Barack Obama rose from obscurity to the highest office in the land with similar methods. He has great charisma and an outlook similar to Long’s. He also believes that wealth earned or possessed by those of means was somehow stolen from the more deserving poor. The destitution of certain sectors of society is in Obama’s view; not the result of their own actions or lack thereof, but instead the fault of those better off.

President Obama seems to enjoy the role of demagogue; railing against bankers, doctors, insurance companies, financial executives, and even a Cambridge cop who arrested one of his pals. He is pushing for yet higher taxes on “the rich” while doubling the Food Stamp program, increasing domestic discretionary spending by 25%, and borrowing almost $3 Trillion to fund his policies.

President Obama sincerely believes that bigger government, more regulation, and massive deficit spending will cure all ills. His cabinet members and assorted “czars” with similar views encourage him to frantically push huge legislative acts toward law as fast as possible knowing their window will close with the loss of Congress in 2011. If he is successful at enacting Cap & Trade, Financial Reform, and Immigration Reform on top of Health Care, our national economy will be choking on the myriad unintended consequences of thousands of pages of new laws and regulations. An exponential expansion of debt and entitlement promises that will destroy our future accompanies these grandiose visions of European style “social justice”.

Here are 3 short clips where President Obama states his true intentions prior to the election. Americans should have paid a bit more attention then:

Governor Long and President Obama share important similarities. Both had admirable charisma when campaigning, and promised: “If you vote for me I will give you free stuff”. Both skillfully wielded the weapon of demonizing their chosen targets – the “rich”, the business world, and, and their political opponents. Lastly, they share a compelling need to exercise total power over their opponents. Ramming Health Care through Congress with procedural legerdemain against the will of nearly 60% of the American people comes pretty close to “dynamite them out of my path.”

Now have a quick peek at the dirty baggage the Obama Administration has empowered. If this does not shock the beejesus out of any sane American – nothing will:

Governor Crist is a poster boy RINO. His tenure in the Governor’s mansion started out all right, but was soon clouded by his sycophantic pandering to the Obama Administration. While most Republican governors resisted the gargantuan stimulus legislation, Crist welcomed it with open arms both figuratively and literally. This began a serious erosion of his popularity among Republican voters in the state.

Crist is a shining example of the effeminate metrosexual modern politician who loves to play huggy bear. A generation or more ago, the only politicians who physically embraced one another were the Communists. The sight of Leonid Brezhnev planting hugs and kisses on Eastern Bloc leaders was considered comical. This disgusting habit arose in this country with Bill Clinton. George W. Bush continued it, and President Obama has elevated it to an art form. The loving embrace between Obama and Crist on stage when the Stimulus Bill was being pushed was the beginning of the end for Crist’s future political career.

Crist is a Michael Bloomberg without the billions. When he announced he would follow his governorship with a run for the US Senate, his name recognition and party affiliation were wind at his back. Then there appeared out of nowhere – Marco Rubio – a true conservative young Republican with character and principles that Crist sorely lacked. In a head to head Republican primary run-up, Crist’s poll numbers tanked while Rubio’s soared. It was becoming obvious Rubio would win the primary.

Asked repeatedly if he was considering running as an independent, Crist just as repeatedly vowed to stay loyal to his party and run against Rubio. Yesterday Charlie Crist showed his true colors, bailed out, and announced his switch to independent status. This set up a three way run for the general election for the Senate seat.

Crist is a myopic, disloyal, egotistical, destructive dirt bomb of the highest order. Rather than admit his policies, positions, and past actions have garnered rejection form Florida voters, he insists on a third party candidacy. This will split the voters between a liberal Democrat; currently down in the polls, a conservative Republican; currently ahead, and Crist – a milquetoast squishy turncoat. Crist has the principles of a coyote, the character of a reptile, the spine of a jellyfish, and the common sense of a noseeum. He must be beaten so soundly that he never raises his head in the political arena again.

Crist’s bug-out destabilized the race such that this afternoon, Jeff Greene – a real estate billionaire – has suddenly jumped into the race as a Democrat. He has dough to burn, but will probably split the Democrat vote to the point that Rubio will basically be running against Crist. Stay tuned!

Marco Rubio is an inspiration. The son of Cuban immigrants, he has risen on solid principles and accomplishments through the Florida State legislature. His candidacy deserves the same support from around the nation as we gave to Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Here is Marco’s website. I just sent him a contribution. Please consider doing the same. Our children’s future depends on regaining control of Congress in November. Marco Rubio is very important to that goal.

Direct Donation site:  https://www.marcorubio.com/fliptheswitch/

Campaign website:  http://www.marcorubio.com/

These were the words of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau spoken to Congress in May, 1939. Exasperated after experiencing massive unemployment for 10 years and spending heavily year after year to try to end it, Morgenthau was a beaten man. He was admitting that massive government spending and make-work projects had failed to revive the American economy. Over that period, unemployment had peaked at 25%, never went below 14%, and was 20% again when those words were spoken.

Now we have an administration in office that is mimicking the acts of the Roosevelt years with unprecedented borrowing and spending in their attempt to revive the economy. No less than Vice President Joe Biden recently stated: “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.” These people refuse to acknowledge history.

Below is a graph which I call “Obama’s Hockey Stick”. The environmental “hockey stick graph” has been discredited, but this one is frighteningly real. It shows that the US Budget Deficit has gone over a cliff; the deficit quadrupling between 2008 & 2009.

The next graph is projected future deficits based on present government budget plans. One estimate is from the Obama Administration, the other from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

The plunge in 2009 (which added $6,065 of debt for every living American) appears to begin to recede in 2010 and after until retracing back deeper starting in 2013. Note that the White House projections are far more optimistic than CBO. Who are we to believe; an administration attempting to cling to power, or a non-partisan budget watchdog? No matter which is right, the scenario is dire.

Based on 1933-41 experience, the above projected deficits appear a recipe for disaster. Government borrowing sucks available capital out of the system starving business of loans to expand and hire. Interest rates will rise choking off recovery of the housing market. Taxes will be raised to pay both the debt and interest; draining vital earnings of firms and individuals for decades to come.

Deficit spending does not create recovery; it only buys votes today with the fruits of future labor. Our government is selling our children’s future down a rat hole. Next time you see a baby, think seriously about apologizing in advance.

Here is a cute one that has been around a while about the TARP bailout:

This is an apt description of this documentary that every American adult should see – perhaps twice. It moves fast, with many vivid images interspersed with narration from a number of individual experts in finance, government, culture, and history.

It basically demonstrates the truth about how the Boomer Generation was raised, matured, and eventually became leaders in government, finance and academia. Not discussed is the fact that this generation split along cultural lines in the 1960s. Here is a trailer from the movie. The generational split is discussed below:

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A vivid cultural division occurred in the ‘60s between those who were raised with almost anything they wanted by doting parents and others who grew up having to work hard for nearly everything they got. Millions of young people were sent away to college fully financed by family money, safe from the draft on student deferments. Once away from home, they rebelled, rejecting the values on which they had been raised and embracing the counter- culture of pleasure, drugs, free love, protest demonstrations, and contented living in filth.

These individuals eventually outgrew the hippie lifestyle, cleaned up their acts, embraced materialism, and matured into yuppie types. With their education credentials, they moved up in the ranks of academia, law, finance, and government, eventually attaining leadership positions as the old guard who had experienced the great Depression and WW II retired. Their main flaw was a lack of experiencing any hardship, and a narcissistic expectation of good times and easy money forever. They became prone to taking huge risks with other peoples’ money; blindly ignoring the potential devastating consequences.

The other half of the Boomer Generation entered young adulthood without the advantages of family money, could not afford college, and millions ended up serving in Viet Nam. Their work ethic enhanced by military discipline, they returned home despised by those with whom they had grown up who had avoided service. They tended to drink heavily for years; self medicating against what is now called PTSD. Most eventually settled into blue collar jobs, raised families, and maintained the value system of the middle class.

Generation Zero aptly lays out the journey of the privileged from childhood to DC and Wall Street; focusing on the root causes of the present financial crises. It is a very compelling examination of how America went from the prosperous ‘50s to the present economic contagion.

