There are many ideas that are being floated around Washington, but the one idea that is being avoided is the one that many Libertarians and Conservatives are calling for for years. It’s the idea of cutting many programs that are not the responsibility of the federal government. It’s gotten to the point that the federal government has funded so many programs that can no longer be funded. The real issue is how many of those programs should not have ever been put in place to begin with (but that’s for another post).

There are many programs that can be dismantled and/or eliminated to lower the cost of running this country. The biggest problem America is facing when talking about the deficit or the debt ceiling is the fact that Washington is spending way too much. Instead they want to play the number game and say they’re going to cut spending over a ten year period. I laymen terms that means they will cut back on future projected spending.

Let’s look at it this way, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion in 2010 and according to the most recent available tax revenue information (2007), only collected $2.4 trillion in taxes (after refunds). Washington is already spending more than it collects. Add on to the fact that there are other programs that politicians want to have funded in the future. Let’s say they “plan” to spend an extra $300 billion each year for the next ten years, in that case they would be spending another three trillion dollars on top of the already $3.5 trillion. So now they say they just “cut” $500 billion dollars. What that really means is that now they expect to spend only an extra $250 billion dollars each year on top of what they are doing already.

The federal government has been doing nothing but growing for the past few decades and on the path they (politicians) are going, it will continue to grow. Don’t be one of the many that fall for the creative accounting practices of our politicians. Wake up and see for yourself that this country is already bankrupt. the only reason we are still operating is because China and other countries are still willing to buy our debt. Once they stop buying our treasury bonds, it will be over for America.

The ONLY way to get the deficit and the debt under control is to reduce current spending. Yes it’s not going to be easy for the American citizen to do it, but the alternative is not a pretty site what-so-ever.

The state of Florida has recently passed a law that states that any new welfare claim that is submitted, the person must have a drug test done before receiving any benefits. the claimant is responsible for paying for the test, but if the test is negative, the person will be reimbursed for the cost of the test. If they fail, they will not be paid back for the test as well as they will not be eligible for welfare for one year. This issue has become an ever growing concern for people on both sides of it.

The left (Democrats) feel that it’s an unconstitutional decision to invade someone’s privacy. They use the 4th Amendment as they reason to not allowing these test to be legal. The right (Republicans) think that if you’re going to get assistance from the government, you should be expected to abide by the same standards as those who have to take a test to get a job. They say that since employees who work to pay taxes to help fund entitlement program have to take the same test to work, the people on welfare should do the same. The reason behind their thinking is that there is so much corruption within the welfare system (along with multi-generation families) that this is one way to weed out the wrong-doers.

Those people who say that the drug testing is wrong is because if infringes on their Constitutional right as laid out in the 4th amendment The fourth amendment protects the American citizen from unwarranted and illegal search and seizures. In 2003, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan’s drug testing of welfare applicants as a Fourth Amendment violation.
As for the other side of the issue, the 4th amendment pertains to privacy and they feel that if these people are looking for public assistance, then the issue of privacy doesn’t play a role in the debate.

While I agree to the drug testing, some say that I’m wrong. All I can say to that is that I must trust the judicial system to make the right decision on the matter. Unfortunately I don’t trust those who are serving on the circuit courts as well as the Supreme Court. Again this issue is for each state to make their own decisions as to if they want to legalize medical marijuana.

Why is it that we allow our representative and Senators to disregard what is expected of them to do while serving as a public servant? Why is it that these same politicians will come looking for us to vote them back into office when they know they did a lousy job the last term? It’s because they think they’re doing the right thing for the American people. I say it’s time for them to wake up and realize that they’ve screwed this county for years to come.

As a responsible family man, I’m required to look over my finances and make decisions on what are the priorities in our lives to make it work for us. I take the time to re-evaluate our income and expenses every six months. I do that since I work for myself and things change on both sides of the equation. Some months I make more and other times not. The same goes for the bills. I’m always crunching numbers to see where I can maximize the capitol I have to work with. Too bad Congress and the president can’t do the same.

I recently read an article about how balancing the budget for Washington is much different than for the individual. I say BULL! Washington needs to do the same as all who have to balance their books. Need it be a corporation, an individual or the federal government. In the article, the author states that during a poor economy, Washington will spend more because of programs like unemployment. While that may be true, it still doesn’t explain why in the state of Florida, Workforce Agency of Florida spent $14,000 of tax payers money to buy capes. That’s right superhero capes with a cartoon figure of Dr. Evil Unemployment for the unemployed. You can’t make this crap up. The agency felt that doing this would help them connect with the community better. The unemployment office is not there to better connect with the community, it’s there to help the community get a job.

