The Bogeyman Enters Health-Care Debate

I know things have been getting really bad for the ultra-liberal Obama crowd lately, what with real Americans turning out in force and voicing their opinions loudly denouncing the President's policies at so-called 'town hall' meetings, particularly in regards to health care.

The policies instituted by the far-left, elitist Obama administration over the past six months have been staggeringly irrational and irresponsible, heaping tremendous debt on to the shoulders of our children and grandchildren, many of whom actually went out and voted for Obama with delusions of some non-specific "Hope" for some specious "Change".

Is this what they voted for, really? They actually want to be burdened for the rest of their lives by the tax bills, higher prices, and fewer jobs that are coming from these Obama policies?

Polls are beginning to show the truth. A new poll from Time magazine showed that 62% of Americans believe that health-care reform will raise costs in the long term, 65% believe reforms will make things more complicated for regular folks, and 56% believe it will result in less freedom in choosing doctors or health plans.

At the same time, research by Pollster.com, which compiles the numbers of various high-profile polls to get a more significant number, shows that overall support for President Obama, his "approval rating", is plummeting, down now to 52% from a high of 64% just six months ago. These are significant developments, and the Obama administration and the Democratic Party-controlled congress are feeling the heat.

In almost every mid-term election, the party in power loses seats, and in next year's 2010 congressional elections the Democrats are poised to continue this tradition. If the negativity surrounding the health-care reform issue, and the issues involving bailouts/stimulus plans continues with no significant turnaround in the overall economy, the Dems will pay a heft price in the voting booths next November.

Today on my way to work, I was doing what many Philadelphians do on our driving commutes. I was listening to KYW News Radio 1060am, Philly's only all-news station. One of the stories that came on sometime around 7:20am was regarding an alleged growing "problem" involving militias.

Now don't get me wrong, some militia groups across the country are extremist in nature, that much is for sure. But the tone and tenor of this broadcast piece involved how militia groups are not only growing, and that some may be militant, but the groups are also opposing President Obama's proposals on universal health care and other of his policies.

The piece went on to also state that much of this opposition is taking on a 'racial tone', though they failed to elaborate on what that meant.

This is where things are heading. The Left has a big time loser on it's hand in the health-care reform issue. Obama's effort to send his congressional minions out amongst the people and sell us on it's merits has failed miserably. So now it's come down to the usual tactics of fear and negativity association. Time to break out the bogeyman.

Universal health care is opposed by those crazy, gun-totin', anti-government, conspiratorial militias. They are all against the President because he is black and they are all racist whites. These are the people that are against President Obama and the rest of us forward-thinkers. Are you on our side? On the President's side? On the side of 'progress' over 'failed policies of Bush' and the past?

If your plan is going down in flames, all you need to do is mention 'Bush' or equate it with some other perceived bogeyman such as evil 'militia groups', and you can turn things around?

The liberal Left and their political puppets that make up the vast majority of today's Democratic Party need to wake up and realize that their President has gone too far with his socialist-inspired policies and programs. They need to stop blindly supporting him just because he has a 'D' before his name politically.

There are many good, strong Democratic politicians whose overall policies I may not agree with very often, but who would not be turning America into a shadow of its former greatness. Democrats need to recognize the direction that their "Change" vote is taking the country, and recognize the scare tactics their pols and political supporters in the media are trying to foist on them.

America is very much in danger, but that danger is not from militias, multinational corporations, Republicans, or angry Nazi mobs at town hall meetings. We are in danger of sinking under the weight of the tremendous debt load, individual taxation increases, government controls on private industry, and increased burdens on businesses that the Obama administration has wrought.

Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror, Democrats. The real bogeyman is right there looking back at you, and only you can stop him.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore is a maker of documentary films for liberal values and anti-American causes, and his latest titled "Capitalism: A Love Story" is going to be no exception. In this film, slated to be released in early Fall, Moore will attempt to portray capitalism as the root cause of the American and global financial meltdowns over the past couple of years, calling it "the biggest swindle in American history."

Let's give credit where it is due, Moore is good at his craft. He knows how to push all the right buttons, slice all the right video clips, edit all the right sound bytes, and basically tell a story in the way that his political views and values want that story told. You need a propaganda documentary made? Michael Moore is your man.

This is all well and good as long as you understand going into the theatre that this is what you will be paying your money to see: propaganda. One side of a story, told from a slanted view, through a tinted lens. The fact is that greedy corporate tycoons and misguided politicians, flawed human beings, have been the problem, not our capitalist economic system.

