Stimulus Package?????

The bill passed by the House yesterday contains 100's of billions of dollars in spending. However, less the $100 billion for this year, about $100 billion for next year, and $100 billion the year after that. 60% of it won't be spent in Obama's first term! Stimulus packages spend money now. In case you can't connect the dots: THIS IS NOT A STIMULUS PACKAGE! IT IS A LONG-TERM SPENDING PACKAGE!

I hope the Senate votes this down and then let's start over with a REAL stimulus package that fixes the problems now!

The President's First Three Days

President Obama: Kudos on your ethics changes for the Executive Branch! Now if we could just get Congress to accept the same limitations, we'd really clean up Washington.

Bringing the Troops Home: Glad it's finally going to happen. Bush's surge (which should have happened two years before) worked and we can start transitioning power back to the Iraqi people.

Closing Gitmo: Not so sure about this one. I have friends that have visited there on fact-finding missions and they say the prisoners are treated better than the guards are! I guess Leavenworth would be a great place to transfer the remaining prisoners until the courts decide what to do with them. Meanwhile, Prez Obama needs to call an international meeting on how exactly to deal with non-state sponsored terrorists and pirates. Then all countries need to abide by that agreement.

Reversing the Course on Intelligence: We're going back to pre-911 days. What did that get us?

The Economy: Sure it's bad. Sure it's going to get worse. But why is Obama using scare tactics to try and get Congress to pass the BIG, BIG, BIG Bailout? Is he afraid that if we look at what he's trying to get pushed through we'll see that the emperor has no clothes? Bush has already gotten one by us. Remember the old Russian saying (courtesy of Star Trek's Chekof): "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Refunding Overseas Abortion: Good way to make the Islamic terrorists madder at us.

Report Card on Obama's Cabinet Picks

Ratings A-F for Obama's picks. Just my opinion.

(C) White House Chief of Staff: Rep. Rahm Emanuel. Democrat, Illinois. Obama said he wanted to unite us. Why pick a guy who is so divisive from the Illinois (read Chicago) political machine?

(D) Commerce: Bill Richardson, Democrat, New Mexico Governor, withdrawn because of a scandal. No replacement named.

(A) Securities and Exchange Commission: Mary Schapiro, CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Lots of experience in the financial industry. Former SEC commissioner and served as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1994 during the Clinton Administration.

(A) Transportation: Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, Republican. Experience in crafting positive legislation for transportation. Well respected by both Republicans and Democrats.

(C) Agriculture: Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Democrat. Championed use of ethanol from corn for fuel. Should we be led by a man who advocated burning up our food supply?

(C) State: Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York, former first lady. Are there conflicts of interest with Bill receiving millions of dollars from Middle Eastern countries?

(A) Interior: Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Democrat. Previously served as the state’s attorney general and head of its Department of Natural Resources. Rancher and farmer.

(A) Defense: Bill Gates, Republican, Current Secretary. Great pick for a smooth transition during time of war. Probably will be replaced in a couple of years after things settle down.

(D) Treasury: Timothy Geithner, Democrat. President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Failed to pay taxes for several years. And we want him to be in charge of collecting taxes? Come on!

(C) Homeland Security: Gov. Janet Napolitano, Democrat, Arizona. Does she really have the experience to manage this?

(C) Health and Human Services: Former Sen. Tom Daschle, Democrat, South Dakota. Leads Obama’s healthcare working group. Watch out for problems with his personal life!

(A) Attorney General: Eric Holder, Democrat, former deputy attorney general. Good experience.

(C) Labor: Rep. Hilda Solis, Democrat, California. What are her qualifications?

(A) U.S. Trade Representative: Ron Kirk, Democrat, former mayor of Dallas. Businessman. Good negotiator.

(A) Housing and Urban Development: Shaun Donovan, Democrat, New York. Commissioner of housing preservation and development in New York City. Served as a deputy assistant secretary at HUD during the Clinton administration.

(A) Small Business Administration: Karen Mills. A long resume’ of successful work raising capital and managing economic councils.

(C) Energy: Steven Chu. Head of the Berkeley National Laboratory and is a specialist in carbon-neutral energy sources. Won the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. Great scientist, but is fully on the AGW bandwagon.

(D) Education: Arne Duncan, Democrat, Illinois. Head of the Chicago public school system — the third largest in the country. Previously ran an educational institute in Chicago. Championed and ran several failed educational programs—do we want him running the whole country’s?