Please order and watch this movie. Share it with those you know. This is a story that every responsible American must understand. It will be the most informative $25 you ever spent. Understanding how the economy got to this point will arm you with the knowledge of how to safeguard your future. The link to the site is below:

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/

1920-21 Depression: Response – Harding Administration cut taxes and drastically reduced the size of government. The recovery became known as “The Roaring ‘20s”, continuing with only minor pullbacks until 1929.

1929-33 – The Great Depression: Response – The Hoover Administration raised taxes, reduced money supply, and signed the Smoot- Hawley Tariff Act. FDR raised taxes, borrowed heavily, and created millions of government jobs. This failed by 1937 creating the dreaded “double dip” depression. Unemployment peaked at 25% and never got below 14% for ten years. Mobilizing for WW II finally ended this unprecedented period of despair.

If you have any doubt about the true underlying strength and spirit of the American people; listen to this cut made in 1933 – the absolute depths of the great depression:

1945 Recession: War production ended and 12 million service members returned to the workforce. Ignoring “new New Deal” dreams of the late FDR and President Truman, Congress lowered taxes and refused to raise government benefits. The peacetime recovery lasted only about 3 years. Truman’s “Fair Deal” inserted government into housing, tightened the money supply and raised the minimum wage – choking off the recovery in 1949.

1960-61 Recession: Response – JFK lowered taxes which spurred recovery. This wonderful expansion lasted until 1969 – over 8 years.

1981-82 Recession: Response – Fed Chair Volker choked inflation and Reagan Administration cut taxes. It was 8 years of expansion until a mild pullback occurred.

1990-91 Recession: Response – Mild tax policies and the “peace dividend” at the end of the cold war energized this recovery. Welfare reform and balancing the budget under Clinton inserted workers into a growing economy while more money was available to finance private industry growth. The expansion lasted ten great years.

2001 Recession: Brought on by the Dot Com crash and followed by the 9/11 attack, this one was cured with two rounds of tax cuts by the G. W. Bush Administration. The following expansion lasted 6 years.

2007 – ? Recession: The crumpling housing market set this one off, followed by the collapse of financial, insurance, and auto industries. The Obama Administration took office as it deepened. This one has now lasted 3 years and is only showing very weak signs of recovery.

The question is: “Why is this recession hanging on?” Look at the Great Depression and the Hoover and Roosevelt responses to it. Huge government spending to create government jobs not a “cure”, but a canard. Tax increases are economic poison to a recovery. Massive borrowing raises the national debt and leads to higher interest rates, inflation, and scarcity of private funds to finance growth. Expansion of entitlements drains present and future treasury assets, further weakening the nation’s fiscal stability.

The discredited New Deal playbook has been used and failed miserably before. Government spending cuts and tax relief have been used at least six times. Each application resulted in quickly rebounding expansions at least twice as long as the average business cycle.

Perhaps President Obama should ditch the Teleprompters and take a hint from Sarah Palin. He should write on his palm:

“CUT SPENDING”
“CUT TAXES”
“CUT ENTITLEMENTS”
“CUT REGULATION”

These people pay much attention to those in some sort of “need”. It matters not a whit whether that “need” is caused by truly tragic circumstances outside the individual’s control, or is the direct fault of his or her own actions or lack thereof. A disabled veteran, a quadriplegic accident victim, a human born handicapped either physically or mentally – those people are in need due to circumstances they had no power to avoid. They deserve support, and programs are available to provide it. On the other hand, one who squandered the opportunity of a free public education, chose crime over honest work, or found means of support by sponging off society has done so out of choice – not necessity. Liberals do not differentiate between the two types.

This piece was recorded 40 years ago, but “welfare” is only a small piece in the puzzle. This is not the “Forgotten man” – he is more like one “Kept Man” out of growing millions:

The original theory was postulated in the late 1800s by Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale. Bear with me here – this is the language of an economist.

“As soon as A observes something which to him seems to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B; and A and B propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X.  Their law always proposes to determine what A, B, and C shall do for X.  What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause.  C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, “the man who was never thought of.”

Sumner’s Forgotten Man is the hard working small businessman, truck driver, waitress, construction worker, or software developer who is taxed to support the ever expanding legions of those in “need” – AKA “X”.

Sumner never imagined that over a century later, government would also be funding counterproductive boondoggles like the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, food stamps, or HUD. He could not have foreseen the legalizing of Ponzi schemes in the form of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course C is facing ever increasing taxes to fund these unsustainable programs also as they fast sink into humongous deficits.

This situation has moved C from the present into the future. C is now made up of young children not old enough to contemplate their future or vote on its eventual stability. Millions upon millions of those yet unborn are to emerge into adulthood as “C”s. Meanwhile the number of “X”s is increasing exponentially with the retirement of the Boomers and the irresponsible actions of the Obama Administration.

This impending intergenerational theft has been orchestrated over the past 80+ years by administrations of both political parties. It is criminal malfeasance against future Americans who cannot defend themselves. A and B must be purged from government. X must be made to expect and accept less. The Ponzi schemes must be made sustainable, and government must do less with less.

Think hard about the young ones in your family, now and in the future. They do not know, do not yet understand, and cannot demand that you take action. Your vote is the only thing standing between those kids and a future of misery. Use it wisely.

Jay Inslee is a lawyer. This is not meant as an insult, but with 36% of the House of Representatives lawyers, aren’t lawyers over-represented as our overseers? Just because they are “law makers” does not mean they HAVE to be attorneys.

Mr. Inslee is a career politician with carpetbagger tendencies. He served one term in the early ‘90s in a conservative-leaning district and was bounced out. He then ran for Governor and lost in the primary. Next he ran in the 1st District which was trending liberal and won – barely. He was running against a popular two term incumbent who managed to fall into scandal just prior to the election. A third-party spoiler eroded about 5% of the vote also and Inslee won with under 50% of the total. As is the case for most Congressmen, once he elected, he stayed in power. He has been reelected five times, usually challenged by unknown candidates. Some whispers have it that he may try for Governor again. This guy craves power in a big way. It is now 2010. Do we want to keep Inslee around, or send him back to lawyerism?

The Founding Fathers envisioned “citizen legislators” who would leave their farms and businesses to serve only a term or two. Today we have representatives who latch onto the perks and power of office and cling like leaches in an Asian rice paddy. They will not stop sucking our blood until scorched with a cigarette. That “cigarette” must be public awareness, opposition, and by all means, our votes.

With a voting record rated at 80.7% liberal by the National Journal, Mr. Inslee tends to support taxes, alternative energy, abortion, cap & trade, health care, and just about any new law or regulation that pops up on his radar screen. He loves spending on just about any new program, but votes against drilling, tax cuts, spending cuts, defense, Second Amendment issues, new prisons, and border security.

This site will give you a complete tally of Inslee’s voting record and his position on the Liberal-Conservative continuum:

http://www.issues2000.org/House/Jay_Inslee.htm

We have two great candidates running in the primary for the Republican nomination to replace Mr. Inslee. Neither one is, has been, or ever will be a lawyer. Both their websites are listed below. Please take a few minutes to examine each and evaluate their positions on the issues. Either of them would be a grand breath of fresh air compared to Jay Inslee and his constant support of yet more suffocating regulation and increasing taxes. Support whomever you choose in the primary, but let us all really get behind the nominee and take this seat back for the Republican Party.

Our and our children’s futures depend on stopping the Obama Administration’s spiral into national ruin. Cashiering Inslee is a good first step. It is up to us, because the kids can’t vote.

Matthew Burke: http://www.matthewburkeforcongress.com/

James Watkins: http://www.watkinsforcongress.com/

For three generations the US has slid down the path of bigger government, expanding social programs, and unsustainable entitlement expansions. The nation has seen year after year of irresponsible spending, regulatory growth, ballooning bureaucracies, earmark projects, and misallocation of resources. Combined, these various headless monsters of government largess and nanny state tax and control policies have pushed our future to the edge of the abyss. The spending and resulting debt obligations are about to destroy our future.

Change is certainly coming, and soon. The question is; will it be a total national financial collapse, or will it be responsible change forged by new leaders; smart, strong, and principled enough to initiate vital changes through law in a peaceful manner.