We now have Obama coming out next week with his new plan to help create jobs. Of course we saw how the last one went…$878 Billion and we now have a higher unemployment rate and a trillion dollars in added debt. The article does say that when the economy is doing good, the federal government should not be running a deficit. Since when has there been a group of politicians that didn’t spend the tax payer’s money like a drunken sailor? It’s unlikely that this bunch of career politicians will do anything positive for the economy and the country as long as they’re in office.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Vote all of the current politicians out of office the next time they’re up for re-election.

Here is the letter he sent out to the people in his district, followed by the response I sent to him.

After watching Standard & Poor’s performance in the Enron and housing debacles, it’s hard to stomach their decision to downgrade America’s credit.

But even coming from S&P, there is a message we should hear: The finger pointing and hyper-partisanship has to stop. If it doesn’t, we really will be on the road to ruin.

Democrats need to see tea partiers as something other than debt-limit hostage-taking Republicans. And Republicans need to see President Barack Obama and Democrats as something other than big-spending socialists.

We’ve got to stop this attack madness. We have to bring civility back to the public square. We have to put the country back on the path to fiscal sanity.

To do that, we need to cut some $4 trillion to $5 trillion. We made a down payment on this with the $2 trillion dollars we cut just last week. Now we need to go further.

To understand what we have to do, though, we first need to look at how we got here.

We went from a $236 billion budget surplus in 2000 to a $1.3 trillion deficit last year — and a record $14 trillion debt. A huge chunk of the debt comes from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re bringing the troops home.

Another significant piece stems from the Bush-era tax cuts. Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, says the tax cuts for the wealthy should be left to expire. They’re set to do so at the end of next year. We should let that happen.

Agree or not, don’t you think most Americans were better off before the tax cuts than they are now?

Much of the rest of the debt comes from the economic downturn since 2008.

That brings us to today. And there’s no mystery about what we have to do. It’s just common sense. In addition to the spending cuts Congress just made, we need tax reform.

And by tax reform, I mean closing loopholes, special interest tax breaks and corporate subsidies. It’s just plain wrong to be protecting tax breaks for oil companies and to be rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth Subcommittee, I’ve scheduled a hearing for early September to investigate closing many of these loopholes. Doing so will likely generate $2 trillion over the next decade. Add that to the $2 trillion in spending cuts we’ve made — and we’re in the $4 trillion range that we need to hit.

It’s time to stop the shouting and bickering and political attacks. It’s time to show the world that America can take care of business.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is a member of the Senate Finance and Budget committees.

Senator,

The piece that you wrote for Politico is nothing but a poor attempt to convince me to vote for you next year. I will tell you that that will never happen.

Your attempt to lie to the American people about the so-called surplus in 2000 is just something else for me to tell my neighbors and friends about when they ask me for my political advice. The surplus you refer to was nothing more than a projected number if nothing in the equation would change. You know damn well that politicians, both Republicans and Democrats alike, do nothing to stop the spending of our tax dollars.

As for the $2 million you say that Congress just cut is also a lie. Again you cut money from the projected spending that you guys would like to do in the future. It’s like me saying I saved $90,000 this year since I wanted to spend $150,000 next year and will only spend $60,000. Of course I only make $60,000 a year, but that doesn’t matter since I saved $90,000 from “cutting” my spending.

It’s politicians like yourself that has ruined this country and too bad we are left to deal with you and your type forever since there is no term limits for you Senators and Congressman.

If you want to get my vote, pass a term limit bill before your next five weeks vacation that you and your fellow politicians don’t deserve. You civic service was never meant to be a career.

As for tax reform, absolutely we need tax reform. Let’s get it all over with and enact the Fair Tax Plan and get rid of the IRS. If it wasn’t for taxes, you guys would have nothing to use to get the different classes of people mad at each other which takes the focus off of the crap you and the others are doing in Washington DC. There are two classes in this country, the citizen class and the political class.

As for your last section where you state, “It’s time to show the world that America can take care of business.”, You are so right and for us as a country to do that, we need to clean out the House and the Senate of all politicians that have held the office for more than 6 years. Working along side of GOOOH.com (Get Out Of Our House) we are working to make that happen.

In closing, I want to thank you for your time in sending out this e-mail to remind me and my fellow readers/subscribers and countrymen of what’s important to America.

Both of these companies have been poorly run and not regulated properly for the past 10-15 years. It’s only in the last three years that all the dirt is being revealed. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd started the ball rolling in 1995 drafting a bill, The Fair Housing Act, later signed by president Clinton. The bill was meant to help lower income families to get a mortgage to buy a home. Unfortunately, the politics of Washington strong-armed the mortgage industry into approving just about anyone who wanted a mortgage, even if they couldn’t even afford the down payment and/or the monthly payments. Of course many of the issues didn’t really kick into high gear until years later when more and more people started to realize how easy it was to get a home without any money down and with low interest rates (for the first 2-3 years). Adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) started to pop-up throughout the United States. All of these factors added to the entire housing market collapse as well as the financial situation with both Fannie and Freddie.