(B) Veteran’s Affairs: General Eric Shinseki. Former U.S. Army chief of staff. 4-star general.

(A) EPA: Lisa Jackson, Democrat, New Jersey. Oversaw New Jersey’s environmental protection office and currently serves as the chief of staff to the state’s governor. Chemical Engineer.

(A) Management and Budget: Peter Orszag, Democrat. Director of the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. During the Clinton administration, special assistant to the president for economic policy and senior economic adviser at the National Economic Council.

(D) Drug Control: No one picked yet. For this important office?

(F) Science Advisor: John Holdren. Physicist, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and the author or co-author of many papers and books. He has 30 years of doom and gloom predictions that NEVER came true. Why would we trust him as Science Advisor?

(F) CIA Director: Leon Panetta. Democrat. Former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. He has ZERO intelligence experience. Why would we risk this? Nothing against Leon—use him for something else.

MLK Day -- Remember What He Did

As we pause and remember what MLK did, let's remember that he positively impacted the world and broke down racial barriers even though he had the known flaws of womanizing and plagiarism. I say this not to disparage him, but to show that even though you and I may have our own shortcomings, weaknesses, and behavioral problems, we can impact our world as well.

Also, when a politician or other leader has skeletons in his or her closet, remember that they can change and still do good things. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone can put those things they'd rather forget behind them and move forward to accomplish their purpose in life.

Inaugural Porta-Potties

For those of you attending Presidential Inauguration Next Week: The U.S. Park service is ordering 5000 porta-potties for the Inauguration. The health departments require 1 porta-potty for 300 people at public events. Estimates for attendance at the Inauguration range up to 4 million people. That's over 8000 porta-potties short. Look for long lines and don't wait too late to get in line!

Inauguration Next Week!

Next week we get a new President. The old one is leaving and moving to my neck of the woods. It will be very interesting to see how much of Obama's original agenda he will be able to even introduce with the economic problems we are seeing. Luckily, so far things aren't any worse than they were under Carter's last few months in office yet. (In case you think I'm bashing Carter, let me explain that I believe Nixon's wage/price freezes of 1973-4 caused the problems of the late 70s.) Hopefully, things won't get much worse than they are now.

Let's all stay involved with our Congressmen and Senators. Let them know what you think about any issue that is important to you. And don't be a name-caller or basher. If we disagree with our elected officials we need to let them know why. If we agree, we need to let them know. That's what representative democracy is all about.

Those of us who pray should also pray for wisdom for our President and those around him. He's facing a lot of problems caused by people on both sides of the aisle and will need it over the next four or eight years.

On Burris & Blago, on Franken & Coleman

Note to Senate: Let Mr. Burris in! He’s been legally appointed. There is no evidence of wrong-doing on his part. And Blago has not been indicted. It’s also clear that the requirement for the Secretary of State to sign applies only to verifying an election.

On the Minnesota Election: It’s not over yet. Lots of irregularities. According to several websites and newspapers, there are 25 districts in Minnesota where there are more ballots than people who signed the roles. In others, there are ballots that have been counted twice. There are also counts provided with no ballots to back them up. There are ballots that magically showed up a week later. Ballots have been counted inconsistently: there are multiple ballots with an “X” in a filled-in circle that counted as votes for Franken, yet when the same markings appeared for Coleman, they are counted as “no votes.” Clearly, obviously, ethically, morally, and legally inconsistent! There is enough of this to turn the election around by several hundred votes. Ron Coleman’s website says he’s filing a lawsuit. Where is the national media on this? They are not reporting it.

Happy New Year!

May God you in the new year!

And God bless the USA!

Good/Bad for 2008

GOOD:
1. Bush: for protecting us from terrorist attacks for another four years.
2. Obama: for selecting Rick Warren for the inaugural prayer.
3. Israel: for finally responding to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
4. Bush Administration: for finally getting Iraq more or less under control with the surge.
5. Congress: for not giving in immediately to the big 3 automakers' demands for government bailouts.

BAD:
1. Bush: for warrantless wiretapping.
2. Bush: for pushing through a $700B "rescue" bill for the rich bankers without oversight.
3. Congress: for letting Bush push through the ridiculous bill.
4. Congress: for not fixing Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac in years previous when the Republicans wanted it fixed!
5. Blagojevich: for major ethics violations.

Ethics

U.S. Senators and Congressmen must follow the same laws that government employees and contractors are required to follow in the areas of gifts, personal contacts, etc. We must curtail the influence of lobbyists. Former government employees should be prohibited from becoming lobbyists for a period of two years after they work for the government.

