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 problem with that is the fact that it has violated the U.S. Constitution, especially the fourth amendment. While the bill originated in the House of Representatives with good intentions of protecting the American people (I rather say person), the bill has had things added to it and altered to where now the freedom and liberties of the American person in question.

This new law now authorizes the military to indefinitely detain any person being suspected as a terrorist. the law allows the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to detain any person, including US citizens, who “was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces, under the law of war until the end of hostilities”

Obama stated a few weeks ago that he would veto the bill if it was brought to him because of certain provisions in the bill. After the bill was “altered” as to not remove any powers from the President, he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. In a written statement,Obama wrote: “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists… My Administration will aggressively seek to mitigate those concerns through the design of implementation procedures and other authorities available to me as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future, and will seek the repeal of any provisions that undermine the policies and values that have guided my Administration throughout my time in office.”

In my opinion, why would he sign a bill into law if there were provisions he and his administration want to change or remove? While I do understand that the military funding was due to expire on January 2nd, but that didn’t mean that Congress needed to right this entire bill. It wasn’t like they didn’t know there was new military funding bill that needed to be voted on by the end of 2011.

Now many have thought that the Patriot Act went too far into infringing on our freedoms and liberties, but this takes it to a whole new level. Even many of Obama’s supporter are not happy with his decision to sign this bill. The ACLU are one of them. “President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

Even those in the security division of our government feel that this is a clear violation of the Constitution The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI and the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA are harmful and counterproductive.

William S. Sessions, a man who has served as FBI director under three Presidents, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, wrote in a letter to members of the conference committee working on the NDAA that the detention provisions “could pose a genuine threat to our national security and would represent a sweeping and unnecessary departure from our constitutional tradition.”

The Senate voted 38-60 on November 29th to reject an amendment to the NDAA that would have removed provisions authorizing detention without charge. The amendment offered by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), would have replaced those provisions with a requirement for an orderly congressional review of detention power. (Jurist, Jan. 1; WP, ACLU, Atlantic Wire, Dec. 31; NLG, Dec. 27; Constitution Project, Dec. 9; ACLU, Dec. 5; ACLU, Nov. 29)

For those of you who may not be aware of it, but none of this information is being spoken about on the main stream media outlets. They’ve made it a point to steer clear of the topic. So please share this with everyone you know.

So what is it that we can do to assure the removal of Obama from office? We need to do several things to get it done.

We need to get the truth out without getting personal. When people discuss politics, most times it will get personal. Politics has a way of doing that even with the closest of friends. Stick to the facts, don’t let the other person turn the conversation into a name-calling type of discussion. Sticking to the facts will keep it in line. If the liberal, progressive or an independent starts to veer off the topic, just stay the course and the facts.
Talk to people who are not really into politics or don’t follow it. With the way things are with the economy, I doubt you’ll run into anyone like that, but don’t be surprised if you do. Instead ask them questions as to the state of their finances and the immediate world around them. Unless they’re living in a cave, they will see the points your making and see that the present federal government isn’t doing what they need to do for this country.

Ask them about the Constitution. It’s still amazes me to see how many people haven’t read the founding documents of this country. You will see that people will tell you that they’ve read it, but if you question them, you will see their knowledge is limited. Don’t come across as arrogant, it won’t get you too far. people will tune you out if they feel that you are a know-it-all or if you act arrogant. Talk about particular issues currently going on that the government has no constitutional authority to do it. If you happen to run into someone that uses the Constitution to debate you, make sure you don’t let them use the Commerce clause as the end-all to everything in modern times. Remember, the federal government has no authority to force any citizen to buy a product. ObamaCare is unconstitutional. If the person tries to say something in regards to Romneycare in Massachusetts, tell them about the tenth amendment. The States have the right to enact their own universal healthcare, but the federal government doesn’t.

We need to show the Administration’s mistakes. Obama has made so many, that it shouldn’t be difficult for you to point them out without attacking the president or his administration. Obama has made a few, but we need to stick to his staff who has advised him during the past three years. His involvement with the Solyndra scandal is just one of the many he is surrounded by with his administration. What about the Fast and Furious issue which caused the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry? Eric Holder is refusing to admit his incompetence to know what his agency is doing. It’s now gotten to the point that he can’t even come up with any more excuses that he started playing the “Race Card” last week to the review board. If you needed a few more to dicuss, there’s the GM bailout and Light Squared. If that isn’t enough, you can look at this list of Obama scandals to help you on your quest to save America.