In the last three years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received over $170 billion and they are no where near getting their heads above water. There is so much leverage within the financial/housing market that it will takes years to correct. Because of that reason, the federal government can not just close the doors on Fannie and Freddie. It would cause major declines in the housing market throughout the country as well as causing the interest rates to skyrocket out of control.

Plans have to be made to start transferring the assets of these two government subsidized programs to the private sector. It’s not something that can be done immediately, it will take 5-7 years to do so, but the idea is to start now so in a few short years America’s housing market will be stable again and more in line to how the mortgage industry needs to be operated.

With private companies running the show, stricter rules will be in place to manage the mortgages as the qualification to getting one. Owning a home should be looked at as a benchmark of a person/family’s success, not as a right to own one because you exist. When the federal government is involved, it becomes more of a political tool to help get a candidate or a particular party into office. Washington has never operated as a business and I doubt they would know how to in the first place.

That’s right, you are. If you’re like me, you’re the type that looks at the bill each month to be fully aware of what I’m being charged for. On our monthly bill, there is a charge from the federal government. For each cell phone provider, it’s written different. My company lists it under government fees and taxes. An extra 3% is added to my bill each month. These charges help pay for these free phones. The programs, Assurance Wireless and SafeLink Wireless, are federal government programs to provide free phones to the lower income families.

So how do you qualify for this program? If you are already on some sort of entitlement program, you pretty much qualify. Depending on what state you live in will decide the details of the program.
In the state I live in, Florida, here’s the basics to qualifying:

If you’re on any one (or a combination) of these programs, you qualify.
. Medicaid
. Food Stamps/SNAP
. Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
. Temporary Cash Assistance

. Bureau of Indian Affairs Programs (BIA)
. Federal Public Housing Assistance (FPHA) or Section 8
. Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
. National School Lunch Program’s Free Lunch Program

The way we read it, this Safelink Wireless program gives you a free cell phone, free monthly service, and free minutes. You qualify even if you make 35% more than the designated “poverty” level or if you’re already getting additional freebies from the government. And we see nothing that indicates you have to be a legal resident of the United States to qualify.

How much more is it going to continue? As it is right now, $1 trillion of the national budget is slated for low-income assistance. I understand that there are people who are in dire straits because of the current (and for some time to come) economic situation, but this is going a little too far now. As we’ve seen in the last week, our country is already having difficulties paying for the programs it has in place. The federal government has gone too far over the last twenty years and if we don’t stop it, it will get worse.

As it is, many Americans are starting to think that the government owes them something just for the simple fact of existing. Why is that? Because the federal government has given the American people that feeling that it’s what they are there for. The federal government has made it where many people have no idea of what the federal government authorities actually are. Americans no longer seem to care about what the government does as long as they’re getting something for free.

These types of programs do nothing but weaken the country as a whole and damages the natural flow of the free market. When will people realize that once the government gets involved with any industry and starts to subsidize any part of it, the products that come out of the industry has gone up for their customers. Doing this is going to do nothing but push the price of service up even more. Each phone that is connected, the phone provider is paid $10 per customer. My own bill’s basic service is $49.95 a month. So how is the company making money off of the program? They charge the individual customer $49.95 for basic service along with the government fees and federal universal charges to make up for the lost.

Until we as Americans stand up to the politicians and their way of doing business, we will continue to deal with programs like this one. Like the old saying goes…”Nothing is forever except for government programs.
These are the things that need to be cut in the budget, I know damn well the Social security and Medicare are just scare tactic tools that politicians use to confuse most Americans.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Of course they only recite the first sentence of the section. As the text is written, yes, the United States does have an obligation to pay all debts. As any responsible adult should, so should the country/government . The problem I have with the Democrats and the Obama Administration is that they easily omit the most important part of the 14 amendment (in my opinion), Section 5 which reads…

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

I can see why the president and the Democrats in Congress would want to ignore (or fail to mention) section 5. Because as it reads, the legislation branch holds the power of the 14th amendment, which is Congress, not the president. If Obama does overstep his boundaries of the executive branch of the federal government to raise the debt ceiling without the appropriate bil from Congress, it will be an impeachable political move. Obama has said (as well as the media), that he is a Constitutional scholar and understands the Constitution better than anyone. If that’s the case then he also knows the truth about this section and will not enact it. Obama and his aides know that he lacks the Constitutional power to do so, but that doesn’t mean the the Democrats and others alike aren’t pushing for him to change his mind.

So since we’re looking at the 14th Amendment, let’s look at Section 3 for just a moment…

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

As the text reads, neither the president, vice-president or any member of Congress shall engage in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution or given aide or comfort to an enemy of the document. So I guess our executive and most of the legislative are already in violation of this amendment. The Health Care bill, Cap and Trade are just two of the most recent violations against the Constitution, I won’t even try to go back as far as 30 years where there were so many other violations we can consider.