President Obama is burning through borrowed trillions by the carload. He is supported in this by a compliant Congress and a cabal of inner circle sycophants with no experience in the private sector. They try to emulate FDR, but overlook the fact that his policies prolonged the Great Depression. Meanwhile Obama squanders his political capital at an alarming rate. Stimulus, Omnibus, cap & trade, health care, civilian trials for terrorists, and gays in the military are draining the confidence and goodwill with which he took office. His recent emasculation of US Nuclear Response Doctrine has weakened our deterrent capabilities.

In the interim, a giant has begun to stir. The 50% of Americans who still pay income taxes are becoming alarmed. Millions of families with little ones are awakening to the fact that if something is not done to reverse this course; their children will reach adulthood amongst a mountain of debt and unfunded liabilities. Gen X and Gen Y are realizing that the Boomers and the Greatest Generation have expropriated trillions of their future earnings. Investors are hoarding gold instead of buying into businesses. Corporations don’t expand fearing the unknowns beyond the horizon like tax rates, carbon regulation, and health care mandates. Consumers keep their wallets shut and save to pay their mortgages or to have something in case of a job loss.

The choice between fiscal Armageddon and a dawning day of economic prosperity rests entirely upon the giant mentioned above. Its members must unite and vote into office driven, principled candidates who will stop the present administration and its actions stone cold. These new representatives must reform entitlement programs into self sustaining entities no matter who complains. Lower benefits and a later retirement age are better than default and no benefits. They have to blockade the out of control spending and address the massive deficit. Everything from replacing sand on California beaches to entire cabinet departments must be eliminated.

Cutting federal spending has to be the first step. Reagan and Bush 43 both lowered taxes but did not reign in spending. The “starving the monster” theory did not work – it just borrowed to sustain itself. The monster must be domesticated or dismembered. Fresh leadership is needed in Congress to halt the fiscal bleeding. Such action will translate into knowledge that taxes will not have to rise, draconian mandates and regulation will be forestalled, and the debt danger will be addressed. Consumers and business will gain confidence knowing that impending financial disaster has been averted. Private investment will increase, hiring will go up, and the unemployment rate will sink.

The next seven months may be the last, best chance for America as we know it and wish it to stay; that shining city on a hill, the destination, opportunity, and home of all those who “yearn to breathe free.”

Smith was quickly consuming a Spam sandwich after his shift as a mechanic, preparing to hit the road for a 300 mile round trip on his night job. The doorbell rang, and he went to answer it. Upon opening the door, there stood no less than President Obama flanked by Secret Service agents. He was backed by a line of armored black Suburbans in the street along with a crowd of reporters and TV vans with cameras rolling. The conversation went something like this:

Smith:
“Mr. President, this is indeed a surprise, what brings you here?”

Obama:
“John, I have a new government program that we initiated to help folks just like you.** I asked the IRS to find the appropriate person to be the kickoff client, and your name was presented to me. I decided to personally bring the good news to you myself so that your story will make the national news. As this program is rolled out, thousands of people just like you will be able to stop worrying about losing your home to foreclosure.”

Smith:
“Mr. President, I have no intention of losing my home, what exactly is this all about?”

Obama:
“I realized that many people are hurting right now and after checking your tax returns and mortgage balance, I saw that you are highly qualified for help under our program. You are making less than $200,000 per year, your payments are over 31% of your income, and you owe more than your home is worth. With this program you will get mortgage relief.”

Smith:
“Well Mr. President, how exactly do I get mortgage relief?”

Obama:
“The banks have repaid the TARP funds and I am using the money to help homeowners who are behind on their payments or owe more than their home is worth. As you may remember from my campaign, I am going to raise taxes on anyone earning over $200,000. For those with less income like you, I will create programs to save your home. This is all part of my plan to spread the wealth around and that’s good for everybody.”

Smith:
“Mr. President, let me see if I have this right. I do a big land deal, the market tanks, and I get into a hole. I buy a nice home, the market tanks and I am underwater. My wife and I are making a lot less than we did before. Now you intend to take money that should be used to pay down the federal deficit and instead use it to bail me out from my own difficulties?”

Obama:
“Yes, that’s exactly it, your troubles are over! You won’t have to work two jobs and your wife can enjoy the weekends off. Your payments will be lower and the government will pay the bank $100,000 so you will no longer be underwater on your home loan.”

Smith:
“Mr President, with all due respect to your office and your generous offer of other people’s money – no thank you. I was not raised to take handouts, especially of money that my children and their children’s children will spend their whole lives repaying with interest. I got myself into this present position and I shall work my way out of it or die in the process. Not all Americans are like “Peggy the Moocher””

“You have greatly angered me with your offer of a handout, the eventual cost of which will be borne by future generations. You have personally insulted me with your implication that I somehow need government help to emerge from a temporary setback.
I deeply resent that flock of reporters eagerly waiting to spread stories about my private business all over the country in order to make you look good. The fact that you have been snooping into my tax records and home loan information irritates me even more.”

“Now it would please me greatly if you were to leave my property immediately and never return. You may be the Commander in Chief, but until and unless you condemn this land through eminent domain, it is private property and neither you, your guards, nor your bevy of media sycophants are welcome on it.’

“There is a Kenworth waiting for a driver and I have to go. Good day Mr. President.”

** This is a new add-on to HAMP – The Home Affordable Modification Program which has cost over $75 Billion so far with a 60% rate of re-default within a year. It can now be used to assist with mortgages up to $729,750!

Ever heard of “Obama Money”? Here is your big chance!

The Health Care debate consumed over a year of the administration’s and Congress’ time. The Senate Bill and the House Reconciliation Bill will soon be signed into law. So far 13 State Attorneys General are suing the Federal Government to prevent the mandates included in the Bill from taking effect in their states. These actions will gum up the court system and embroil the legislation in protracted legal battles for months or years.

This massive misallocation of legislative resources is keeping the government and the economy at near paralysis. The American people are spending inordinate amounts of time and money fighting this law. Businesses are frozen in fear of higher taxes and penalties included in the Bill. For instance, Caterpillar just charged $100 Million against earnings for the additional costs on them alone. Investors are deeply concerned about threatened higher taxes on capital gains, rental, and dividend income. Without confident investors, jobs do not get created.

There is only one type of person who could seriously believe that health care in this fragile economy is the most important legislative goal. That person must have absolutely no business experience or understanding of basic economic principles. I give you “Exhibit 1” – President Obama. His experience is as a professor, lawyer, community organizer, and legislator. He has never met a payroll, exercised executive responsibilities, nor faced the challenges and demands of a businessman or investor. His sincere but erroneous belief is that wealth must be forcibly taken from those who produce it and given to those who do not. He obviously slept through any economics classes he was forced to take, or Paul Krugman was the instructor. When you say: “Adam Smith”, Obama thinks of that squishy liberal Congressman from Washington State – not the man who wrote Wealth of Nations.

As the economy continues its unstable drift into an unknown future, Obama and his gang of czars and sycophants continue to tax, spend, and borrow in their futile and dangerous quest for wealth redistribution instead of wealth creation. These actions bleed ambition from the entrepreneurial and creative risk takers while breeding dependency into additional sectors of the population.

Bill Clinton was travelling a similar path until 1994. The American people awoke and peacefully rebelled. A sea change in Congress forced him into a saner direction. Barack Obama needs a similar wake-up call. He shall receive it this coming November.

Here’s what my friend wrote:

“Anyone who supported a $3 trillion intervention so that Iraqis could experience the joys of democracy, but now claims that “we can’t afford” health care reform, is not allowed to participate in meaningful policy debate for at least the next four years.”

Here is my response to him:

I sincerely respect you for your service, but your hysterical and whacked out view of this situation is troubling.

First off, your “$3 trillion” figure is well over 400% of the actual cost which is $714,640,000,000. That is MUCH LESS than $3 trillion. You should check these facts out before just sending stuff from your friend along as fact.

Second, our national debt combined with the total unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is approximately $117 TRILLION * BEFORE adding the monstrous health care entitlement program. I know it makes liberals feel good to dragoon money from those who earn it and give it to those who don’t, but who is going to end up holding the debt sack when the music stops and China quits funding our shortfalls?