Now if what you really want is the truth of the matter, explained in depth, with examples and in complete historical and political context, then what you want to do is pick up a copy of a book called "How Capitalism Saved America" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo and find out why he says "Free-market capitalism, based on private property and peaceful exchange, is the source of civilization and human progress."

In his book, DiLorenzo fully explains the overwhelming evidence which indicates that exactly what Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts are doing right now: more regulations, taxes, government-run industries, controls, protectionism, and other forms of intervention, the poorer a country will be. These interventions will cause higher unemployment, higher prices, shortages of goods and services, and many other problems.

In his great work on capitalism titled "The Wealth of Nations", Adam Smith explained it's most important elements: the division of labor, social cooperation, and free exchange. The idea of serving one's fellow man is central to capitalism. As DiLorenzo puts it "In a capitalist economy the primary means of improving one's standard of living is giving others that which they want."

It is precisely because of capitalism that "the average American working person today lives better in many ways than kings did serveral hundred years ago." Capitalism is pure democracy. People decide how they wish to spend their hard-earned money, in effect voting with their dollars, and everyone's dollar vote counts the same.

Key to capitalism, and indeed the key to overall freedom and economic prosperity, is private property rights. The absence of such rights has been the major cause of poverty around the world. Since the 15th century creation of commercial property law and commercial law courts designed to enforce and protect property rights, capitalism has grown and flourished, along with every nation that has adhered closely to it's principles.

You see it already with attacks on the tobacco industry, the health industry, and many more to come. The Obama administration is clearly anti-capitalist, couching the control of money and power in public interest rhetoric. They will destroy jobs and economic freedom, all in an effort at socialist control. And now Moore will actually attack the very idea of capitalism itself.

Have there been those who have abused the capitalist system? Absolutely. As long as there are living, breathing human beings behind any form or system of government or economic power there will be greed, misuse, and corruption. That is what our justice and legal system is supposed to be for, to weed out criminals and make them pay for their crimes.

What America needed was a change to closer scrutiny in business practices and harsher public punishments for those who abused and manipulated the financial and economic system. It also needed a far more realistic home ownership policy. It needed to tweak capitalism, not trash it in favor of corporate bailouts, tax-payer funded stimulus plans, and socialism.

DiLorenzo states at the end of his book, that "capitalism has been America's great blessing." I might rather put it that our relationship with God since our very inception has been our actual great blessing. The intellectual ability to formulate and put into practice our system of capitalism has been one of His great gifts to us. The question before us now is, will Americans allow 2 1/2 centuries of greateness to be destroyed by one radical presidential term?