To make matters worse, the list of candidates for the GOP nomination is very thin. I don’t see any real candidate saving this country except for Ron Paul who happens to be a Libertarian. That subject is for another time in the coming days. Stay tuned and until then, I hope these pointers will help you when talking to an Obama supporter.

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.

During the entire week we heard the news reports stated that this is going to hit Florida, then it said it was going to hit the Carolinas. It was estimated that it would be a CAT3 when it made land fall. Irene was over thousand miles from hit land, moving at 15 miles per hour, but the media along with the Obama Administration were issuing statement to batten down the hatches and prepare for the worse storm to hit the area in over fifty years. The estimates being reported in regards to the damages Irene will cause was over $8 billion and as high as $20 billion.

As of Sunday morning we can see that the damages from the storm was minimal, mostly due to flooding. Yes New York City did get hit with a lot of rain, but being a kid from Brooklyn, it wasn’t the first time nor the last.

It’s gotten to the point where people who listen to the newscast, watch the weather reports and pay attention to possible disasters are starting to think that the “power-that-be” have no idea what they are doing when it comes to notifying the public of important information. The truth of the matter is that they do know what they’re doing and it all surrounds ratings.

Even as the storm was downgraded to a CAT1 Friday night, the news channels didn’t push the point too much. Instead they sent reporters out to areas that the town or city are just a few feet above sea level and made it seem that this is what the entire city was dealing with.

Yes there were many areas in the tri-state area that flooded, but if you look at the landscape of the region, you’ll see that most of the area is only feet above the sea level. Have any decent storm move in on the city and the same thing will happen.

So why didn’t the government do the right thing and properly warn citizens about the truth instead of causing the entire east coast to shut down operations? Because after the mishap of this past winter when New York, New Jersey and Washington were buried under feet of snow, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie and President Obama din’t want to show how incompetent they are when it comes to handling issues that need immediate action. So over the past week, the beaches were closed, subway systems shut down and government agencies had a few extra days off.

How are the American people going to take these warnings serious if every single issue is going to be handled like it’s the next Armageddon. News broadcast, newspapers, and the government (all levels) must be honest and precise with the information they release to the public if they expect the public to take them serious. If not, one day there will be a major warning and many people will just shake it off and go about their business. Then what are we to do when there are hundreds of people injured, trapped or even dead because the media and the government cried wolf once too many times.

The double standard that goes on within Washington is ridiculous. No matter which political party is in control, the same games are played against the other. Here’s a quote from the then Congresswoman Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say: We are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
— Hillary Clinton, April 28, 2003

That’s right, these words were spoken by our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. She made these comments when the republicans had control of the House and the Senate. Hillary is absolutely correct. We, as Americans have the right, given to us by the Constitution, to have the choice to agree or disagree with our elected officials.

Now years later when the shoe is on the other foot, it’s wrong for Americans to disagree with the Obama Administration. It seems that when any group or another political party go against the current power, they’re considered wrong and will be referred to as “extremist’, “fanatic” or a “racist” Of course let’s not forget the favorite one of the Obama Administration and Democrats alike,… Wait for it…

“terrorists”.

Well let them call me whatever they want and I don’t care about it one bit. As long as this country has been in existence, it’s citizens have had the right to speak up against what our politicians are doing (or not doing) for this country. Since the 2008 election, the TEA Party and other constitutional minded groups have been speaking up and making a difference with the mindset of others who are typically unconcerned with the political BS that goes on. These groups have woken the sleeping giant, which is the patriotic American people. We will save this country from the Socialistic policies of the current administration and bring it back to the smaller, limited government that it was meant to be. It’s just going to take awhile for it to happen since the policies of both parties have been changing this Republic for over 50 years.

Rick Santelli clearly does not agree, condone or accept the lack of leadership in Washington. I have to agree with him myself since I also share that same view. Obama and all the other politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) in Washington (oops I forgot, they’re on five weeks vacation) have shown no leadership skills during the last few months. What happened in the past week is just part of the results.

From Timothy Geithner telling Congress in April, 2011 that he sees no risk at all to the United States losing it’s “AAA” credit rating, to Obama’s lame speech today, we can see the lack of leadership.

If we, the American voter, don’t stand up and tell Congress and the president to do the job we sent them to Washington to do, we as a nation will lose more than we already have.

