, Unintended Consequences and Job loss

President Obama obviously has a distorted view of achievement and appears to believe that somehow social justice can be accomplished by giving to some from the achievement of others. This is in fact a corruption of nature and true justice at the most elemental level. The unintended but actual consequences are the opposite of what is intended as verified by every redistributive effort in history.


Our Creator grants us skills and abilities in ways that we do not comprehend. Some appear to be more gifted in some areas than others in terms of musical ability or athletic ability or abstract thinking ability. For example some appear graced with superior coordination; some with superior mechanical aptitude.

Our Founders realized that we are each endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The essence is that while we may each have different innate abilities, we each have the inalienable right to develop or pursue what it is that makes us happy (as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others). Equal opportunity to pursue is a guarantee: equal outcome of the pursuit is not.

We have a right to the fruits of our labor; and no one is empowered to unilaterally decide for another the manner in which he must labor or how much he must labor. The true value of our labor is determined by the service our labor provides, as can only be determined by the consumer of that service.

A high-demand service that can be provided by anyone is necessarily of lesser value than a high-demand service that requires highly specialized training, facilities and experience that can be provided only by a very limited number of providers. At the same time, a highly specialized service for which there is no demand has no value.

In a free market controlled only by natural law, the reward or value of labor (physical, mental, or entrepreneurial) is determined strictly by the consumer. As a result the market is very efficient in supporting those services it values; and in eliminating those services that are not valued.

Henry Ford was the most revolutionary producer in history. He created the Middle Class by creating products of high consumer demand using processes to assure high quality at ever reducing costs by eliminating wasted resources in the processing. The ever reducing costs were applied to reducing the price of the products and thus expanded the available market; and permitted a wage sufficient that those who built the product could afford the product-expanding the market still further. Ford also revolutionized manufacturing by cutting the average laborer’s work week from 60 hours to 40 while doubling the daily wage which he accomplished by maximizing the value of the laborer’s effort by eliminating all waste of the worker’s effort.

We know from the unmatched results he produced that Henry Ford’s principles of labor and value are valid and worthy of replication.

Ford grew up on a farm and was motivated in his mechanical pursuits primarily to eliminate the drudgery of farm labor. Specifically he identified plowing as the most rigorous of labor; a task made much less so by using one of his tractors. However, Ford noted that farmers expected 12 months of income for four months of work concentrated during planting and harvesting. Since the market garners no service from farming during the other 8 months, such expectations are unreasonable.

Individuals encounter problems when the value of their labor doesn’t support their desired lifestyle. In a free market the individual has to adapt continually as market demands change, though this is counter to human nature that prefers unchanging routine over constant change and adaptation.

There are always unintended consequences when attempting to alter natural law because natural law is self-policing.

The forces shaping the free market are in a constant state of change and are as diverse as the number of consumers; the number of providers; and the work environments that comprise it. Therein lays the unconquerable obstacle to controlling the free market: interactive complexity beyond the ability of mortals to alter any part thereof without the high probability of severe unintended consequence outweighing any benefit of the original alteration.

Government interference in the free market always leads to failure because government regulations always attempt stagnation in an incessantly dynamic market. Such regulations always attempt to artificially force an unnatural outcome; usually to favor a political contributor or political point of view. Invariably they attempt to control a segment of the market process independently of all the other forces impacting the market, causing systemic imbalances that eventually disastrously rectify themselves.

For example, when Chris Dodd and Barney Frank forced banks to lend to un–creditworthy borrowers, and the Fed increased the money supply and kept interest rates artificially low (rather than naturally dynamically competitive); the result was explosive growth in borrowing for ever-increasingly bloated and otherwise bad investments (in real estate and it’s derivatives this time) that naturally creates an unsustainable bubble to disastrous results.

Government interference in free markets is no different than a poorly designed and incorrectly constructed dam on a fast moving stream. It initially may do what is desired and create a pond, but since it’s design is incomplete and it’s structure insufficient it eventually fails like a bursting bubble, creating great destruction to everything down-stream. That is exactly what happened in the recent financial collapse.