100 Devastating Days Down

The good news about the 'First 100 Days' of the Barack Obama administration is that there are 100 days behind us, and so we are 100 days closer to the end of this disastrous administration. The bad news is that there remain 1,362 more days in which the President, his policy wonks, and his political allies can do even further damage to the very fabric of the United States of America. Those of us who are Republicans, and particularly those of a more conservative bent, are expected to say things like that. We didn't vote for Obama, will not vote for Obama the next time around, and in fact can see no reason to support any Democrat at this moment, so entrenched is the control and power of the ultra-liberal wing of their party. So for one of us to make such dark, gloomy, negative statements about the Obama administration can easily be written off by his supporters. But there is just one problem for those supporters. They themselves are finding it more and more difficult to actually express the reasons that they support him and his party. It was all so easy just six months ago, when they all had George W. Bush to hate. Bush-bashing was all the vogue and had been raised to an art form thanks to the constant, repetitive, relentless negative coverage given the Bush Presidency by the liberal mass media. Americans, especially Democrats, and even more particularly liberals, wanted 'Change' from Bush and from what they perceived as the negativity of the previous eight years. Had they only stood back and let their brains do the thinking instead of allowing the liberal media, as well as Hollywood and music industry celebrities, they would have been hard pressed to find a real reason to vote for Obama. They would find that presumptuous of me, and would ask what right I had to say that they didn't use their brains in the first place. To that my reply would be that they were simply being disingenuous. I talked to liberals around the time of the election. I never once heard anyone speak of any particular policy or plan of Obama's that they liked, just that it was time for a change, or they would ask me in return about the Bush administration and what had been so great about it. Never mind that the point was moot, that Bush wasn't running. The one thing that they did know was that Obama was going to stop the war in Iraq. So here we are, three months into the Obama administration, and our troops are still solidly in Iraq. Oh, there is a future plan to remove some troops down the road, of course dependant upon the Iraqis being able to fend for their own security. But the fact remains that Obama could bring home every troop tomorrow from the Middle East, and that would not end the war. What the liberals fail to realize is that it takes two sides stopping to end a war, and the radical Islamists have no intention of ever stopping. All our liberal friends need to do is to actually do any amount of serious study in relation to radical Islam, and they would understand this, but they simply refuse to look past their pie-in-the-sky idealism at the sober reality of the situation. In his 'First 100 Days', Barack Obama, the man that they elected for 'Change', has begun to change America at its very core, and not for the better. Obama has seriously handcuffed American intelligence gathering and worsened morale in the military and intelligence infra-structures, thus seriously jeopardizing our very safety. Because he refuses to keep America's military presence active and strong in the Middle East, despite some tough talk on Afghanistan, it is only a matter of time before either Iran actually has a nuclear weapon, or Israel attacks it in what would be a necessary but devastating pre-emptory self-defense bid to avoid annihilation. It is also only a matter of time before the Taliban or some other radical Islamist group takes over Pakistan, already a nuclear power, and thus places the nightmare scenario of an Islamist regime in control of full-blown weapons of mass destruction. Closer to home, he announced the imminent closing of the terrorist holding facility in Guantanamo Bay, yet made no provision for where the dangerous individuals being held there would be released. He knows full well that the vast majority will not be accepted back into their home countries, and that no reasonable nation on earth will take most of them because, well, they are dangerous terrorists. In other words, there is every likelihood that many of these individuals will be released right here into the American population next year. Nice. He went on a Euro-tour and bad-mouthed and blasted our country, much to the delight of the America-despising Europeans, then went to the Middle East and bowed down in deference to the Saudi king, and finally on to South America where he exchanged good will and gifts with one of the most virulent anti-Americans on earth in Hugo Chavez. He is dragging our nation by the hair away from freedom and capitalism and into full-blown Socialism, with the Federal government extending and deepening its reach and effect on every facet of our lives. His handling of financial matters has perhaps amazingly been even worse and potentially as or more destructive. He is pushing a 'cap and trade' plan to limit carbon emissions that would cost every single American household over $3,100 per year, thus destroying his promise of no taxes to the middle-class. He is doing this to prop-up the ultra-liberal 'green' movement that is all feel-good and no substance. The real science says that the earth has had many periods of warming and cooling in its history, and thus will have them again, but also that we are now in a period of cooling, not warming. So what is all this fuss about going 'green', and why do we need billions of dollars of new taxes and fees on Americans to support it? The simple answer is that we don't, and that while natural conservation is an excellent idea to foster for general environmental cleanliness sake it is nowhere near the apocalyptic need that has blown up under the tutelage of Al Gore and his super-liberal supporters. President Bush set a horrible precedent towards the end of his administration by bailing out some financial industry entities with federal dollars rather than letting the market work and letting them fail. Rather than start his administration with a reversal of this Bush error, the Obama administration has taken the idea and run with it, pushing the nation into a series of massive 'stimulus' bailout schemes that will now leave my grandchildren trillions of dollars in debt after Obama himself is long gone. By forcing industries from banking to automobiles to take federal money in exchange for federal control and oversight, the Socialist agenda pushes deeper. All this, and he names an acknowledged tax cheat in Timothy Geitner to be his Treasury Secretary. In his own house, Obama has had a horrible time in trying to fill many other important positions, including the embarrassment now of having a full-blown pandemic hit the world while he has not yet filled the position of Health & Human Services Secretary in his cabinet. No single President in the history of the United States has done more to harm the very heart and fabric of America than this President has done in his first hundred days. It is disheartening to realize that he still has over 1,300 more in which he can do far more substantial damage to our nation. There is some hope that if the country can get a Republican congressional majority elected next year that we can put a brake on some of this, and limit the damage. If not, the dangers both within and without that the Obama administration has opened us up to are frightening to anyone who cares to look past the liberal and administration rhetoric that such talk is simple political demonizing and negativity and at the reality of these Obama administration actions. Still, such political change may become more difficult as Obama has moved control over next year's U.S. Census out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House in an overt attempt to control the results by political means. Since Census results determine congressional allotments, this is a huge attempt at making a long term power grab by the Democrats. President Obama will take to the airwaves tonight to address the nation, field questions from a majority of reporters representing liberal media organizations, and feed the feel-good lines to his Kool Aid-drinking supporters. But the truth will be that it is 100 devastating days down, and 1,362 truly disheartening and possibly frightening days to go under a Barack Obama administration that it's messianic leader will find more and more difficult to sell with any credibility.