Here’s the video to Rick Santelli’s rant this morning. I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Last Friday, August 5, 2011, Standard and Poors downgraded the United States credit rating to a “AA+” with a negative outlook. The reason for the outlook assumption is the fact that Washington along with Obama have lead this country into a complete and total spending frenzy and when it came time to handle the debt ceiling issue, Congress and the president acted like a bunch of school kids fighting over issues that really didn’t do anything for the deficit. This wording by politicians for planning “cuts” is a joke. In essence what they want to do is to cut spending on future projects, which is fiscally wrong since it does nothing for the spending that is already going on.

Obama finally gave a press speech today (two days after the S&P report), in regards to the downgrade by S&P. His entire speech was nothing but another campaign style speech where he was vague and not direct with a response to the situation. He first wants to make a foolish comment about Warren Buffet and how America will always be a “AAA” rated country. His approach to the issue seems to be more relaxed and carefree to what needs to be done. He didn’t mention anything about his failed policies or the fact that his plans have been nothing but a way to spend tax payer’s money.

Standard and Poors stated it clearly that if the United States doesn’t get a grip on the spending habits and reduce the deficit by a considerable amount, they see themselves (S&P) downgrading the U.S. again within the next two years.
So what does Obama say in his first speech since the downgrade? He talks about future cuts and tax reform and Medicare reform. His comment alone about raising taxes on those who should “pay their fair share”, shows this man has no clue on how to run a lemonade stand, let alone the leading country in the free world. His next comment spoke about reducing taxes for “those that need it” to help stimulate the economy. Real economic stimulation comes from the free market and job growth. Without it, we will slowing diminish into a second rate country.

This country will never get back it’s AAA rating as long as we have politicians in Washington that clearly don’t know how to make a business run efficiently and profitably. As it is, Obama was asked to remove Timothy Geithner as the Secretary of the Treasury and instead, Obama begged Geithner to stay on his administration. How can you be so blind to see that the Treasury Secretary doesn’t have a clue as to what’s happening. He used to be on the board of the New York Federal Reserve and supposedly knows all about ratings and how Wall Street works. In April, Geithner stated that a downgrade is not in America’s future and that the country will retain it’s AAA rating from all three rating agencies. So where is the man’s knowledge and talent when this country needs the right man in the Treasury? Obama doesn’t know what to do, Geithner doesn’t know what to do and the people that Obama has put in his administration don’t have a clue either. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that this is the objective of president Obama to destroy the United States as this world has known it and transform it into something of his own choice. Oh wait, isn’t that what he said he was going to do when he was on the campaign trail? Then again, from listening to his speeches, I don’t think he ever got off the campaign trail in the first place.

The latest to come out about the bill is the news of nearly all health insurance plans may soon be required to offer women patients free coverage of prescription birth control, breast-pump rentals, counseling for domestic violence, and annual wellness exams and HIV tests. In the health care bill that was passed last year, the law directs the Obama Administration to draw up a list of preventive services for women that will require all new health plans will cover without any deductibles or even co-payments. All this is by the year long review requested by Kathleen Sebilius, Health and Human Services Secretary.

In a statement, Sebelius praised the committee’s work as “historic” and “based on science and existing literature.” she continued, “We are reviewing the report closely and will release the department’s recommendations … very soon.”

While I believe in personal freedoms, I also believe in personal responsibility. If someone wants to be sexually active while not trying to get pregnant, it’s is their responsibility to pony up for the expenses for that activity. How is it that the federal government feels that it has the right to force private industries to pay the costs for the decision for someone else? As we seen in the past, this decision by the Obama Administration will only affect other people who pay for health care and if the federal government is going to subsidize the program. Why is it the responsibility for the American tax payer to foot the bill?

It’s estimated that 41 million Americans are in “new” plans that these rules will apply, along with 98 million other people are “grandfathered” in policies exempt from the rules. Those “grandfathered” will lose that status if they make a host of changes to their coverage and/or payment policies. It’s expected that the number will increase to nearly 47 million more American will be under the new rules. Insurers will need to follow the new guidelines at the start of the next plan year within one year after Sebelius issues them.

As we see as time goes on and we have the opportunity to dissect the bill, we see the federal government’s purpose is to control the industry as they have done to so many other ones (auto, banking, etc.). Either way you look at it, there is no reason for the federal government to be involved in any industry no less the medical industry.