Another example of unintended consequences: Minimum Wage laws exist solely to increase the cost of labor above the natural value of that labor. This is clearly unsustainable. If there is no free competition in the market, only the consumer loses by having to pay more for the product or service than it is naturally worth. At a minimum this reduces the consumer capital available to create and sustain truly valuable products and services.

If there is free competition, the producer required to pay elevated Minimum Wages must produce off-setting cost reductions elsewhere in his processes to compensate for the overpayment of wages. Rather than using those cost reductions to reduce the selling price and expand the market and increase employment, they are used to simply maintain the existing level of employment.

Automation is an early choice to reduce costs and most likely eliminates the jobs most impacted by Minimum Wage laws. Affected employees not only don’t realize an improved income intended by the Minimum Wage laws, but lose their income completely.

If automation cannot provide a viable cost reduction, frequently the worker must have more abilities, experience, or training in order to do more of the work. This too most likely eliminates the job of the less experienced, less capable Minimum Wage worker; accomplishing the opposite of what the Minimum Wage was intended to do. It also makes it more difficult for new workers to get a start in employment without a higher level of education or training than is typical for new workers.

If increased automation and increased employee capabilities is insufficient to produce a competitively priced product or service, the provider looks for markets unencumbered by Minimum Wage laws (or other regulations) that results in all jobs in the Minimum Wage market being lost.

The veracity of this scenario has been playing out in America for 40 years as we respond to ever increasing costs of government regulations, taxation and ever increasing competition from less encumbered providers in China and India.

President Obama is apparently being guided by mentors who have no real-world job-creating experience; who have no appreciation or understanding of the free market; and who wrongly believe that government intervention and control can result in a compassionate employment market. History confirms that violating the natural laws of man and markets always leads to failure.

This explains why no jobs are being created in America today; and won’t under Obama’s policies.

NAACP Vs Tea Party Movement and Racism

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/naacp-tea-party-civil-rights-group-considers-resolution/story?id=11144640


The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is claiming that the Tea Party participants are racists. I can’t be the only one who sees the insidious irony in that. The NAACP is dedicated to the advancement of a people based solely on skin color, but somehow it isn’t racist; while the Tea Party is a movement dedicated to restoring Constitutional government with no thought of race; is racist. How can that be?

The clear and unmistakable emphasis of the Tea Party Movement is to protest excessive government spending and overly intrusive government unbounded by the legal limits of the Constitution of the United States.

Evidently two generations of equal educational opportunity have been insufficient for some Colored People to comprehend that incompetence isn’t a function of skin color any more than skin color is a function of competence. People protest president Obama because he is wrong, not because he is a Colored Person (to use your term).

The Colored People association is making stale accusations about unverified, allegedly racist comments and degrading behavior amidst a staged Congressional gloating event that $100,000 in cash could not confirm in a sea of cell phones, recorders, and video cameras. Apparently the economic recovery is so good that $100,000 isn’t enough for an offended person to share a video verifying some form of racist behavior. Not likely.

In typical unjustified righteous indignation the Association of Colored People is demanding that a movement of people who have done nothing inappropriate apologize for baseless and unsubstantiated accusations. No credible source has confirmed any tangible form of racism promulgated by any Tea Party Movement group, yet the Colored People Association presents it as if it were undisputable fact: Saul Alinsky anyone?

There are two groups here: the Tea Party Movement that wants a return to Constitutional government; and the Colored People Association that apparently thinks Constitutional government is a threat to democracy (it probably is, but then America is not a Democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic). Apparently no one has ever explained to Ms. McDowell that it is the Constitution that prevents the federal government from infringing on the inalienable rights endowed to all of us by our Creator.

It is an interesting concept to have a Protest March to segregate the 60% of Americans who support the Tea Party Movement in order to “pull America together and back to work”. Care to explain how that works?

Ms. McDowell: the only people who still care about race in America are those on the fringe such as yourself who hope to gain some advantage: not based on the content of their character or competitive performance; but solely based on the color of their skin. How trite; and how degrading to the real progress that has been made to make race immaterial in America.