Tea Parties Signal New American Revolt

On the night of December 16th, 1773, American colonists who had grown weary of British taxes on all sorts of goods boarded three ships in Boston harbor and dumped crate loads of taxed tea into the harbor waters. This protest against 'taxation without representation' became known down through history as 'The Boston Tea Party', and is considered a defining moment as the colonists moved towards declaring their Independence just two and a half years later. Today is April 15th, and it is also the deadline for American citizens to file their income tax returns. All across the country, a new revolutionary movement has been building for months, and it will continue in over 500 locations across all 50 states with today's nationwide 'Tea Party' protest events. What has ignited this grass-roots, web-based fire storm is the unprecedented turn towards a more massive government structure with greatly increased tax burdens for all American individuals and businesses. It is a bipartisan effort battling the situation that began with President Bush's $168 billion dollar 'stimulus' that has been taken to even worse levels by new President Barack Obama. As was posted by The Heritage Foundation, "Americans have grown more and more wary of the ever expanding size and scope of the federal government." Obama's supporters continue to send up the smoke screen message that his plans will cut taxes for those making under $150,000 per year in income. What they fail to tell people is how the vast majority of those making just over that figure are small business owners: bar owners, dry cleaners, restaurateurs, gift shops, diners, hair cutteries, and many more. They will all see their taxes rise, which means that their customers will see their prices rise, or these businesses will reduce services and/or employee jobs, or all of these eventualities. Some will even have to close their doors for good, further worsening the jobs situation. What lies behind the Obama tax cuts for the lesser income individuals, which include myself and my family as well, are not any desires to help us out. What lies behind them is an effort to expand government control of a greater and greater portion of our everyday lives. They hope to do this by forcing us out of self-support, out of dependency on jobs in the private sector, and into a process where we look to the federal government for our support. Force some companies out of business with tough tax policy, then make those remaining take federal 'bailout' money to remain in business, with the condition of yielding power to the government to regulate those businesses as they see fit. The government, not private industry, becomes the vehicle that drives the nation. This is, despite what Obama and Democratic political administration officials whine, pure and simple Socialism. President Ronald Reagan himself said it best when he stated that the nine most frightening words in the English language are: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Making individuals reliant on the government kills wide-spread and large-scale innovation. History has proven this time and again. Capitalism is the vehicle which drove the world to it's greatest technological, medical, and societal heights over the past two centuries. Freedom was the fuel for that capitalist vehicle. History has also proven that the way to overcome financial problems is to lower taxes, loosen regulation, and allow the market to readjust itself. When you try to control the markets, you only accomplish one thing - control. It is that political control and power that Obama seeks. Millions subordinate to the government, reliant on it for their very subsistence, and indebted to politically support it in order to sustain those new 'benefits'. All the while, the cost to all of us will be reduced quality in services, and reduced overall benefits to society due to a decrease of innovation. With all of the spending that the Obama administration has embarked upon with their reckless 'stimulus' and 'bailout' packages, not to mention the numerous and incredibly substantial programs that they intend to implement, it is only a matter of time before they will be forced to raise taxes on that middle class whom they now say will get a break. At some point, these bills will have to be paid, and at that point, as the website hotair.com says we in the middle class "will get hammered." Today's wide-ranging 'Tea Party' events will attempt to begin to spread that message more widely. The mass media has largely ignored this grass-roots movement to date, solely because it flies in the face of the Socialism that the newspaper industry needs in order to remain viable and alive financially. Newspapers all across the country are dying because their ultra-liberal editorial sections and news coverage have driven the masses to other sources. The same goes for television news rooms, most of whom have seen their ratings drop precipitously in recent decades for the very same reason. These industries blame the internet and cable television for their demise, failing to acknowledge that it is conservative and moderate websites and cable news programs that have flourished. The fact is that the 'silent majority' in America remains traditionalist, if not conservative, and it is these individuals who are growing the Tea Party concept and other movements. President Barack Obama has significantly overplayed his hand, and we can only hope that 'We the People' can stand up and attempt to minimize the damage until we can get him out of office for good. In the aftermath of the original Boston Tea Party, Samuel Adams wrote that the acts were not those of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest and the only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights. The same momentum is building today, and the Tea Party is just one step in this new American revolution.