My beloved Goddaughter will be paying all her life for this criminal foolishness long after we who squandered her future are gone. Unfortunately liberals are present time oriented and cannot consider history or contemplate the future. They are stuck in the here and now and only care about what makes them feel good in the moment. Playing Robin Hood with other peoples’ money gives them a Chris Mathews type tickle up their leg. They are incapable of considering the long term damage their asinine misallocation of productive resources will eventually lead to.

You can believe in this nonsense and support it all you want, but my job is to fight it to my last breath.

Now please do the honorable thing and forward this response along to all those you sent the original message to. You are welcome to include my name, email and phone number. Don’t forget to send it along to your friend Mr. XXXX.

All the Best,

Old Iron Jarhead

* Just for concept purposes, that is 336 STACKS of $100 bills that would reach the International Space Station from the earth’s surface.

The US House of Representatives just voted to go forward with “deeming” the Senate Health Care Bill passed in a vote scheduled for Sunday. Above is Jay Inslee’s vote and the official tally. 221 others – All Democrats – voted with him.

This vote was taken so House members could avoid actually voting on the Senate Bill.

Somehow Jay Inslee thinks his fingerprints will not appear on the Bill if it passes, but he cannot hide. The American people know exactly what this chicanery is about and will not stand still for it.

Here is Dr. Paul Broun, a House Member from Georgia succinctly describing the arrogant hubris of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

I urge you to contact Mr. Inslee and let him know you see right through this subterfuge. Then donate generously to James Watkins who will be running against Inslee this fall.

http://www.watkinsforcongress.com/

Following is Inslee’s contact information. His email will reject yours if your ZIP Code is out of his district. The phone and FAX numbers are busy a lot, but with some perseverance, one can get through.

403 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515-4701

Phone: (202) 225-6311
Fax: (202) 226-1606

Office hours:
9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Eastern Time

Shoreline Center
18560 1st Ave., NE
Suite E-800
Shoreline, WA 98155-2150

Phone: (206) 361-0233
Fax: (206) 361-3959

The Senate solemnly adopted a bill nicknamed “PAYGO” recently. They agreed that any additional discretionary spending would be offset by a reduction elsewhere or a tax increase. It was in reality not much more than a political fig leaf to protect the Senators from additional criticism, but at least it was supposed to be a start on controlling the near criminal level of spending and debt. Over Bunning’s objections, PAYGO was ignored and another $10 Billion was spent without any offsetting cuts.

The funding was for yet further extensions of unemployment benefits, COBRA health care benefits, and some federal programs. Also included was a replenishment of the Highway Trust Fund to allow some construction projects to continue. The minute Bunning put a hold on the bill, the tempest exploded. He was harassed by news reporters and cameras demanding explanations of why he would be so cruel as to hold up the funds. He was denounced by our very own Patty Murray and many others on the Senate floor. His fellow Republicans held their noses and fled the scene. Jim Bunning, like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, was alone against the elements.

One of the very few Senators who voiced support was Scott Brown, the freshman Senator from Massachusetts. The lesson here is that Brown knows that one of the reasons he was elected was to clamp down on the disastrous levels of spending at the federal level. He has only been in office a month and has not yet been tainted with the DC way of doing business.

In a federal budget with $666 Billion in non defense discretionary spending, The Senate flatly refused to find an offsetting reduction which would have been a mere one and one half percent. Nor would they allow the use of $10 Billion out of the unspent “stimulus” funds. Instead, they insisted on borrowing the dough from China and saddling our kids with the additional debt. This senseless, asinine buffoonery has to stop.

Unfortunately, Bunning collapsed under pressure and folded late in the game. He was off to a good start, but morphed into the cowardly lion. America needs some courageous, principled Congressman and Senators. Will we elect them this November? It is up to us.

President Obama was sworn in with unemployment on the rise, the financial establishment in turmoil, a sick stock market, and a housing market implosion. There were plenty of things to fear at that moment, including world wide economic weakness. Obama faced similar if not as serious problems as did Roosevelt.

FDR fought the difficulties of his time with massive government programs and spending that had little positive result, but enormously expanded the national debt. The Great Depression slogged on with only minor relief until the outbreak of WW II ended it. President Obama is following the same path, fully expecting different results from repeating the same policies. In the process, he is only feeding the fear that is crippling what should be a strong resurgence.

The TARP bailout was not created to provide a piggybank for picking winners and losers in industry. It was put in place to prevent collapse of the large financial houses and banks that were teetering on catastrophe. Once in office, Obama dragooned TARP funds to bail out Chrysler and GM – acts that were never permitted in the original legislation. The banks are repaying the funds with interest, but the auto companies are not. A trip through bankruptcy court would have been the best cure, but that would have required the companies and the UAW to severely adjust their bankrupt practices. Obama cushioned his union backers at the expense of taxpayers. The Hugo Chavez act of basically nationalizing the car makers struck fear into large corporations and small firms since it begged the question of who might be next.

Next up was the so-called stimulus bill to the tune of about $800 Billion. Hysterically rammed into law in the first weeks of the new administration, it was a commitment to borrow money from abroad and blow it on pork and make-work projects. Obama promised that unemployment would not go above 8% if it passed. Now it has topped 10%. The only jobs the bill “saved” were those of federal, state, and municipal workers. In the meantime, evidence has surfaced that the bill’s extension of unemployment benefits has enabled folks to postpone actively seeking employment. The mere fact the results were the reverse of what was promised, after committing such a huge mountain of money creates more fear of government action.

President Obama declared that under his cap & trade legislation “electricity costs will necessarily skyrocket.” If this scheme becomes law, it will chase manufacturing jobs overseas and destroy the housing market. Since the bill has stalled in Congress, the EPA has stepped in. They seized the power to regulate carbon outputs by issuing an “endangerment finding” declaring CO2 a “harmful pollutant.” Every business person in the country knows what that will dramatically increase the cost of doing business, which will lead to higher prices and less demand for products. Less demand means less commerce and fewer jobs. They stand in fear of the fact that such rulemaking and regulation could well destroy their livelihoods.

Let us not forget the Damocles Sword of health care reform. It hangs over the heads of every firm and individual that currently has a health care plan. Will it pass? Will it fail? Will some middle ground be agreed upon? Until one of those questions is answered in a definite manner, the 85% of Americans who currently have health live in fear that the plan they have today may well be history soon. Who can make any rational decisions to grow a business, change jobs, or even plan for the future with such uncertainty?

How about the threats and near certainty of higher taxes to help pay for all this largesse, regulation, and additional entitlement spending? How could the rational man or woman be tempted to risk starting or investing in a business, or hiring more workers, knowing that even more of their hard-earned money will be taken from them at virtual gunpoint? Most businesses and individuals refuse to invest under such circumstances. Obama’s statement to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” basically means that he intends to take from those who earn and give to those who don’t. Job creators are fearful, and many will keep their money in their mattresses.

The biggest and most frightening monster under the bed is national debt and the huge unfunded obligations of entitlement programs. These liabilities being transferred onto future generations add up to well over $100 Trillion and climbing. Americans are becoming acutely aware of this impending catastrophe and are very concerned that instead of doing anything about it, this administration is making the situation vastly worse. Millions are buying gold instead of products out of the fear of future inflation.

The shaky situation among some EU countries of course adds somewhat to the fear that most Americans feel at the present time, but it is nothing but a minor concern. The US economy has rebounded strongly from most past recessions and there is no reason it should not be doing so right now – except for the real fears outlined above – all products of this administration and its policies.

We Americans do not fear fear itself; we fear our futures are being squandered in front of our eyes by the misguided and damaging policies of this administration. We do fear risking our capital on promising, job generating opportunities and then seeing the overreaching laws destroy the business. We do fear working our selves to the bone and being taxed to the point we retain only chump change. We fear the spending, the debt, the regulation, and unprecedented government control of our lives and businesses.

Sending the President and Congress on a 3-year non working vacation would do more to bring this economy back than any and all of the destructive, loopy, expensive and foolish actions they are presently promoting. Being completely absorbed in their own self importance, they will ignore this suggestion, but the American people have the opportunity to broom scores of them from office this fall. Be sure to vote in November and then plug your ears. When the polls close, there will be power shift that may well reinvigorate the nation and its people.