Do you suppose that this organization that promotes advancement of people solely based on skin color might repudiate racism? That Ms. McDowell would be progress.

America needs leaders not politicians

No one exemplifies ineptitude more thoroughly than president Obama. Nothing he has said, nothing he has done has accomplished anything other than making the problems of our society worse.  Now, rather than dealing with serious problems as president, he's back on the campaign trail spouting divisive partisan lies and deceits.


The fact is that both parties have spent us into catastrophe; have manipulated the free markets to reward themselves and their friends and to punish their enemies; and failed to meet their Constitutional and moral responsibilities to the Citizens they are elected or appointed to serve.

Obama’s affectation of third-rate evangelical elocution foretells arrogant, deceitful and/ or unwarranted ridicule of his political opponents. Given his utter lack of accomplishment, this simply adds insult to injury. He offers radical “solutions” that have been universally proven to fail; even as he disdains effective solutions simply because they are different than what some unaccomplished outhouse philosophers or wanna-be rich-kid revolutionaries convinced him were the answer to America’s problems.

He has focused on solving contrived injustices fabricated and spewed by Jeremiah Wright and his ilk, while undermining the actual solutions that can make life better for all Americans. Obama is a political shell, an empty suit: a wizard of Oz. His essence was noted by Ronald Reagan’s: “It’s not that Liberals are ignorant, it’s just that so much of what they know simply isn’t so”.

What makes Obama dangerous is his incessant racism: choosing race rather than results. He is single-handedly undoing so much of any real progress made in civil rights over the past 45 years and substituting it with the vitriolic rhetoric of Liberation theology. The fact that the Obamas have benefitted so remarkably and unjustifiably from American social largess; and at the same time are so utterly unappreciative of it underscores the failure of social programs that reward race or gender rather than excellence and thereby deny the recipient the satisfaction and rightful confidence of personal accomplishment.

In sum, Obama is a lie. The only promise that he is honoring is to “fundamentally transform the USA” though he has no Constitutional authority to do so. His idea of change is founded on reinstituting racism rather than eliminating it: for compensating those who have done nothing as if they deserve it simply for existing.

American’s foolishly fell for his empty promises of undefined Change; only to get his lies, deceit, empty rhetoric and unbridled incompetence.

Let us hope that we don’t make the same mistake again; and that we elect only those who understand and honor the COTUS; have demonstrated problem solving skills; who respect the free market; and who won’t waste time and effort blaming others for their failures and incompetence.

Please, America: no more useless politicians when we need accomplished leaders.

National Ancient Science Association (NASA)

Apparently NASA is now the National Ancient Science Association. Muslims have done nothing for 1000 years but our president directs NASA to help Muslims feel good about themselves.


This is Change alright, but what’s the benefit to the millions of Americans out of work? How is this cleaning oil off of the Gulf Coast?

It’s time for regular drug tests for the president.

Foul Recess Appointment

Dr. Berwick’s recess appointment is a travesty of Constitutional separation of powers. It is a clear and unacceptable action by the president to circumvent the Advise and Consent responsibility of the Senate.


I understand that by the letter of the Constitution no foul has been committed; however it is insupportable that there has been any effort to block or excessively delay Dr. Berwick’s appointment. It would be more difficult to object to this recess appointment if the Senate refused to hold confirmation hearings.

This position has been vacant since 2006, so there is no justification for an emergency appointment, either in the opinion of the previous administration or during the first 18 months of the current administration. Since term of vacancy isn’t justification, what is?

Dr. Berwick’s stated philosophy of wealth redistribution is not consistent with the Constitution of the United States (COTUS). As a federal employee, Dr. Berwick is required to take a solemn oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the COTUS” as a pre-requisite to being vested with any federal authority. If Dr. Berwick is not willing to renounce his commitment to wealth redistribution, he cannot honestly commit to the prerequisite oath as a federal employee. One purpose of the Senate Confirmation hearings is to resolve egregious conflicts such as this. It would appear that president Obama’s actions have been taken specifically to deny the Senate this critical responsibility.

