Hundreds of student throughout the state have either been not going to school or have told their teachers that they will be moving to avoid arrest and/or deportation. In response the teachers are instructing students not to leave and not to worry about the police. While I understand the feeling of the teachers trying to help the children, but these students shouldn’t be in the school system. This law is being put into affect because of the illegal immigration problem that is out of control. A law that should not have ever been put into affect if the federal government was doing the job they needed to years ago.

While this is an sad issue for illegal immigrants because of them having to up-root themselves from the life they made here, but quite honestly, they have no illegal right to be here in the first place.

In the meantime, president Obama‘s Administration has decided to file an appeal against the ruling. Again, Obama has decided to not uphold the U.S. Constitution. This type of move by his administration clearly shows his lack of concern for the American people that he has sworn to protect and serve. This is clearly a political move to get the votes he needs to win the election next year.
The illegal immigration issue is now becoming the biggest issue for the American people. Many states are trying to write laws to protect the citizens from the affects of illegal immigrant coming across the border in droves. They are several county sheriffs in Arizona who have filed suits against the Obama Administration in regards to the Fast and Furious campaign that went awry when officer Terry was killed by the same weapons that the Alcohol, Tabacco and Firearms (ATF) lost track of going over the Mexico border.

The iimigration laws here need to be reformed. I don’t mean to allow these people amnesty or a fast-track way to citizenship. I mean we need to secure and close our borders, both the north and south. Not because of the Hispanic population coming across, but because of the possibility of terrorist coming through as well. We have a current employment problem in America. Nearly 16% of the working population is unemployed and we have over 100,000 legal immigrants coming into America each month. We need to slow down the rate until we can get some real leaders in Washington to get this country back on track.

The true class warfare is the political class against the citizen class. If you haven’t noticed, the politicians want us to “fight” among ourselves and to take the real focus off of them. It’s amazing how politicians never refer to themselves as rich or wealthy. They don’t want the average citizen to realize that they are also doing financially well. How could the American people who are less fortunate to vote for them if they too are rich and “not paying their fair share”?

While I agree that a good portion of our population is not making ends meet because of their income. Approximately 15% of the U.S. population is living under the poverty level set by the federal government. Currently a family of four making 22,314 is considered to be living at the poverty level. I do agree that making 22,314 a year to support a family of four is low for today’s standard of living, we must also think about where in the country the family is living in. There’s a difference between living in New York City and Mobile, Alabama when you think of the cost of living in those areas. A family may make it just fine in Alabama, but they sure wouldn’t in the Big Apple.

Politicians also like to use the poor as their personal puppets in the battle against the Republicans. It’s a shame that the media doesn’t do a better job in disseminating the facts form the myths. Here are just some facts about the condition the poor are in.

*The typical “poor” household in America has a car
*78% of “poor” households in America have air conditioning
*64% of “poor” households in America have cable or satellite TV .. most have
two TVs, along with a DVD player and VCR
*Most “poor” households in America with children have a gaming system such
as an Xbox or PlayStation
*38% of “poor” households in America have a personal computer
*Most “poor” households in America have a refrigerator, an oven and stove,
and a microwave. They also have other household appliances such as a
clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee
maker.
*The typical “poor” American has more living space than the average European.
*The typical “poor” American family is able to obtain medical care when needed.
*The average “poor” household in America claims to have sufficient funds to meet all essential needs.

If you look around the world you will see that most poor people in other countries don’t have it as good as “poor” Americans. We as a whole are doing better than the rest of the world so we need to stop this class warfare game and realize that we live in the best country in the world. If we don’t and we continue to let the politicians use this tactic to get average people fighting among themselves, they (politicians) will be the only winners.

On the last day of session last month, Congress passed raising the debt ceiling by $1.2 Trillion. Five weeks later Obama is now telling them to pass a bill that is one third the cost of the entire increase. When is this going to stop? It won’t as long as Obama is in office. More than ever we need to remove him next year.

As Obama started to talk about the latest bill, The American Jobs Act, he was trying to inspire the crowd. “These men and women grew up with faith in America that hard work and responsibility paid off.”, Obama stated. Unfortunately nearly 50% of Americans don’t feel that way any longer. Forty years of entitlement programs has changed that mentality. He continued, “Our economy will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers… but we can help. We can make a difference.”