President Obama and his Congressional leaders should back off immediately from their threats to force this bill through on reconciliation. 2600+/- pages of legislation written behind closed doors by lawyers, legislators, unions, and special interests can only be contaminated with perks, payoffs, distortions, and destructive mandates. Obama is in the last stages of desperation – fearing a political loss – and is reacting by pulling every string he can to ram the bill through Congress and sign it into law. He does not care about, and is oblivious to, the wishes of the majority of Americans. This entire situation is all about him. He will decide what is best for the rest of us 306 million other Americans.

The best cure for this headless monster grinding its way toward potential passage is a good explosion.* All versions of the bill should be stacked on the street in front of the Capitol and detonated by the DC bomb squad. The resulting confetti should then be reviewed, piece by piece.  Each piece should be debated on the merits of:  “How much will this cost”?  “Are we raiding Medicare to pay for this new entitlement”? “Will the patient have any say in their treatment”?

Health care costs more today because we get better care than ever before.  Health care costs have risen dramatically for several reasons. First is the amazing development of technology and wonder drugs which have accelerated exponentially since penicillin became available in the early ‘40s. Does anyone want to go back to when life expectancy was 63? Our present life expectancy is now 78 and such progress costs money.

Second, the true cost is hidden from the consumer. The massive handoffs of medical costs to HMOs and insurance companies that occur in our present system create a negative insulating effect. Back when people paid their GP doctor directly, it was a payment for services rendered between two individuals. Now the doctor bills the insurance company for whatever amount the HMO will pay. The patients do not care about the true cost because their only cost was  a small co-pay. The involvement of the insurance company separates the doctor and the patient from a true arms-length transaction. Health savings accounts and catastrophic insurance coverage go a long way toward redressing these market distortions, but are disfavored in this bill.

Third, Trial lawyers pick apart even a good doctor’s care and make health care costs rise for everyone.  Lawyers delight in gathering up “victims” of medical malpractice and bringing lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, and medical suppliers. They cherry pick venues and jury shop for the best jackpot potentials and then either force an expensive settlement or brazenly convince a jury that there is some connection between a procedure or medicine and the adverse effects on their clients. These trends have led to huge liability insurance burdens for all providers in the industry. Thousands of specialist physicians have discontinued certain procedures completely.

The flip side is that billions are spent on redundant and unnecessary tests for the sole reason to escape the potential of a damaging lawsuit if and when a patient does not recover satisfactorily. The costs of the huge liability insurance premiums and superfluous tests are passed along to patients, HMOs and health insurance firms. Any attempt to redress this situation is totally missing in the legislation proposed.

Government interference in the insurance market increases costs. State insurance commissioners tell insurance firms which services and procedures they must cover. As a result, consumers are left with poor choices of insurance policies. A policy available in Colorado usually cannot be purchased in Washington. Therefore, people cannot select among a wide variety of plans and are strictly limited to plans approved by their state government. This unduly restricts interstate competition among insurance companies who; being in business to gain customers and make a profit would quickly fill the gaps if allowed to and increase consumer choice dramatically. The health care bill makes no attempt to resolve this impediment,  either.

These are just a few of the situations that are adversely affecting health care costs and insurance availability. Each issue should be dealt with honestly if Obama truly wishes to reform care and reduce costs for the good of the entire country. President Obama should stand before the American people and pull the pin on these massive and dangerous schemes he has supported for so long. He should stop his arrogant, obstinate refusal to embrace reality and demand Congress start from a clean sheet of paper. His popularity will skyrocket if he is man enough to admit a mistake before it metastasizes into a national disaster.

Here is a great clip which took place during a recent Congressional committee hearing:

Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers really hits the nail on the head.

* I do not advocate any violence or mischief towards people or buildings.  When I say “bomb it,” I am merely referring to the 2,600+ pieces of paper that contain the printed words of the health care takeover bill.  I am suggesting a symbolic and safe demonstration of our distaste for these proposed new laws.

Senator Murray rose from a faculty position, fully baked in the hothouse of liberal politically correct groupthink, to Washington State Senator in a few short years. She was swept into the US Senate on Clinton’s coattails in “the year of the woman”, 1992. Her sad sack opponent in the race only provided her a tailwind with his inept performance on the stump. She has been reelected twice since by a constituency from what FDR used to call “The Soviet of Washington”. She means well and has a heart of gold, but her voting record does not resemble anything in the long term interest of America’s future.

Our nation is plunging toward national bankruptcy. The ballooning costs of Social Security and Medicare loom as the destroyer of future generations. Families, especially among blacks have been disrupted and destroyed by the corrosive degradation of liberal anti poverty programs. Billions are wasted on 19th century technology like light rail while billions more are squandered on loopy alternative energy schemes. Public education, rotting for decades, is controlled not by administrators, but the teachers’ unions. Affirmative action, minimum wage, and protected classes laws have begat the unintended consequences of employers avoiding hiring subject individuals.

The Democratic Party and its sincere belief in big government solutions to every problem has led the way on legislation that has proven counterproductive, expensive, harmful, and unsustainable for 77 years. Patty Murray has been a myopic cheerleader for such buffoonery all her adult life. During the 110th Congress, her voting record was 97.5% along party lines; a tie for the very top spot with Richard Durban of Illinois. That is not legislating – it is rubber stamping anything the party tells her to vote for.

Recently President Obama had his much heralded “health care summit” and fortunately Patty was there to demonstrate her limited and uninspired grasp of the subject. The performance was so pathetic, absolutely oblivious of the long term consequences and costs, we should examine it here.

Murray’s banal monologue focused only on emotion with a sad story about a little kid who had lost his mother because she had no health care. It was entirely one-dimensional, never considering the aspects of costs, possibility, efficiency, or reality. All Murray could think about was one unhappy situation occurring at a fixed point in time. Her only vacuous point was that the government has to “do something”. The country, its long term fiscal health and the consequences to be borne by our descendants never entered her mind.

Murray blindly ignores the fact that as the future unfolds, far too many have  claims upon the earnings of far too few. The massive and unpaid for entitlement programs we already have helped ourselves to are presently approaching bankruptcy. Her knee jerk support for yet more government control and spending on an unfathomable 2600 page health care bill can only be explained by her typical liberal preoccupation with the present time. She knows not about history, cares not about reality, and sees not the future. Her only vision is limited to her slavish devotion to yet more big government solutions she mistakenly “feels” would make things better. “Reasoning” out the costs and unintended consequences is obviously beyond her capacity.

The entire future of our nation depends on whether the march of the nanny state can be arrested and rolled back before it destroys liberty as we have known it and condemns our children to serfdom. Murray is part and parcel an enabler of our potential future under Big Brother, and leaving her in office for 6 more years only exacerbates the possibility of the day when it will be too late to stop it. We in Washington have to elect a different senator.

Murray went to the Senate touting her moniker “The Mom in Tennis Shoes” but immediately melted them down and cast them into a rubber stamp. Her hardwired support base will back her forever since they pay no more attention to history and future consequences than she does. It is up to those of us who can see the long term damage of liberal policies, spending, entitlements, and social engineering to send Murray back to a college classroom. There she can damage only a few young minds at a time instead of continuing to help push America off the precipice of dependency, indebtedness and international impotence.

Obama is obviously continuing to beat a huge square peg into a small round hole and has been doing so for a year. It reminds one of a housefly trying to get through a window on a sunny afternoon – continuously banging into an immovable object not realizing it is an impassible barrier. How can an intelligent Harvard educated President purposely continue to prove Einstein’s definition of “insanity”? Let’s suppose the entire fiasco has morphed into nothing but a decoy.

Obama came to office with an agenda to accelerate and further enable the transfer of wealth from those who produce it to those who do not. This is exactly what he told Joe the Plumber he was planning. He has managed to triple the federal deficit in his first year in office and project similar levels of spending and borrowing out for at least the next 10 years – even before the health care costs are potentially added to it. This has alarmed taxpayers and set off reactions across the entire country, but the disastrous spending continues unabated. The main reason it appears that spending is now on auto pilot is that the opponents are completely involved fending off the health care legislation. They have neither time nor energy to address the spending fight.

The health care debate is the perfect foil which is blocking effective opposition to the stimulus, omnibus, TARP, and “jobs” money incinerators. This administration knows that the American people are strongly against the idea of government running 1/6 of the entire economy. They know that health care cannot pass Congress on a bipartisan vote. The value of continuing to push it is to keep the fiscal hawks diverted away from spending programs presently running amuck.