While it is true that Under 5 U.S.C. § 5503(a), if the position to which the President makes a recess appointment became vacant while the Senate was in session, the recess appointee may not be paid from the Treasury until he or she is confirmed by the Senate, this approach is unlikely to accomplish anything of value though it should be pursued simply to register objection. My recommendation to my Congressman will be to defund the CMS until this presidential usurpation is rectified.

The list of presidential travesties; usurpations of authorities not delegated; extortion of financiers, Chrysler bondholders and BP; subornation of the bankruptcy laws of the US; failure to take care that the laws of the US are faithfully executed (immigration, bankruptcy, voter registration and voter rights etc.); the unmitigated deceit of the healthcare laws; the unjustified interference in the free market; and the utter failure of this president to meet his Constitutional responsibilities; grow more egregious every day.

I do not understand why impeachment proceedings have not been initiated against president Obama. An essential responsibility of the legislative branch is to protect Citizens from usurpation of powers not delegated by the all branches of the federal government. By permitting the unlawful actions of the president to continue unpunished, the Senate is failing to meet it’s lawful and moral responsibilities to the Citizens who have elected them.

Why Obamanomics Failed by Allan H. Meltzer

I think this is an excellent explanation of why Obamanomics has failed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325233508651458.html#articleTabs%3Darticle


By ALLAN H. MELTZER


The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.


But they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed. And so the U.S. was odd-man out at the G-20 meeting over the weekend, continuing to call for more government spending in the face of European resistance.


The contrast with President Reagan's antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.


Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.


Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems. One piece financed temporary tax cuts. This was a mistake, and ignores the role of expectations in the economy. Economic theory predicts that temporary tax cuts have little effect on spending. Unless tax cuts are expected to last, consumers save the proceeds and pay down debt. Experience with past temporary tax reductions, as in the Carter and first Bush presidencies, confirms this outcome.


Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits. Transferring a deficit from the state to the federal government changes very little. Some teachers and police got an additional year of employment, but their gain is temporary. Any benefits to them must be balanced against the negative effect of the increased public debt and the temporary nature of the transfer.


The Obama economic team ignored past history. The two most successful fiscal stimulus programs since World War II—under Kennedy-Johnson and Reagan—took the form of permanent reductions in corporate and marginal tax rates. Economist Arthur Okun, who had a major role in developing the Kennedy-Johnson program, later analyzed the effect of individual items. He concluded that corporate tax reduction was most effective.


Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back. Remember the oft-repeated claim that the spending would go for "shovel ready" projects? That didn't happen, though spending will flow more rapidly now in an effort to lower unemployment and claim economic success during the fall election campaign.


In his January 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama recognized that the United States must increase exports. He was right, but he has done little to help, either by encouraging investment to increase productivity, or by supporting trade agreements, despite his promise to the Koreans that he repeated in Toronto. Export earnings are the only way to service our massive foreign borrowing. This should be a high priority. Isn't anyone in the government thinking about the future?


Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That's part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.


The president asks for cap and trade. That's more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.


Then there is Medicaid, the medical program for those with lower incomes. In the past, states paid about half of the cost, and they are responsible for 20% of the additional cost imposed by the program's expansion. But almost all the states must balance their budgets, and the new Medicaid spending mandated by ObamaCare comes at a time when states face large deficits and even larger unfunded liabilities for pensions. All this only adds to uncertainty about taxes and spending.


Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors' and producers' uncertainty. That's not the way to get more investment and employment.


Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it's harmful now.


In 1980, I had the privilege of advising Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to ignore the demands of 360 British economists who made the outrageous claim that Britain would never (yes, never) recover from her decision to reduce government spending during a severe recession. They wanted more spending. She responded with a speech promising to stay with her tight budget. She kept a sustained focus on long-term problems. Expectations about the economy's future improved, and the recovery soon began.


That's what the U.S. needs now. Not major cuts in current spending, but a credible plan showing that authorities will not wait for a fiscal crisis but begin to act prudently and continue until deficits disappear, and the debt is below 60% of GDP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) offered a plan, but the administration and Congress ignored it.


The country does not need more of the same. Successful leaders give the public reason to believe that they have a long-term program to bring a better tomorrow. Let's plan our way out of our explosive deficits and our hesitant and jobless recovery by reducing uncertainty and encouraging growth.