AIG: Angina-Inducing Greed

For those of you who may have just read the headlines and listened to the featured story blurbs on the news with passing interest, I will try to give you a simplistic version of what all the ruckus has been about 'AIG' and explain why you should care. Let's start with the basics. Who or what exactly is the American International Group. Well, AIG is by their own information "a world leader in insurance and financial services" and "the leading international insurance organization with operations in more than 130 countries and jurisdictions." Heady stuff, right? I mean, we are talking about the worldwide leader in insurance services and one of the largest financial services organizations on earth as well. We are talking here about the real money. Not just big money, but 'real' money. The kind of money that moves governments and shakes nations. The folks at AIG are just one of many financial services companies that have undertaken huge losses and faced dire straights as the American economy has gone into reverse over the past year. They blame their particular problems largely on what are called 'credit default swaps" (CDS) in the industry. Now a CDS is basically a financial instrument representing the exchange of risk that some entity will default on their debt. For instance, you own company 'A' and it is at risk of defaulting on its debt payments because the economy is turning sour and your business is drying up. Now some other company 'B' owns a bond investment in your company, they see you are in bad shape, and they want to hedge their risk against you going belly-up. So they go to the operator of a 'hedge fund' and basically purchase insurance, the CDS, against you defaulting. A 'hedge fund' operator is someone who takes on the risk of a company defaulting in the hopes of making a profit, since most companies over time have historically not ended up actually defaulting. They get that profit as the managers of company 'B' will pay interest to the hedge fund operators. Should your company 'A' never actually default, then the hedge fund loses nothing and gains all of the interest it has been paid by that 'B' company. If you do actually default, then the hedge fund loses because they have to pay the full amount of the CDS to company 'B' covering the loss in their investment with you. The worse position that your business 'A' is actually in, the higher the interest rate that the hedge fund will demand from company 'B' for that CDS insurance. So with the AIG situation, they basically said that there were huge amounts of actual defaults, massive losses, and that they would collapse without government intervention. This would mean the loss of one of America's and the world's major suppliers of capital and insurance funding, and what some said would be a major blow to the national and world economy. Of course there are many others who dispute this, who believe in the free market system, and believe that if you run an operation poorly or with risk that is too high, then you pay the price when you lose just as you make great profits when things are going well. The theory is that even if you do collapse and disappear, someone will emerge to step into the breach and take over that business need. But those of us free market individuals are not in charge right now. The power in America has shifted to a more socialist viewpoint espoused by new President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. So rather than allowing AIG to collapse and pay the price for its riskiness, they decided to give it a 'bailout', or what was spun in positive terms as part of a 'stimulus' package. The government basically gave AIG the money to cover its losses and stay in business. But then AIG kept adjusting the amount that is said it had lost, and the government ended up bumping up the payments twice, until our government had given AIG a total of $180 billion dollars. Listen to that in the voice of Doctor Evil: "One hundred and eighty billion dollars!" From the government. That means from you and me, because the government gets its money from us in the form of taxes to begin with. So now you and I, 'We the People', literally own approximately 80% of the American International Group. So when AID got all that money to prop up their business and stay afloat, what did they do with it? Begin to invest it safely back into their operations and the markets, making them and the entire system stronger? Put it out into the world financial system and kick-start a recovery? Uh, no. Within days of receiving their first government funds, AIG sponsored a little company weekender bash at a swank California hotel with a price tag on the soiree' of nearly a half million dollars. Now this is a direct slap in the face to the American people, but it wasn't nearly the worst of AIG's greedy spending spree. The company then began to dole out hundreds of 'bonuses' to individual employees totaling approximately $165 million dollars. Bonuses! Most them going to employees in their financial products division, the exact same people with oversight of the very products that allegedly drove AIG into this mess in the first place. Now correct me if I am wrong, but people usually get a bonus for doing something good for the company? Something profitable? The theory being that any bonuses are coming out of that increased profit, right? Okay, just wanted to make sure that I did actually understand what a bonus was supposed to represent. So that is what has been happening in all the headlines that you have been seeing and hearing regarding AIG. On finding out about these bonuses, politicians and the media have shown righteous anger. You should care, and you should be angry as well. Because it is into your pockets that President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts are about to dig in order to get the money to pay for all of this 'Socialism', the government takeover of what should be private industry business. If you voted for Obama because you wanted 'Change', I hope that you knew exactly what that meant. It didn't just mean a change from Bush, who you hated. George W. Bush was leaving office anyway, his term was up, there was going to be change in any event. But the type of change you voted for was to change the very fabric of America, from a world-leader in a capitalist system to just another experiment in socialism, which has always failed everywhere it has been tried. The people at AIG are simply greedy and were looking to get nice chunks of your money out to their top executives as quickly and quietly as possible. They likely felt there was so much floating around that no one would really notice. We did notice, and now we should demand that at the very least the 'bonus' portion of the monies be returned to us. Of course this whole thing could have been avoided had we just not given them the money in the first place.