Republicans are fighting a small holding action on the parapet of health care. Meanwhile the ground in front, around, and behind them is being overrun with the unsustainable spending and borrowing that is endangering the financial future of the entire nation. As Scott brown gets elected to the Senate, Obama is scheming to spend the TARP funds repaid by the banks on make work, vote buying pork in swing states. As proof that the stimulus has actually worsened unemployment surfaces, voices calling for the termination of the program are drowned out by the cacophony of the health care battle. Fannie, Freddie, GM, Chrysler, and AIG among others enjoy the status of zombie companies which should have been used as organ donors and buried long ago, but instead continue to dine on taxpayers.

The health care takeover started out as a genuine goal for the Obama administration. Sometime in the past several months, they realized that it had no chance of passing along conventional lines. At that point, the prudent thing would have appeared to have been to abandon it and concentrate instead on the economy. Since prolonging it seems so counterproductive in the face of all the evidence, it must have been continued precisely to create the perfect smoke screen to obscure and protect the ongoing catastrophic spending of the administration’s other programs.

When Obama came into office all he had to do was load the American people into a huge imported bus, fill it with diesel from Saudi Arabia, and head off full throttle to our final destination. Whether the wheels come off and it crashes, or it finally finishes the journey, one thing is for certain. Our children and grandchildren will enter adulthood in a world of want and deeply in debt.

We adults must not continue to burn through our descendants’ future by generously granting ourselves layer upon layer of “entitlements” to see us through our later years. The Greatest and Boomer generations have set themselves up as the beginning investors in a series of massive Ponzi schemes with follow-on generations as the patsies. Had they done so as private citizens; they would be keeping company with Bernie Madoff right now. Just because Congress and past presidents made these things “law” doesn’t make them “right”. This writer considers them criminal intergenerational theft. These “entitlement” programs must be effectively reformed into entities that are sustainable long term.

The huge uptick in discretionary spending is also damaging this nation. Keynesian theory posits that governments must run surpluses in good times and spend heavily through tougher times. The intent was to use the surplus and borrowing to finance spending increases when needed to stabilize employment. The deficits were to be repaid in times of surplus. Keynes, like Marx, ignored human nature. We now know politicians will spend every dime and more in good times and then borrow to sustain the spending in difficult years. Elected officials of both parties have proven this throughout the past 80 years. They repeatedly buy their way into office promising “something for nothing” and eventually depart leaving the general public holding the sack of unfunded promises.

Congress just voted to increase the national debt limit. The Washington State legislature arrogantly trashed a publicly voted measure that required a 2/3 majority to raise taxes. Oregonians went to the polls and slammed businesses and high earners with additional taxes. California has spent itself into bankruptcy.

DeTocqueville warned of this in the 1830s, and now it is upon us. It is up to the American people to put a stop to it and the longer we ignore the gathering storm, the worse our nation, our youngsters, and those yet unborn will suffer. It is 5 minutes to High Noon. Who is coming with me?

The American people may be facing their final chance to write the end to the last of the big spenders. If the republicans can overcome their own tainted past and absorb the lessons of the past year, they can save this country from the fate of Weimar Germany. If they field candidates and incumbents for the November election who are perceived by Americans as “more of the same,” they will not prevail. Should they put forth honest candidates with principles, drive, and courage, this could become a turning point in American history.

Republicans had their big chance in 1994 when they were swept into power in the aftermath of a president who reached too far. They were elected to clean out the brothel and stop the exorbitant spending. They did all right until their leader got caught in a scandal at which point they lost their way. In 2001 with a republican president, they completely succumbed to the temptations of the trough. Those who were elected to clean out the whorehouse became its most loyal customers. They got shellacked in ’98 and again in ’00. They had it coming and now only a year later, they still have that faint scent of cheap perfume about them. Americans know where they have been and are having a hard time forgetting it.

Now the country faces the future with leadership of very dubious capabilities. It is becoming apparent that the Obama administration is floundering. Their misplaced priorities are angering the citizens. Their reckless spending is worrying the markets. Threats of punitive legislation and taxes are frightening investors and entrepreneurs. Bailouts and takeovers along with huge cash transfers to states benefitting only bureaucrats and public employee unions are provoking a grass roots backlash. Namby pamby treatment of vile enemies and rogue states telegraphs insecurity and weakness to the entire world. If these activities continue, the only question will be whether this nation ceases to be a world leader, goes bankrupt, or both.

In our two party system it has been proven again and again that 3rd party efforts usually end up electing the candidate the 3rd party most wants to defeat. Such efforts are dead ends pursued mostly out of ego and not common sense. It is imperative that the grass roots tea party types be heeded and the Republican Party embraces their desires. We need a congress made up of half “Mr. Smith” and half Chain Saw Al Dunlap types. Republicans must select and run such candidates and the independent voters will push them over the top and into office.

The present situation can be reversed, but it will take every voter, every candidate, and every activist working together to get it done this year. Our nation deserves no less. Our descendants are counting on us. God Bless America.

Some valuable lessons were learned when the past administrations tried to eliminate programs and departments. Every handout, subsidy, boondoggle, or obsolete program has a constituency behind it. In the “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” atmosphere of Congress, the votes to eliminate anything are traded just as carefully as votes to initiate something. The only way to approach this is to build momentum from incremental moves. All these programs and departments were established one at a time. They will have to be cut apart piece by piece and bone by bone in chunks too small to affect any but a small number of beneficiaries.

The best suggestion is to start out with Mathew Lesko’s books and “Free Money Club” on line. House member’s staffers could cull the thousands of government giveaway programs and bills could be written to eliminate them one or only a few at a time. “Small potatoes” some will say, but when Congress wastes time on stupid resolutions like honoring some ball team, entertainer, or athlete, they could certainly take the time to vote on a couple wasteful programs each day. Since each bill would be eliminating very limited target, the possibility of a majority voting against it would be minimized.

The next step is earmark reform. The public is sick and tired of these blatant efforts by Congress to fund pet projects in return for votes and political contributions. The present bunch of incumbents is deaf to the outrage and they will pay the price in November. A crop of new representatives and senators with some momentum could use the tailwind of a landslide election and the expectations of their supporters to end the practice once and for all. Concrete rules have to be established that amendments must apply directly to whatever bill is under consideration.

Ronald Reagan said government reaction to business was “If it moves, tax it. If it continues to move, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.” Taxing and borrowing to subsidize failure is ludicrous. The government taxes successful individuals and businesses, borrows billions abroad, and funds pathetic economic black holes like wind farms and light rail. No sane person would buy a car that only worked 25% of the time, but wind farms do exactly that, which is why they are not being built by private enterprise without huge subsidies from the federal government.

Rails were invented because the motive power in the 1800s was too heavy to move about on roads. Cars and airplanes evolved to improve transportation, but we are stuck carrying Amtrack at huge losses because a few romantics think trains are still necessary. Heavy rail moves freight efficiently, but people need to move faster than freight. Worse, light rail which became obsolete with the invention of efficient busses is now being built at tremendous cost in cities where it will never be viable. The per passenger/ride subsidies create financial drains forever. Ethanol fuel consumes more energy in its production than it delivers when burned. Dumping corn in stills to make lousy motor fuel instead of feeding it to people and animals is a gross misallocation of resources. If light rail, wind farms, and ethanol can’t make a profit, the government has no business wasting hundreds of billions each year on them and other such economic losers.

The only way to eliminate some of these massive expenditures in dead ends is to introduce bills individually where urban representatives can vote against farm subsidies and rural representatives can help kill rail and other utopian foolishness. These will have to be broken down even farther perhaps; stopping Seattle light rail one month and chopping the Twin Cities another time. Ethanol could go in one bite, dairy products in another, and crop by crop, the rest of the farm support would be gone. Does anyone really think that American agriculture will stop producing if it were to operate as a self supporting industry?

De Tocqueville warned 180 years ago that the American Experiment would likely fail once the people realized they could vote themselves money. He was right, but the past few generations of politicians have been too busy buying votes instead of paying heed to his warnings. We stand on the edge of the abyss. For the love of our country and its future citizens, we must seize this moment and save their future before it turns to ashes.