Mr. Meltzer is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of "A History of the Federal Reserve" (University of Chicago Press, 2003 and 2010).

Obama's Incompetence Transcends Race

The president and his minions are quick to cry “racist” whenever the people oppose another hare-brained Socialist, Marxist, Maoist, anti-free market, anti-American Obama program. Daily it appears that the opposition rhetoric becomes angrier.


I’m not sure what Obama supporters are suggesting when they prefer to equate anger over Obama’s ever-expanding incompetence with racism. If they are trying to suggest that in most peoples’ minds people of race are incompetent? I think they are doing everyone a great disservice.

For me and those I know who also oppose Obama’s efforts to “fundamentally transform the USA”, it has nothing whatever to do with race in America or the race of the president, whatever that may be: it is solely about the character of Mr. Obama and his policies.

I oppose his bowing to foreign despots because a fundamental American belief is that “all men are created equal” and for that reason we disdain bowing to anyone. As our president in a foreign land, he has no right to bow to any other leader.

I oppose his rude and dismissive treatment of our closest allies including Great Britain and Israel, not because of his race but because America has few true allies.

I oppose the president’s inexcusable naivety in negotiating with our enemies, not because of his race but because of his incompetence in giving-up critical negotiating leverage and getting nothing (but derision) in return. Think Poland; think the Baltics; think North Korea; think Iran; think Cuba; think Palestine; think China.

I oppose his “apology tours” not because of his race but because I know that wherever Liberty exists, it exists only because of the sacrifice, sweat and blood of Americans. I oppose them because I know that America represents the most inclusive, most prosperous, most innovative, most generous society in the history of man.

I oppose his support of abortion, not because of the president’s race but because I believe that it undeniably violates the 5th Amendment prohibition of denying a person life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

I oppose the president’s takeover of Chrysler and GM, not because of his race, but because it violates the 5th Amendment prohibition of the government taking private property without just compensation.

I oppose the president’s treatment of Chrysler and GM bondholders not because of his race, but because it was extortion and because by so doing, he suborned the bankruptcy laws of the US that are among the laws that he took a solemn oath “to take care that the laws of the US are faithfully executed”.

I oppose federal control of healthcare not because of the president’s race, but because his bill created 160 new federal bureaucracies; added 16,500 new IRS agents but did nothing to improve the availability of healthcare. Clearly the intent is to expand the grasp of the federal government, not improve healthcare.

I oppose the president’s economic policies because he neither understands nor respects the free market. The recent collapse of the US financial system is a direct result in manipulation and interference in the markets by the federal government (specifically Chris Dodd and Barnie Frank). The federal government repeatedly forces unnatural and dangerous modifications to time-proven investment system practices and then blames the investment community for the failures.

I oppose the president’s penchant for “bailing-out” his Goldman Sachs buddies, not because of the president’s race, but because he unnecessarily puts taxpayers at risk for generations for no purpose beyond rewarding his campaign contributors for their unconscionable greed.

I oppose the president’s use of AIG to 100% repay at taxpayer expense the limitless stupidity and egregious risk of fraudulent investment derivatives, not because of his race, but because this is bad policy.

I oppose the president’s public abuse of investment brokers, their practices, and their bonuses not because of his race but because of his sham: privately permitting them while publically scourging them: abusing public institutions while ignoring the same behavior at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

I oppose the president’s economic policies not because of his race, but because they do nothing to heal the economy only further erode it. He has no understanding that government jobs consume revenue and only private sector jobs generate revenue. He continues to drive us deeper into debt for his pet policies.

I oppose the president’s policy in Afghanistan, not because of his race but because only an idiot would support American policy efforts in Afghanistan knowing that there is already a pre-set date to withdraw American support. Every Afghani knows as soon as American’s leave, the Taliban will be back in charge. I oppose any plan that puts American military in harm’s way and at the same time denies them permission to defend themselves as is the practice now in Afghanistan.

I oppose the president’s use of innumerable Czars that along with their support organizations duplicate existing Cabinet level functions without the benefit of Constitutionally-mandated advice and consent of the Congress.