I can see from the last twenty years how well the free market works when Washington helps. With help like that, please don’t help. According to what Obama said, construction jobs for bridges, roads as well as public schools were pretty much all the ones that would be created from this bill. The last time I checked, construction jobs only count for roughly 20% of the entire work force in this country.
I’m not sure if anyone notice that when Obama was talking about the different jobs and for who it “will” help, the president of the union board, ??? was being shown on the screen. So that pretty much gives me an idea on the kinds of jobs that this bill will help. The union jobs will be the ones to benefit and of course the unions themselves.

With this bill he said that it will help “rebuild America”. Repair decaying roads and bridges. What I would like to know is, isn’t that what he said about the $800 billion stimulus bill? We been rebuilding America’s roads for the last fifty years according to out past presidents and Congress members. When are we going to be finished? He mentioned a bridge that connects Kentucky and Ohio, which is a major trucking route, is in such dispair, it must be done. Why wasn’t it done two years ago with the stimulus bill?

The line that gave me a good chuckles was, “…everything in this bill will be paid for.” Really? How about this, get the money together before starting any projects and pay for it first. Then I’ll believe that everything in the bill is paid for. After all, the word “paid” means that some gave the money for the service/product.

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.

Unfortunately, the Administration suffers from short term memory since only a little more than two years ago, he tried to slow down the foreclosure rate and was totally unsuccessful. His last plan was to help between 4-5 million homeowner keep their homes from foreclosure, but the plan (as of May of this year) only help 810,000 refinance into loans with a lower rate. The refinancing initiative will allow certain borrowers to refinance loans that are backed by the improperly operated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a side note, both Fannie and Freddie have borrowed over $170 million over the last three years because of poorly run plans.

The Obama Administration is looking to make changes to existing programs aimed to allow borrowers to take advantage of lower mortgage rates, which will also include allowing them to refinance the loan even if they owe much more than the current property’s value. While the idea is expecting to help the borrower to free up cash for other spending to drum up overall business activity, it’s most like not going to do so since many don’t have enough money as it is to do more than they already are.

Either way you look at it, Obama and his cronies are grasping at straws to figure out a way to “fix” the economy. The only true way for the housing market to correct itself is to get the government out of the way and let the market correct on it’s own. While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac account for nearly 90% of all residential mortgages, their time has come for them to be dissolved. It will take years to work out all the paper work to get all the assets of their books, but it needs to be done. The federal government was never intended to be in the housing market wither as a seller, buyer, loan manager or a landlord.

It’s too bad that Barney Frank is too close to the issue of Fannie and Freddie to make any clear decisions on what the right thing is that needs to be done. His life mate is on the board of directors and he doesn’t know how to run a business either.No matter what the government does, it’s going to affect the housing market in a negative way. As long as they are involved it will continue to be dragged out instead of a some-what quick recovery.

Let’s face it, the federal government is doing what they can to help the financial sector from taking another dive into the abyss and asking for more money from the tax payers.

The issue that has been going on is that the federal government has been getting involved to “help” a particular industry and/or company for so long that we no longer know what is an artificial or organic supply and demand product or service.

During W.W.II, the wool industry was busy supplying the material to make our military’s uniforms. To make sure the industry would always be there to keep our troops clothe, the federal government gave subsidies to them to the tune of millions of dollars. Years later as synthetic materials were being used for the military, Washington continued to pay the wool farmers.

The agricultural subsidies assist farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their revenue, manage the supply of the different commodities and to influence the cost and supply of such commodities (ie corn, wheat, rice, milk, sugar). So the government is dictating the price as well as the supply of these commodities. In this situation, the laws were passed during the Great Depression and have remain in place to this day. We have farmers being paid not to grow corn on their land. Many farmers receive some sort of government (tax payer) financial assitance.

A Canadian report claimed that for every dollar U.S. farmers earn, 62 cents comes from some form of government, with total aid in 2009 from all levels of government adding up to $180.8 billion.

These are just two incidents where government has manipulated the free market for decades. The free market hasn’t been free for just as long. As long as the federal government is involved, no industry or company will go bankrupt. The whole idea of competition is that the strongest one wins. Well in this case, whoever pays more money to the politician campaign funds, wins.

Let’s take a look at the recent bailout of General Motors. They received billions of dollars from Washington to keep them from filing bankruptcy. If GM was left to file bankruptcy, the union contracts would have been history at that point. The company would have restructured to survive or close their doors forever. Is that a bad thing. On the surface, yes. When you go ahead and let the free market work it out, it would become a good thing.