Religion and Government

According to the Constitution, religion should be free of interference from the government, not vice versa. The “establishment of religion” clause means “taxation from people to directly support a state-sponsored sect.” That’s one thing government is not to do. The other is to not “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That includes the free exercise of religion or absence of religion of those in the government!

There is no doctrine of “separation of church and state” found there—it is a recent phenomenon invented by secularists of the 20th century. Recent Supreme Court rulings have affirmed that students and teachers are allowed to pray in schools, provided no one is forced to participate. Local, state, and national government entities open their meetings with prayer—the Supreme Court has affirmed this practice. It has also affirmed that the words “In God We Trust” on our currency is constitutional.

However, the government should not interfere with the right of each person to choose his or her beliefs and act on them, provided they do not break the laws or interfere with others' rights. Neither should churches be allowed to sponsor or promote a particular candidate or party.

Marriage and the Family

Marriage has always been defined throughout history as a social and legal union between a man and a woman to live as husband and wife and become a family, possibly conceiving or adopting and raising children. Just because two men or two women or a man and a giraffe may live together and share their lives does not make them married. There is no reason to directly contradict thousands of years of precedent.

Marriage laws are non-discriminatory, provided the marriage is between a man and a woman. There never has been a fundamental right for one person to marry another person of the same sex. Civil unions currently provide many of the same benefits for gays and lesbians in some states. In other states, filing a few legal documents does the same thing.

Abortion

Abortion is the law of the land. We may never see the Supreme Court reverse itself on its Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973. However, to make it safer and rarer, we can regulate it in a much better manner.

Few people know this, but most modern abortion methods were developed in the Nazi prison camps of the holocaust (according to Abortion and Social Justice, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1972). The documents explaining the methods were put under seal right after World War II along with most of the other captured documents and were not released en masse until the late 1960s. It may be no coincidence that the abortion industry started pushing so hard at this time for legalization. Many of these documents are still available through the Freedom of Information Act from the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Based on principles found in many macro-economic textbooks, I believe that abortion started negatively affecting our economy about fifteen years after it was legalized by judicial fiat. How? By reducing our birth rate, we reduced the rate at which the economy could grow and reduced the number of young people able to take on the entry-level jobs and be consumers. This forced the government to turn its back on immigration laws (see Immigration). Donald Mann, President of NPG, said that “Macro economic growth requires a growing labor force so that GNP can increase constantly. A growing labor force is only possible if population grows, and population growth in the U.S. depends largely on massive immigration.” By reducing abortion rates, we can improve our economy without illegal immigration.

Late-term abortions are extremely dangerous and must be eliminated. This includes such practices as “partial-birth abortion”—inducing a dangerous breach birth, leaving the head within the birth canal, and destroying the baby’s brain with the medical equivalent of a pair of scissors—are barbaric by any standards. The one exception to late-term abortion should be when the mother’s health is endangered. Even then, the child can be often be delivered by caesarian section and saved anyway. The survivability rate of children born normally after 6-month terms is very high. Mid-term abortions should only take place to save the life of the mother, or in the case of rape or incest.

Abortions performed on minors must be with a parent’s consent. No other medical procedure is allowed without it. Why should this be any different? If complications result (and they do in as many as 25% of cases—see Abortion Complications for more information), the parent must know what is wrong so he or she can make informed decisions about medical care.

Planned Parenthood’s motto is “Every child a wanted child.” In practice, the result is “Every child a wanted child—if not, kill it.” So, what do we do with all the “unwanted” children? First, let’s attack the myth about unwanted children. With an increase in infertility rates here is the USA, there is a shortage of infants up for adoption. This has been true for the last twenty years and more. Many people are forced to go overseas in order to find babies. There are no unwanted infants. As far as the older children go, there are studies that show that “unwanted” children show no more deviance or problems later in life than “wanted” children. There remains the problem of abandoned and abused children. We need to change the laws to make them easier to adopt instead of forcing them into perpetual foster care. Furthermore, we must encourage families to adopt them and provide those families with support to handle the potential for emotional and behavioral problems caused by abuse. Click here for more information.

Social Security

The Social Security revenues must be taken back out of the general fund and kept in their own bucket. Future benefits for those currently under 40 years of age must be reduced, while giving them the opportunity to put more money into retirement savings accounts (e.g. 401K, IRA, Keogh) tax-free.