I oppose the president’s appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS, not because of his race, but because for more than a decade she pronounced her racist, sexist views as exemplified by her “wise Latina” comments and her public support of exclusionary Puerto Rican organizations. She is a jurist who’s every single appealed judicial decision has been over-turned on appeal; and in 80% of them she was cited for improperly applying the law. These are not the qualities of a qualified candidate for the SCOTUS.

I oppose the president, not because of his race, but because he clearly does not appreciate or understand the COTUS. He clearly demonstrated this with his comments that the Bill of Rights is a listing of the negative rights identifying what the federal government is not allowed to do and fails to say what the government is supposed to do for the people. The utter ignorance of such comments is staggering. Obviously Obama has never read the preamble to the Bill of Rights and does not understand the 9th and 10th Amendments.

I oppose the president, not because of his race, but because he denies that America is a Judeo-Christian country. Our Constitution denies the federal government any authority to pass laws to restrict the free exercise of religion, but the Founding Fathers made it perfectly clear that Judeo-Christian values are the foundation of our Constitutional Republic, and that our nation cannot survive unless the people embrace Judeo-Christian values.

I oppose the president, not because of his race, but because he chooses to appoint a pervert to head security for our schools in America.

I oppose the president, not because of his race, but because he is not forthcoming about his personal background; his life while allegedly a student at Columbia; how he and his wife repaid their staggering educational loans years before his first royalty check from his biography or autobiography. He clearly lies about his relationships with William Ayers, Valerie Jarrett, Bernadette Dorn, Jeremiah Wright, and Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour among others.

I oppose the president not because of his race but because as a recipient of so much unearned advantage in America, that opened so many doors to him and his wife and yet they are clearly bitter as exemplified by his comments about Pennsylvanians in his ‘off the record’ comments in San Francisco “… it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations...": and Michelle’s comments about how Americans are just downright mean.

As far as I’m concerned Obama is the worst president in history; the American people fell for an empty suit and empty rhetoric. I hope that Obama’s legacy is that the American people will never make such a horrible mistake again. It isn’t about his race. It’s about his warped ideas; his un-Americanism; his un-Constitutionality; his ignorance about America, what it represents, and why.

Soros, Brazil, Obama, and the Gulf: What's the link?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html


1. George Soros supports Obama directly and indirectly: April 2007: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/04/soros_obama_and_the_millionair.html

2. George Soros invests $811 Million in Petro Bras August 2008 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aFHPjfeUvtl8

3. Obama funding deepwater drilling off the coast of Brazil: August 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html

4. Deepwater Rigs move to Brazil because of Obama’s moratorium in the Gulf: June 2010: http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/06/obamas-oil-drilling-moratorium-forces-oil-companies-to-move-rigs-to-brazil/

Is there a link between George Soros; his support of Obama; Soros’ investment in Petro Bras; Obama’s investment in deepwater drilling in Brazil; and the moratorium in the Gulf? I won’t even ask if there is a relationship between Soros’ hatred for Israel and Obama’s despicable treatment of our greatest ally in the Middle East (ok, maybe I will).

It is universally agreed that the safest method for deepwater wells is to drill concurrent relief wells as is now being done at the Deepwater Horizon site. Imagine if Obama had directed that relief wells would now be required at each deepwater site in the Gulf: the 20,000 oil workers in the Gulf would still have jobs; wells would be safer; and we’d continue to produce the 30% of our petroleum demand domestically. Any takers on a bet that we end-up buying the 30% shortfall created by Obama’s moratorium from Brazil; where we will benefit an hostile regime; and where George Soros’ investment in Petro Bras will pay bountiful returns? Any takers that if we buy the petroleum from Brazil that they in-turn contribute heavily to the Obama foundation and library in 2013?

If these reports are true, Obama, (like Lucy) has ‘some ‘splainin’ to do; and we have the clearest grounds yet for impeachment. I’ll be asking my Senators for their attention to these matters. If you agree, please do the same.

I am asking that if you, as my Representative or Senator, agree that these actions may be linked that you investigate and act appropriately on any results you find.