How? Simple, it’s obvious that GM wasn’t making the product(s) that the customers wanted. If they continued doing the same thing, they would have had to close their business forever. An entrepreneur, with the financial backing, would step in and buy the assets of GM to build his own vehicle. They would hire the former GM workers and a new car manufacturer would be born to make it or break it. He either builds want the customers want or he goes out of business too.

The unions are a powerful force with plenty of money to persuade politicians to help the their industry/company. The government makes it impossible for new car companies to start in the industry since there are so many regulations that only the “big” dogs can work within them.

The federal government has made it so hard for the free market to run like it should that it’s questionable to say that we can ever separate the two. The first step is having Congress cut programs that support industries that wouldn’t survive without it.

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.

The whole idea (according to Obama) of getting the debt ceiling raised was to stop the country from defaulting on it’s loans as well as creating more jobs in this country. I find that hard to believe since one of the first things he did when he was sworn into office was to get an almost $1 trillion stimulus bill passed to do the same thing. Yes I know he tells us that the stimulus bill created or saved two million jobs. Analysts have looked into the facts of jobs created from the stimulus and it’s way lower than what the Obama administration has been reporting.

As you can see the stimulus and anything else that the administration is doing hasn’t created any jobs or even turn this economy around. It’s been reported that economic growth in America for the first half of the year (2011) is a staggering less than 1%. So how is giving the federal government any more money going to help?

The federal Reserve is now thinking of what they can do to stimulate the economy and get the country back on it’s feet. All I have to say about that is they are part of the reason why we’re in this mess. Manipulating the currency and controlling inflation artificially for the last hundred years hasn’t helped, so where should we think they’ll do anything now in the best interest of America. Chairman Ben Bernanke has touch base on starting a third round of bond purchases. The federal Reserve can also cut the interest rate for banks that hold excessive reserves as well as pledging to hold its assets at a record high and interest rates at record lows for a longer period, Bernanke stated.

As a nation, the only way we can create jobs and to get the economy moving again is to stop Washington from continuing has they have for many years. We need to cut back on government spending. When I say cut spending, I don’t mean cut Social Security or Medicare. Those programs are not the main problem. Yes they both have issues within the systems but reform is much different than cutting. Politicians are too concerned for their contributors as well as their own political careers. Doing the right thing in Washington would be political suicide. So if we want to save this country, we must remove each and every one of the politicians within the Beltway. Of course it will take years to do so since not all of them are up for re-election in 2012. If they’ve been in office for two terms, it’s time for them to move out of the way and let someone else try something else, or at least improve some of the current policies. Once we get Congress and the president to stop their excessive spending and let the markets correct themselves, we will continue to be in the same position.

Economist say that it will probably have little (if any) impact on the economy. The reason for that is, none of the cuts come until 2014. Many economists and the Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke advised Congress that cutting too much too soon could hurt the weak economy. They also recommended that reduced spending over the long term would help the economy.

According to the deal, discretionary spending would be cut $21 billion next year and $42 billion in 2013. Social Security Medicare and Medicaid will not be touched, as the more “politically aware” knew would happen. It was a scare tactic all along. A political tool that the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats alike, use against the other. What kills me is the fact that these cuts will only add up to about 0.2% of the entire economy’s output for that time period.

The rest of the cuts will come over a period of 10 years (why always 10?). The first phase will reduce spending by $917 billion and the second phase will add another $1.5 trillion which will be decided by a congressional committee. So let’s create another committee to look into something else the government screwed up on.

The politicians we have in Washington are trying to “fix” the problem in which they caused in the first place. Let’s face it, we are going to face the pain one day for the actions of our past. We need to cut the spending now, not over a period of 10 years. Don’t get me wrong, I know it shouldn’t be immediately. No matter what they (politicians) tell us I know the economy is struggling and as for a recovery, the past two years, the federal government has been hindering it from really happening.

I (like many of you) haven’t read this bill/deal/sellout yet, but I’m sure there’s some scary stuff in it. One thing stated in the deal is that if lawmakers fail to reach a deal on the second round of cuts, The Pentagon’s budget will automatically be cut by $500 billion.

All I can say is that this deal made it possible for all of the politicians to pass this issue off once again until after another election. OK, they avoided default, but let’s be for real, the credit agencies can still go ahead and down grade the United States.

Which in turn will cause interest rates to go up for everyone.

That is what the cost will be for the American people. Higher rates in a time when the economy is in the toilet (and will remain for some time), unemployment is at 9.2% (until the July report comes out on Friday) and the financial future of this country is still unknown.

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.