Obama-Dem Mistake #3

President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts in Congress have done it again. In fact, they've done it a couple of times, and so both today and tomorrow we will take a look at these two most recent Obama-Dem mistakes. I am starting out today by playing catch-up with a mistake made a couple of weeks ago, that being the behemoth $3.6 trillion dollar Obama spending fiasco that he calls a 'stimulus' budget plan. This ridiculous-on-its-face plan to get out of our current financial crisis by taxing and regulating businesses both small and large while at the same time increasing spending at outrageous levels is a complete over-reach by the liberal wing that is now dominant among the Dems. I like to compare it to the famous episode of the television comedy Seinfeld in which Jerry and Elaine decide they need to have sex in order to save their friendship. Ludicrous on its face and a disaster waiting to happen, which indeed it does, which anyone with half a brain could see coming a mile away. The exact wrong solution for a difficult problem they were experiencing. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Alan Chanrey, the director of USA Action, one of many ultra-liberal groups pushing Obama strongly and speedily towards the socializing of the American governmental system, stated "This budget is real change, the change Americans voted for last November." He is right in one regard, that 53% of Americans did indeed vote for a party change last November. But he and the rest of the Democratic Party, and Obama as the President, have been making one major error after another because they do not understand what kind of change the majority of these Americans voted to see happen. Americans wanted a philosophical change away from a war footing and a perceived antagonistic face in world affairs. They did not vote for Socialism. The financial budget and programs that Obama and the Dems are instituting will result in more layoffs, higher taxes, more business closings. Obama and his supporters will argue that it should create jobs. But these are jobs that will depend on the Federal government either directly as employees or through Federally funded programs and grants. They will argue that it creates an opportunity for all Americans to receive health care coverage, but they never, ever speak about the cost involved. The cost in financial terms of not only creating such a program, but then maintaining it and likely expanding it over time will simply be the largest expenditure ever incurred by our government. Part of their plan involves $650 billion dollars over a decade in a 'cap-and-trade' plan that is nothing more than a tax on businesses. Another is increased limitations on both mortgage interest and charitable tax deductions that will effect millions of Americans at tax time, as well as payment cuts to Medicare insurers, in order to fund their new medical coverage plan. Obama and the Dems are planning on allowing tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration to expire in a couple of years, thus raising the taxes of millions more American families. Further outlays in the massive budget plan include billions involving so-called 'green' plans to combat a controversial global-warming situation that may in the end be nothing more than a natural phenomenon. There are so many other huge spending programs in this plan that it is almost a joke. One of the leading conservatives on the Republican side, Newt Gingrich, actually says that he agrees with much of Obama's rhetoric on the financial issues. But Gingrich sees a "gap between the words and reality" in a plan that actually promotes "higher-tax, weaker-economy, fewer-jobs" in its practical applications. How can the government possibly expand like this when everyone else is contracting? The simple answer is that they cannot. The Wall Street stock market is reacting to the obviousness of this folly with its weekly free-fall. The administration of President Barack Obama surely inherited a difficult financial situation, and this situation required tough decisions. But it also required smart decisions, and the obviously dumb ones of the past few weeks are only turning the economy for the worse in both the short and long term outlooks. It is similar to Obama walking into a situation where there was a fire growing. He had the opportunity to begin to pour water over the fire and extinguish the flames. Instead he and his Democratic Party cohorts led by Nancy Pelosi in Congress have chosen to pour gasoline over them. Their logic is that by making the fire bigger and bigger, we whose property is actually going up in smoke will become more and more dependent on their government to eventually put it out. But the fact is that day will never come. What will actually happen is that their power will grow as our fire grows, until eventually one of two things happens. Either we vote them out of office quickly, or they burn our American house down to the ground. The gigantic, enormous, humongous behemoth of a budget that is misrepresented as 'stimulus' is the Obama-Dem Mistake #3. Tomorrow we will cover the most recent mistake number four. NOTE: All of the items in the Obama-Dem Mistake series can be found by visiting that below label.