President Obama's lack of timely response to the Gulf problem in light of his administration's utter failure to enforce long existing well development regulations is bewildering.

Community Organizer, Not Problem Solver

We hired a Community Organizer, we got a Community Organizer.


We hired someone with absolutely no experience in anything and that's what we got. We have no right now to complain about our own stupidity.

The federal government netted $2.3 Billion ($3.67 Billion for the lease less 37.5% to the four States [Tx, La, Ms, Fl]) from the lease that included the Deepwater Horizon site. One might expect that to pay for some qualified oversight of what is going on in the Gulf. I wonder what we actually got for that $2.3 Billion? Anyone? Anyone?

The federal government in March 2000 established regulations requiring a backup Blow-Out Preventer on deepwater sites; none was used on the Deepwater Horizon site that wasn't put into place until about one year into the Obama presidency. Why not? Why did the federal government not do it's job by assuring BP did this? Who is to blame: BP or the federal government?

The federal government regulations include emergency remediation plans that were not implemented by the federal government at the Deepwater Horizon disaster site; preferring apparently to let the disaster spread to hundreds of miles of coastal rookeries and fisheries. Why did the federal government fail to implement this plan? Was that BP's fault?

Community Organizers exist to stir-up anger; assess blame; and file law suits: and that appears to be all we are going to get from our Community Organizer in Chief.

What we need is a leader to actually take charge to stop the problem without further delay; to determine what is required to prevent this from ever happening again (like implementing existing regulations?); and then assess blame and responsibility.

Instead, what Obama is doing is focusing on the blame while the problem continues essentially unabated. In doing so, Obama adversely affects BP's ability to take corrective action without acquiring any benefit in the process. That's pretty stupid; even though it is consistent with what a Community Organizer does.

Each day brings new stories of prevention plans, clean-up plans, and offers of resources that have either been ignored or refused by the Obama administration: even as the problem continues. Is that BP's fault?

The president of the United States has no authority to dictate the specifics of how or what BP does. He has the right to demand that they accept responsibility for compensating those adversely affected, which they have already agreed to do.

The POTUS has a responsibility to marshal all available resources to assist in protecting the people of the US. It is in this responsibility that the POTUS is failing. He is too busy grand-standing and being blown about by the winds of public opinion because he has no idea of what he should be doing, and is obviously surrounded by equally inexperienced advisors who understand politics, but are clueless about real world problem solving.

Obama clearly is more concerned about deflecting the blame than fixing the problem. His presidency to date clearly proves that we need to ignore his empty rhetoric and focus on his actions (or lack thereof). As is typical of a Community Organizer, there is no necessary correlation between their words and what actually happens.

The COTUS defines a federal government designed to serve the needs of the Citizen; what we have is a federal government limited to politics only: serving only the self-interest of the political power class and attempting nothing more.

To whom is more fault attributable: BP for not doing what was supposed to be done; or the federal government for not enforcing existing regulations? Who is more responsible for the petroleum reaching the coast: BP or the federal government that didn't implement well-defined disaster reaction plans?

Why do we tolerate a grossly incompetent administration whose inaction has greatly expanded the disaster and two months into the disaster appear as clueless as they did "Day One".

Mr. President, we don't care how many times you talked about this or how many photo ops you created; or even how you can turn this crisis to your personal advantage so it doesn't go to waste: what we want is a leader to implement effective corrective actions without further delay: a team builder that makes the best use of global resources and inspires everyone to do their best to stop this disaster before it gets any worse.

Unfortunately we elected you. We now clearly see what that is costing us. Our bad. So sorry, Gulf coast, better luck next time. Guess that Hopey, Changey thing lacked any real substance. Imagine that!

Government Jobs are the Problem, Not the answer

If I were a government employee, I’d probably support the original $Trillion Stimulus and the $50 Billion additional that the president is now asking for. But I’m not a government employee.


The president claims that the Stimulus saved jobs and is helping the economy to recover; but this additional $50 Billion is required to keep it going. Like so much that comes out of his mouth, this too is a lie. It is doing no more than prolonging the inevitable, but in the process it also makes eventual recovery much more difficult.