Salary Caps

The current system of setting salaries and bonuses for company officers is highly incestuous. CEOs and others often make out like bandits while the company fails. Why? Because everyone sits on everyone else’s boards, voting each other raises and bonuses. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” This practice must stop!

The status quo was caused by current governmental regulations. We must change those regulations to prevent these types of relationships. If necessary, we must cap salaries based on some formula of sales, profits, number of employees, average employee salary, etc.

The Banking Industry

Extravagant spending must stop. We must pass laws that specify that banks and S&L’s: (1) build less expensive buildings; (2) eliminate luxury trips for officers; (3) reduce ridiculous salaries and bonuses (see “Salary Caps”); (4) stop predatory lending practices—don’t increase credit card limits unless asked by the customer; (5) require larger down-payments for housing loans; and (6) reduce credit card rates.

The Stock Market

The stock market must be brought back under control, eliminating all derivatives that add no value. We must increase the amount of money required for buying options from 5% to 25% of the stock value, eliminating heavy leveraging. Short-selling must be stopped altogether.

Government Spending

Government spending MUST be brought under control. The latest bailouts will do very little to help the common man—the rich will benefit in the short term and all will suffer with higher taxes in the long term, prolonging an otherwise short economic downturn.

Here is my plan to limit spending:

(1) Kick out the illegal aliens. They sap our economy by using our schools, our universities, our hospitals, and our public facilities, paying almost nothing in taxes, since they live mostly in an underground economy.
(2) Pass rules in both houses of congress to limit earmarks to no more than 1% of a fiscal bill. Give the President a line item veto. It is clear that the founding fathers didn’t conceive of the huge spending bills we would have today—for the first view decades, each “line item” was a separate bill, requiring every single spending proposal to stand or fall on its own.
(3) Limit spending increases to no more than the current inflation index.
(4) Pass no new entitlements and start phasing out all the existing ones except Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps. Remove the revenues for these programs from the general budget and manage them separately again.
(5) Eliminate programs that don’t work.
(6) Eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.

Taxes

First, a little history. Originally, income taxes were only for the top tier of earners. It’s still mostly that way. The Top 20% of wage earners pay 90% of the taxes. After every tax rate reduction (under Kennedy, under Reagan, and under Bush II), revenues went up due to the economy being stimulated. When the government increased tax rates (Herbert Hoover, F D Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Clinton), within two years revenues decreased due to a downturn in the economy. And contrary to current popular wisdom, Bush II’s tax cuts shifted a larger burden of the tax collection from the poorer to the richer. In 2006, the top 5% of U.S. taxpayers, those with gross annual incomes of at least $153,500, paid about 60% of all income tax collected, while reporting only about one-third of the total income of the U.S. This is up from 55% under Clinton. The top 20% pay 80% of the taxes.

The current tax rates are about right and should be extended before they expire in 2010. Some minor adjustments can be made to optimize revenue. Raising taxes on the rich only ensures that they will not be able to hire as many people, spend as much on goods, or take as many vacations. This is disastrous to the middle class, since the money would go to them. The poor shouldn’t be paying taxes—however, neither should we use “tax rebates” to “redistribute wealth.” This only encourages laxity.

Let’s get one thing straight—corporations don’t pay taxes, consumers pay them. Before you think about “soaking the corrupt corporations,” ask yourself, “Do I want the cost of everything I buy to go up?” Let’s leave corporate taxes where they are.

Inheritance taxes destroy small businesses, which employ half of all private sector employees, pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll, and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade (according to the SBA). Even if let the current inheritance tax holiday expire, we must eliminate all inheritance taxes on small businesses to keep our economy strong.

Interpretation of the Constitution

I grew up learning that the Constitution of the Unites States of America was a “living document.” I thought they meant that was living in that it could be changed by adding amendments. Later on I learned that some people mean that its meaning can be changed and adapted to the times. This is ridiculous. If this is true, then we have no Constitution and the Rule of Law becomes nothing more than a Rule of Feelings. This leads to arbitrary law established by an elite judicial oligarchy, which can lead to the worst kind of social injustice.

To find out what the Constitution means, we need to look at how the people who wrote and ratified each article, section, and amendment viewed them. In other words, what did they mean them to say? They mean no more and no less. This is called "original meaning." The Constitution was written in plain English and was meant to be understood by the common man.

In order to prevent a few judges from ruling the land based on their arbitrary views, we need to appoint judges that interpret the Constitution using the principles of original meaning.