There are three options:

1. Do nothing, allowing the future to unfold leading to national financial ruin.
2. Kick the can along to the next generation with tax increases and band aid fixes.
3. Fix it now- forever- while the popular inertia is behind the idea.

1 and 2 are already discredited having been practiced over the past 50 years. Buying votes from senior citizens over the past 3 generations and fearing their retribution every other November has brought the system to the breaking point. The third choice is the only realistic path and we may just be witnessing the grass roots support to get it done.

Social Security was passed as a self sustaining government run plan to provide a minimum level of benefits to retirees, many of whom were entering old age destitute from enduring the Great depression. Over the years it was larded with additional benefits, recipients, and the billions collected from payers was squandered on present spending. The money was replaced with government IOUs. The system just went into the red and those IOUs must be covered through additional deficits and borrowing.

The only way to save the system is to ratchet the retirement age up over time to the equivalent of what it was in 1935. If it was a fair age of eligibility then, it is fair now. In 1935 life expectancy was 61.7 and eligibility began at 65. Today the average is 77.8. Using the original formula, benefits should start at just under 82 years of age. Although many seniors would be able to work well into their 70s, expecting them to do so until 82 might not be realistic.

An alternative would be to allow anyone to retire at any age but be eligible for only monthly benefits based on lifetime contributions, and accrued interest divided by the number of months actuarial tables show as additional lifespan. These benefits could be paid until death based on this formula since half the recipients will pass on prior, and half after the expected life years point arrives. The longer one works before retirement, the higher their benefits would be.

Neither of these ideas will be palatable to seniors, but something like this has to be done to save our young and unborn from the consequences of an overly generous and unsustainable retirement program. The follow-on benefit will be that a majority of folks approaching retirement age will be highly motivated to save and invest on their own behalf well ahead of reaching their golden years.

Medicare was passed in 1965 with a promised yearly cost of $500 Million. LBJ purposely withheld internal projections that showed a widening gap between proposed spending and estimated liabilities. As of 2008, the total unfunded liabilities going forward stood at $74 TRILLION! This cannot possibly be allowed to continue on this trajectory. Here again, folks who reach 65 and are expected to live another 15 years on average are being given basically free medical care and prescription medicines at the expense of a shrinking (in relative terms) base of taxpayer support. Compassion for the aged is a wonderful and noble thing, but the word “impossible” is quickly appearing over the horizon. What methods will prevent this catastrophe from engulfing future generations?

One concept would be to structure payable benefits based on paid in taxes and accrued interest as suggested above. Instead of cash transfers or payment of hospital and drug costs, the monthly benefit would be directly paid to a private insurer of the recipient’s choice against the cost of a catastrophic health insurance policy. The recipient would pay the difference monthly between the policy cost and the Medicare subsidy. The beneficiary would be expected to pay out of pocket for routine medical treatment up to so much per year. Over and above that outlay, the policy would kick in – exactly like Health Savings Accounts.

A second idea would be for the government to establish purpose built hospitals in large urban centers specifically to treat seniors who could not afford private care. These would be last resort type options and would probably be about as efficient as the Postal Service. The twin benefits would be that treatment would be cheaper and somewhat limited in quality, but the thought of ending up in such a facility would motivate savings and planning to avoid such a situation.

These are just a couple ideas from which to start discussion. However no such dialogue can possibly start; and these huge problems cannot ever be solved without a tectonic change of leadership in Washington. There may be a loophole in history forming right now that could lead to such a move. The growing rage at the grass roots level, if coordinated and successful, could well bring a flock of principled and courageous new legislators to Congress in November. They would join the remaining battle scarred incumbents who after fighting for their political lives may indeed be ready to do the right things.

Let us hope the power and inertia of the tea party movement does not metastasize into a third party fiasco, but instead elevates strong, fiscally responsible candidates from both parties into office. In the next piece we will offer some suggestions on how to reduce discretionary spending by eliminating expensive and useless programs and subsidies.

LBJ sent this writer to war in a Marine rifle company on borrowed money.  Then he pushed through his Great Society legislation which created never ending fiscal outflows and saddled this nation with untenable programs soon to go into deficit.  These programs were of course added on top of a Social Security commitment dating from 1937 that was already heading for trouble.  Government programs expanded, increased, and spending grew throughout subsequent administrations.  Clinton is credited with actually balancing the budget and creating a surplus with a lot of help from a fiscally responsible (for a very short time) House of Representatives. 

The second Bush presidency went off the rails and the next thing we knew, another huge entitlement program, a couple wars, reinstated farm subsidies and increased earmarks brought back huge deficits.  Congress was back on a spending spree and “W” lacked courage with the veto pen. 

Most of these entitlement programs and spending were initiated for one reason only – to buy votes in the next election and support incumbency.  It is basically spending borrowed money to play sugar daddy to the next bloc of voters some politician wants to buy off.  An earmark here, a program there, an occasional new cabinet department and it all continues to add up to an impossible burden. 

In the past year we have seen TARP, the Stimulus Bill, the Omnibus Bill, and now 2 versions of proposed health care reform which combined have caused the deficit and national debt projections to be blown beyond the Land of Oz.  The yellow brick road is paved with government IOUs.  Recently we heard that since there has been no inflation, Social Security recipients won’t get a COLA increase.  How best to try to buy off these folks who are somewhat reticent about health care reform? Well, the President wants to give them a raise anyway.  What’s a paltry 14 Billion Dollars when we are already 13 Trillion underwater? Now we are staring at a new budget with a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit with promises of yet more to come.  This behavior is irresponsible, out of control, and blatantly self-serving. 

Lord Acton once said “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  The Republicans proved this between 2000 and 2006 when they ran wild with spending, earmarks, and entitlements resulting in huge deficit growth.  They abandoned core principles for the aroma of the trough and the near criminal quest for reelection.  Their buffoonery was rewarded by being booted out of power.  Now the Democrats, supreme in the White House and Congress are striving to lure millions more Americans into the false security of entitlement dependency for the sole purpose of remaining in power – on borrowed funds, of course. 

 Buying auto manufacturers with money borrowed from China, propping up “too big to fail” financial firms which should have been broken up and sold off in manageable chunks, and blowing $780 Billion on pork laden “stimulus” measures all fits into the plan.  Cap and Trade bills in the works will cripple the global competitiveness of major industries, raise energy prices, and destroy the resale home market.  If this bunch gets their way with health care, the Postal Workers Union will eventually be running our hospitals.  This administration is moving lock step toward imposing their own group think into legislation and international agreements that will severely inhibit any possible economic recovery and create compounding deficits for decades to come. 

The current unfunded liabilities of Medicare parts A, B, & D amount to 89.3 TRILLION DOLLARS.   Congress and the President want to cut Medicare by $500 Billion to shell game some of the costs of their health care reform plan.  This is nothing but a Madoff Moment milking one Ponzi scheme to fund yet another.  We might assume that particular plan is dead with the election of Scott Brown, but it may only be playing possum.  In the meantime the administration is trying to pass another stimulus bill and dragoon the repaid TARP funds into additional spending.   

Who EXACTLY is ever going to pay for this irresponsible fiscal lunacy? Well, let’s let Jamie pay for it for the rest of her life long after we who spent the dough are gone.  She won’t ever be able to remove our dead hands from her pocketbook.  She, her children and grandchildren will be condemned to lives of serfdom – all because powerful politicians cared more about their own selfish interests than the good of the country, its future, and its people. 

Americans should take a long look in the mirror and realize who put these people in office from the president on down over the past half century.  We are being led down a chute to national financial slaughter by them and since the bill will come due over the next couple generations, we will be remembered as the ones who crippled our nation with debt, spent the dreams of our children, and sold them into financial servitude.  We will not be kindly remembered by our descendents.  If you have young ones that you love as I do, and you have one scintilla of self respect and common decency, you will help reverse this disastrous course before it consumes our nation and its people. 

How do we begin? First we must realize that in nearly all cases, “something for nothing” from the government is just flat wrong.