Anyone who can read can see where the Stimulus money went, and it wasn’t into the private economy. Basically it was used to sustain government jobs in the face of evaporating tax bases. People without income don’t pay income taxes; and people without property don’t pay property taxes. Government jobs are 100% funded by taxes.

Therefore, no taxes, no money to pay government wages: thus the special “Stimulus” funding.

The problem with this is that funding government jobs does nothing significant to stimulate the private sector. To make matters worse, since there is nothing in the Treasury to pay for the Stimulus, it is being funded by debt. For the government to repay debt, more taxes are required. Since the existing tax base is rapidly evaporating, new taxes will be required. More taxes means less resources available for sustaining existing jobs or creating new private sector jobs.

To make matters even worse, government employees are paid much more, on average, than private sector employees; and are given much more liberal and much more costly benefits than anyone in the private sector enjoys. The average federal government employee is paid approximately $20,000 per year more than the average college-graduate private sector employee. Add to that an average benefit package worth another $20,000 a year and the gap grows to $40,000 a year: nearly double the pay and benefits of the average private sector employee.

Why the great difference? Private sector pay and benefits are determined by employers who have to balance outgo to income. They also have to be competitive in every transaction. Customers determine the selling price of products and services, so employers can only control costs to be less than the selling price, by a sufficient margin to enable the enterprise to survive.

Costs not only include rent and salaries, but also the cost to comply with energy mandates (Cap and Trade); business practice mandates (Sarbanes Oxley, et al.) environmental mandates (EPA); product safety mandates; occupational safety mandates (OSHA); work-rule mandates (Unions); financial practice mandates; local, state, and federal taxes. The reason that so many jobs leave the US is that they are moving to locales where the mandates are less demanding and therefore less costly.

Government jobs have no such compelling motivators to reduce costs. Employment levels, pay rates, pay increases are all determined by bureaucrats or politicians who have absolutely no direct responsibility to assure efficiency, efficacy, or necessity in operations, employment; or to meet payroll.

For 40 years the private sector has been forced by global competition to streamline; reduce waste; become more productive; to find more efficient, less costly methods; to demand more from every available employee. During that time bureaucrats and politicians have been expanding government at an alarming rate, unfettered by competition or common sense. Virtually no government bureaucracy is ever eliminated, even if the demand that created it no longer exists; or even if it proves totally incapable of meeting it’s charter. We now pay $24 Billion a year (and rising yearly) for a Dept. of Energy created 32 years ago when our dependence on foreign oil was 24%, to reduce our dependence which today is more than double that rate. This would never be permitted in the private economy governed by competition.

Every dollar the federal government spends is taken from the private economy. Every dollar taken out of the private economy reduces the ability of the private economy to survive; create new jobs, and prosper.

Our Founding Fathers were brilliant in their denial to the federal government of any authority to directly tax citizens. In the first place, they understood that taxation is simply a form of slavery that has been used since before recorded history to impoverish the populace. Second, they understood that such funding is used to further subjugate the people either directly through burdensome bureaucracy; or through costly wars and wasteful public works programs to expand the wealth of the privileged class or expand the un-Constitutional power of government.

We are governed by a corrupt government so confident in the power of special interests that they willfully ignore the constituents that selected them to represent them in government: politicians so dependent on the funding provided by corporate campaign contributions that they ignore the will of the people. Every government decision is subject to prior sale.

Our problems are solvable. Our Founders left us with a remarkable road map responsible for creating an environment wherein the most exceptional government in the history of man was created: The Constitution of the United States (COTUS).

If we restore limited government as clearly defined by the COTUS; if we restore the prohibition of direct taxation; if we restore the Senate as representative of the States rights; if we eliminate or correct the corruptive influence of political parties; if we honor the inalienable rights granted each citizen by his Creator we will have a federal government limited to doing only those functions delineated in the COTUS and we will restore a self-supporting and eminently self-reliant population with inherent motivation to serve others as they pursue their own dreams. That is what made America exceptional; and it can do it again. Restore the COTUS to restore America.