Coburn’s plan is a joke of what needs to be done to get the economy and the country back on track fiscally. From raising the retirement age to 70 to start collecting Social Security to even proposing that many veterans pay more for their medical care as well as prescription drugs. There are other items of concern in his proposal such as cutting funding for community development grant, student aid, farm subsidies, housing subsidies for the poor and medicare. These things being mentioned are “hot points” for political battles. Just the mention of these items will put someone on the defensive, but let’s be for real, we need to get EVERYTHING in order fiscally if we want to survive as a nation.

Coburn’s plan also includes eliminating $1 trillion in tax breaks over the next ten years. A move that has set off an uproar from the anti-taxation group, Americans For Tax Reform. The plan will prevent taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction from their second home as well as limiting it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets.

Senator Coburn’s figure of $9 trillion in savings doesn’t include an additional $2.4 trillion in cuts to Social Security that will be funneled back into the program. Added to the fact of Coburn’s plan of raising the retirement age, his plan also calls for future benefits to be topped out at a less generous measure of inflation and hinder benefit increases even more for the top 40% of earners.

“I have no doubt that both parties will criticize portions of this plan, and I welcome that debate,” Coburn told reporters. “But it’s not a legitimate criticism until you have a plan of your own.” It’s too bad that many have offered some great ideas, but the powers that be won’t listen to them for the simple fact is that they don’t like the plan.

As a Libertarian, I’m tired of the political moves of the Democrats and the Republicans which will always leave the American people out in the cold while they live the high-life. There are so many unnecessary programs that the federal government is involved in. Many of which, they shouldn’t even be involved in. If the Senate would write the overdue budget, we would be able to see what and where we can cut to save the country. Too bad the democratic controlled Senate has not written a budget in over 800 days. What are they waiting for? I’ll tell you. As long as there isn’t a budget in place, they (politicians) can spend without any checks and balances. It’s just a spending frenzy that isn’t being monitored.

When politicians talk about how much money this program or that plan will save over a period of five, ten, or twenty years, it’s a joke. What they’re doing is what is known as “creative accounting. President Clinton did it during his term by saying that his administration had a surplus of $9 billion and the Democrats like to say that G.W. Bush destroyed and spent it all. In actuality there was never a surplus, it was all “projected” surplus and that is not the same thing as actually having the money in the bank.

Now it seems that our own President has decided to go down the path of socialism, fascism and or Communism. The people he’s surrounding himself with is a clear indication of that. In the past, we’ve seen the truth come out on Van Jones, the man that Obama hand picked himself to be the Green Job Czar (do you notice that they’re using communist noble titles for these positions). It was learned that Mr. Jones is a communist supporter as well as (what appears to me) a racist. Even though the main stream media stayed away from the stories that were coming out on the internet and reported on FOX, Van Jones resigned after all the controversy was released. My question is, who is Obama going to throw into the position next?

How many more of these unelected, non-approved people in our Republic government feel the same as Van Jones? There are over fourty czars in the current Administration and its not over yet. Most of these positions (if not all), have responsibilities that someone within the government was already accountable for. So why did President Obama need to create these positions? Maybe these were just a few of the 2.5 million jobs he was going to generate. Of course none of these jobs create a product or a service that wasn’t already being done by someone else.

We need to be aware that if we don’t watch what the government is doing, we won’t have the freedom to ever watch them again. The government has always grown in size and hasn’t reduced it’s size since the Reagan Administration.

AP Photo- Charles Dharapak

Of course, in true form of politicians, nothing was done except Obama and Cantor had their feelings hurt and walked out of the meeting. Depending on who you talk to, you will get different comments as to what happened behind closed doors. Either way you look at it, our political leaders are more concerned about their chances in next year’s election instead of what’s right for the country. Obama (like the kid in the playground with his marbles) is threatening to veto any bill that is put before him if he doesn’t get his way. The president said that he’s concerned for the American people. So if he is, why isn’t he eliminating programs that are draining the system?

The big problem that politicians are faced with, is if they have to close portions of the government for any length of time, the American people may realize that these programs weren’t needed in the first place and there won’t be a need to be reinstated once the crisis is over. Obama has used scare tactics this week by saying he can’t guarantee that the social security checks will go out in August. He knows that will not be the case and saying it just shows you how he’s willing to play ball.

Every time the threat of the country (or State) having to shut down part of the government, politicians will always use the tactic of claiming that the police, firefighters and medicare will be the programs that will be affected. This isn’t the case since there are so many other ones (parks, museums and rest areas) that can be cut for the time being (if not permanent).

So in the meantime, politicians will sit there and use spin tactics to scare the people and in turn whine and complain about the way things are getting done. If you think about it, the government is working exactly the way our politicians have set it up to work…poorly.