Unfortunately the cabinet and advisor roles were filled up with eastern intellectual types with little practical business experience and political hacks with even less. The President and his team then embarked on a frenzied search for something – anything – that would renew growth and create jobs. In December, 1933 only months into his administration, Roosevelt received a letter from John Maynard Keynes who was just developing the theories we know today as Keynesian Economics. Below are two quotes from that letter:

“Thus as the prime mover in the first stage of the technique of recovery I lay overwhelming emphasis on the increase of national purchasing power resulting from governmental expenditure which is financed by Loans and not by taxing present incomes.”

“In the field of domestic policy, I put in the forefront, for the reasons given above, a large volume of Loan-expenditures under Government auspices.”

During the next few years the most common theme among all the programs, bureaus, laws, and plans that came forth was spending heavily by government using borrowed money and higher taxes. The unemployment rate went from 25% to 15% by early 1937. However just when the nation was beginning to feel some improvement, the Depression returned in 1938 with unemployment again at 20%. The national debt had increased by 62% in four years and the economy was tanking into a double dip depression. The beginning of WW II in 1939 with its large defense orders under Lend Lease and sales to allied belligerents was the only thing that pulled the U.S out after over ten years of economic hardship.

Deficit spending and higher taxes – the top marginal rate had been raised to 79% – were only part of the problem. Uncertainty among investors and consumers was rampant. Federal price controls and policing gummed up business planning and profits. Ridiculous programs to kill pigs and burn crops to raise farm prices backfired by making agricultural products unaffordable to millions on limited incomes. Huge public works programs administered by party hacks and unions employed democrats but froze out republican workers. Banks were overwhelmed with repossessions of failed farms, businesses and homes. Fear and uncertainty over what the government might do, or who it would punish next choked off initiative. How and why would anyone even think about starting or expanding a business under conditions such as these?

To quote Yogi Berra, the present administration is “déjà vu all over again. ” Inexperienced intellectual types in charge, a grinding recession, high unemployment, and humongous borrowing and spending look familiar.  The bombastic threats to banks and insurance firms along with the near certainty of higher taxes have a severe chilling effect on business development and future planning. Ersatz nationalization of automobile manufacturers and stimulus cash to states and municipalities mainly benefit the UAW, SEIU, and NEA.  Raising discretionary spending by 20% and jacking the deficit to three times its former amount  with failed stimulus efforts mirror the actions of the ‘30s that obviously failed at that time.

Instead of burning crops and killing piglets, we are threatened with cap & trade, health care, tax increases, draconian regulation, and wasteful government projects.  Trillions will be flushed away on useless boondoggles from light rail to the study of cow manure.  The unholy bill for these expenses will fall upon those yet unborn.

Keynesian deficit spending has failed in the U.S in the ‘30s, the ‘70s, and in Japan yet today.  Such beliefs belong on the ash heap of history.  It is among the universe of ideas so aptly described by George Orwell: “There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”  Our leaders are but a cabal of inexperienced, present time oriented elitists who; refusing to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.  We must slash the spending, lower taxes, roll back regulation, and stop threatening to punish success. 

The American people are beginning to reject this situation.  In their hearts they realize that American Exceptionalism built and sustained this nation for over 200 years.  Americans will bring this economy back if only left to harness their own ideas and entrepreneurship unbound from the leaden hand of huge government and incompetent leadership.  Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are encouraging signs.

Bismarck’s analogy about making laws and sausage comes to mind and this sausage is bound to be tainted.  Amtrack, Social Security, Medicare, the Postal Service, defense procurement, and The Indian Health Service are rent with inefficiencies, graft, theft, low morale, and above all huge deficits.  What in the world makes people think that a government takeover of 17% of the US economy won’t lead to more of the same? 

The best cure for this headless monster grinding its way to passage is a good explosion.  All versions of the bill should be stacked on the street in front of the capitol and detonated by the DC bomb squad.  The resulting confetti should then be picked up, debated and passed one piece at a time. 

Health care costs have risen dramatically for several reasons.  First is the amazing development of technology and wonder drugs which has accelerated since penicillin became available in the early ‘40s.  Does anyone want to go back to when life expectancy was 63? Our present life expectancy is now 78 and such progress costs money. 

Second; the massive handoff of medical costs to HMOs and insurance companies creates an insulating effect.  When people paid their GP doctor directly, it was a direct payment for services rendered.  Now the doctor bills the insurance company for whatever amount the procedure is pegged at and the patients do not care one way or the other whether the fee was fair since it only cost them a small co-pay.  The involvement of the insurance company separates the doctor and the patient from a true direct transaction.  Health savings accounts and catastrophic insurance coverage go a long way toward redressing these market distortions.

Third; trial lawyers delight in gathering up “victims” of medical malpractice and bringing lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, and medical suppliers.  They cherry pick venues and jury shop for the best jackpot potentials and then either force an expensive settlement or brazenly convince a jury that there is some connection between a procedure or medicine and the adverse effects on their clients.  These trends have led to huge liability insurance burdens for all providers in the industry.  Thousands of specialist physicians have discontinued certain procedures completely.

The flip side is that billions are spent on unnecessary tests for the sole reason to escape the potential of a damaging lawsuit if and when a patient does not recover completely.  The costs of the huge insurance premiums and redundant tests are passed along by physicians to patients, HMOs and insurance firms as higher fees for services.  Medical malpractice reform should be legislated to blunt these abuses.

Fourth; state insurance mandates which demand which services and procedures insurance firms must cover restrict choices among consumers.  A policy available in Colorado most often cannot be purchased in Washington.  Therefore people cannot select among a wide variety of plans and are strictly limited to plans approved by the individual states.  This unduly restricts interstate competition among insurance companies who being in business to gain customers and make a profit would quickly fill the gaps if allowed to and increase consumer choice dramatically. 

These are just a few of the situations that are adversely affecting health care costs and insurance availability.  They should be dealt with individually to reform care and reduce costs for the good of the entire country.  President Obama should stand before the American people and pull the pin on these massive and dangerous schemes now emerging from Congress and start from a clean sheet of paper.  His popularity will skyrocket if he is man enough to admit a mistake before it metastasizes into a national disaster.

A combination of unfunded entitlement programs, misguided subsidies to unsound businesses and discredited Keynesian economic deficit spending have created a disastrous level of debt.  If you have children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews you sincerely care about, you will be interested to learn the following facts:

If we were to add up the total unfunded liabilities of present “entitlement” programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) and add the current national debt as of today, we would get a general figure of $117 TRILLION DOLLARS which our government has promised to pay and has no visible means of support to do so. A $100 bill is 4/1000 of an inch thick. A stack one inch high amounts to $25,000. One foot would be $300,000. One mile would be One Billion, Five Hundred and Eighty Four Million Dollars. $117 TRILLION adds up to a stack of $100 bills 73,863 MILES HIGH. That is three times around the earth, or 336 stacks that would reach the International Space Station! On an individual basis, that works out to only a little over 15 inches par person alive in the US today. Each and every newborn enters this world with about $396,000 in accumulated debt and incurred liabilities. Do you think your little loved ones and their generational fellow travelers will earn enough to pay that off? Apparently Congress and Presidents over the past 75 years have assumed so.

Who EXACTLY is ever going to pay for this irresponsible fiscal lunacy? Well, let’s let the kids pay it off for the rest their lives long after we who spent the dough are gone. They won’t ever be able to remove our dead hands from their pocketbooks. Our children and grandchildren will be condemned to lives of serfdom.  We will be remembered as the ones who crippled our nation with debt, spent the dreams of our children, and sold them into financial servitude.

If you have young ones that you love as I do, and you have one scintilla of self respect and common decency, you will help reverse this disastrous course before it consumes our nation and its people. How do we begin? First we must realize that in nearly all cases, “something for nothing” from the government is just flat wrong. Second, we must elect representatives who will covert the Ponzi scheme nature of entitlement programs into self funded, sustainable entities – exactly as promised when they were first introduced. Third, stop subsidizing utopian failures like ethanol, wind farms, flood insurance, and light rail. Lastly, let’s dump Keynesian economics into the ash heap of history where it has belonged since its failure in the 1930s.

According to Albert Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Rebooting the New Deal, subsidizing failure, taxing success, and exposing the general fund to liabilities of poorly planned entitlement programs is folly. We owe our descendants a huge course correction before their lives are ruined by our greed and foolishness.