Repeat a Lie Often Enough, It Becomes the Truth

President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts have told the lie so many times in recent weeks that one has to wonder if they even believe it themselves. The President said that his stimulus bill included tax cuts for "95 percent of working families" or what he calls the middle class. That is great, isn't it? We have a President who cares about you and me, the working people that keep America moving forward. The hard-working everyday folks. Thank God we finally have someone in the White House who cares about us, right? Well, that only floats if you actually believe what Obama is telling you. Do you, and if so, why do you? Because a network news anchor tells you to believe it? Because the head of your union tells you to believe it? Because your city newspaper tells you to believe it? President Barack Obama and his administration are simply lying to us. They are lying boldly to our faces by using positive-sounding rhetoric because they simply don't believe that we will care enough to look deeply into the details. Let's start with the people who he will be raising taxes on, those making $250,000 and more. Do you know who makes up the vast majority of individuals in that category? It's not professional athletes, or motion picture stars, or recording artists, or business CEO's. The vast majority of those who make that $250,000 and even a little more than that are small business owners, that's who they are. The enterpreneurs who run the businesses such as auto mechanic shops, barber shops, restaurants, bars, art galleries, boutiques, and many more. These people have taken risk and started businesses. They have hired employees and helped to stabilize their neighborhoods and communities. Are they wealthy? Hardly. Sure, they enjoy the fruits of their labor and the rewards that come with successfully overcoming the many risks involved in starting up a business in the first place. But to call most of these people 'wealthy' or 'rich' would be a gross overstatement. But these middle class enterpreneurs are going to be hit hard by President Barack Obama's tax increases. And what do you think they are going to do when they get that bigger tax bill? Well, take less profit, that's what, right? No. They are going to raise the cost of your haircut, your auto repair bill, your drinks, your clothing, and your food. Then President Obama talks about how his team is going to save "$2 trillion dollars over the next decade." Wow, that is exciting. That is just what we have been wanting from Washington, more responsibility. Why, it is a very Republican Party concept actually. We Republicans should be ecstatic with this development. The only problem is that it is an outright lie. Most of this 'savings' is coming from those very tax increases on the +$250,000 income crowd that we just discussed. The rest is supposed to come from anticipated savings in ending the Iraq War. But the President cannot guarantee that savings, because he already is hedging his previous pledge to get out of Iraq fully. Today he announced that 100,000 troops will come home gradually over the next 18 months, but that some 35-50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq at least through 2011. With unstable situations involving Iran, Israel, North Korea, and many other locations throughout the world, the President is planning on saving money that he cannot make plans with. Unless he is planning on America sticking our head in the sand in world matters and just allowing terrorism-sponsoring regimes to arm themselves with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. I get the feeling that he is willing to take just such a risk, and in so doing he is completely forgetting the lessons that we should have learned on September 11th, 2001. How big of a successful attack on America or one of our allies will it take to wake up Obama and his supporters to the need for a strong military presence in the Middle East? But in any event, he is not actually saving money. His budget calls for increased spending of at least 12% next year, and has been filled with thousands of political pork earmarks thanks to Congressional lobbyists. Don't believe it? I don't want you to. Just get a copy of the budget for yourself and actually read it. President Obama and his supporters are betting that you won't do that, and they are probably correct in that judgement. One part of the President's misguided and misnamed 'stimulus' bill provided large monies to the states in order to increase unemployment payments. Basically 'free money' to the state treasuries from the Feds. That is how it was being sold by Obama and his people. But the truth is that some of the governors began to reject the funding. Why? Well the reality is, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Didn't we all learn that in something like 5th grade? The truth is that the Federal funds were temporary, but came with requirements that the states receiving the funding change the laws regarding how they handle their unemployment insurance. These changes would require the states to continue the funding once the Federal money ran out. In other words, the states would have to raise payroll and business taxes to meet these new requirements. It's the classic Democratic Party shill. Here, take this money, it will make you feel better today. Damn tomorrow. Crow about all the improvements that you are making now, let the folks feel happy, and when the bill comes due later, so what? Smile, tell the lie, and as long as everybody feels good today, that is what is important. Oh, and how about that little old 'cap and trade' procedure that is going to provide over $600 trillion dollars in revenue over the next decade. Where is that revenue going to come from? Well, it's going to come from your fuel bill, your electric bill. It is going to come from increased energy costs for both those small business owners who will already see a direct increase in their taxes and the energy bills of all those middle class citizens who allegedly were receiving tax cuts. You see, the Democrats in general and President Barack Obama in particular are lying to your face. They are telling you that your taxes will go down when in reality every move they make will increase costs to you in the long run. They also are placing a burden on business that is going to force companies to raise prices and costs, or cut employee jobs, or both. This helps the middle class how, Mr. President? Look at it in a simple way each and every day. Why do you think that the stock market drops every single day these days? The educated investors that make up the majority of stock purchases in this countries leading businesses see where all this is going. Higher costs to everyone leading to higher unemployment, leading to businesses leaving the country, leading to fewer revenue streams, leading to further cost increases, leading to fewer purchases by consumers, leading to business collapses and fewer jobs, and on and on in a never ending Democratic Party-induced debacle. President Obama has set the country on a tragic economic course. If something is not done to change things it will simply be a race to what gets us first: economic disaster of an unparalleled magnitude that we cannot even fathom at this point, or a major terrorist attack that cripples our country and kills Americans at a magnitude never before seen. But hey, it is going to get better. Your taxes are going down. We are going to turn this around through our new Socialist policies and programs. Sure. Tell a lie often enough, have it perpetuated by vocal supporters, and it becomes the truth to many.

President Barack Oblah, blah, blah-ma's First News Conference

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of the United States of America, what you saw last night on the occasion of President Barack Obama's first-ever televised news conference was simply one of the most incredible displays of stammering ineptitude in the Chief Executive's office since it was occupied by Jimmy Carter. The President tried to take his case directly to the people in an attempt to make them come around to his position that in order to help resolve an economic crisis that took place thanks to over-spending on the part of politicians we need even more spending by these same politicians. I believe that on the classic television comedy show 'Seinfeld' it went something like this: sex to save the friendship. Of course that direction didn't work for Jerry and Elaine, just as the Obama 'stimulus' sham has no hope of working for America. During his speech that precluded the press conference, the President stated that his plan was "not perfect" and that it may not in fact "work exactly as we hoped." He went on to say that the counter was that "a failure to act will only deepen this crisis." Uh, perhaps Mr. President. But since you have no idea how your imperfect plan is going to affect us, perhaps it will in actuality turn out even worse than doing nothing, or doing something different. The President then began to take questions, and during a lengthy answer to AP reporter Jennifer Loven he stated that his plan to "save or create 4 million jobs" would instead result in "some net job loss. But at least we can start slowing the trend, and moving it in the right direction." So which is it, Mr. President, are we creating 4 million new jobs, or saving currently existing jobs, or some combination, or suffering a net job loss? Mr. President? Okay, that economics stuff is tough for you, let's move on to diplomacy. The President responds to a question as to how he will handle Iran by initially summing it up pretty well by speaking of "their financing of terrorist organizations...the bellicose language that they've used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon." But he then begins more of that 'blah, blah, blah' as he speaks of "reviewing our existing Iran policy" looking towards having "constructive dialogue" and towards moving "our policy in a new direction." The only policy that is going to stand a prayer of working in Iran is deposing their President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, possibly the single most dangerous man on the planet at this particular moment. And even then we would have to ensure that the mullahs and other religious leaders don't set up in power someone who is just as bad or even worse. Without showing military and economic strength until the Iranians change their ways, no 'dialogue' or 'policy' of appeasement is going to be effective. The President is then asked about the bipartisanship that he promised would highlight his term in office, and if it was unlikely now that his 'stimulus' received no Republican votes in the House and only three potential Senate supporters from the Right. He responded that "there have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington, and it's going to take time to break down some of those bad habits." Excuse me, Mr. President, but what are "bad habits" exactly? You mean that when you present some plan, program, or nominee that is fundamentally against what the vast majority of Republicans believe in, we should just blindly support you against our own ideals? Having and fighting for our ideals is a bad habit? In a response to a reporter who finally directly asked about the wisdom of spending almost a trillion more tax-payer dollars to overcome problems caused by massive over-spending and little fiscal discipline, the President summed up the problem thusly: "the biggest problem we're going to have with our federal budget is if we continue a situation in which there are no tax revenues because economic growth is plummeting at the same time as we've got new demands for unemployment insurance..health care..food stamps." So basically what that President is saying is that he has a two-pronged problem: economic growth declining and spending rising. How about we go at it this way, Mr. President? Reduce taxes on businesses and individuals even further, hand out incentives for private business to get involved in what you are trying to setup as federal projects, and reduce rather than expand federal social services. Now I don't know whether or not this will work, just as you don't know whether your spend and spend plan will work. But one thing is certain, my plan will not increase our debt, and my plan has a far greater track record of sustaining a recovery. The "stimulus" plan that President Barack Obama is trying to shove down the throats of the American public will fail, and we know it. While the results of a Gallup poll released last week showed 75% of Americans believing some sort of financial package is needed, a full 62% were against the current massive Obama plan, with 37% wanting major changes to the plan, and 53% believe the Obama plan will have no effect on their families or make things worse. It is not a question of wanting the President to fail, to paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, but simply an acknowlegement of common sense. You can't spend your way out of problems that were largely caused by too much spending and too little discipline. And an increase in the size of government always stifles a nation's economic development. Always. But President Obama will continue defending it with the very rhetoric and partisan rancor that he derides in his opposition. The press always loves a chance to get on camera and make themselves seem more important than they are, but to much of the American public last nights opening performance by the new President was just more blah, blah, blah.