The same old tired ideas that don’t work, TAX, TAX, TAX.
In the finale of Atlas Shrugged, Mr Williams holds John Galt hostage while making it seem he is free. John Galt is the only entrepreneur industrialist that can save the nation. Mr. Williams puts a gun to Galt’s head and asks for Galt’s advice.
The country is out of work, on the verge of bankruptcy, and the people are beginning a revolution; Mr. Williams is desperate for Galt to tell him how to save the economy.
Galt says, “Eliminate regulations and cut taxes.”
Williams answer to Galt’s suggestion, “We can’t do that.”
Obama accuses the Republicans of putting a gun to the head of America. He forgets that a few months ago he rammed Obamacare legislation through Congress with a gun. He had no regard to the voice of the American people on that one.
I am an American, and I say let’s shut the country down. Make the bureaucratic departments and bureaucrats suffer like the private sector jobless for a while.
Obama offers a compromise, cut the defense budget and he will approve. As an American, I say eliminate the Department of Education completely, and I will agree to a small cut in defense.
President Obama stop promoting the tired old ideas of the New Deal that are documented not to work as a solution to this massive mess. It is easier than you think to get out of it.
1. Repeal the housing act that caused the housing bubble.
2. Stop pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into giving away money for houses people can’t afford. You haven’t provided a single regulation to these two rogue organizations.
3. Eliminate Capital Gains Taxes.
4. Give small business incentives to build their businesses.
5 Repeal PPACA (Obamacare).
Try these tired old ideas and watch the country come alive again.
There are a number of green jobs that Obama left off his list of high paying positions which would make an investment in the country. Instead, he insists on promoting ridiculous electric cars, windmills, and solar power as the answer. Yes, these are definitely ways to “green.” The problem lies in the fact that none of these technologies are even remotely close to being capable of meeting even the least of our energy demands. A few days ago, I published a graph showing where the gallons go in the transportation scheme. Hitting on cars does not make any sense at all. The single largest opportunity for saving oil and reducing green house gases is in shipping by boat. My calculations did not include the boats used for shipping “stuff” from China to the rest of the world. My graph only includes the oil burned in shipping oil to the U.S. The graph is below for reference.
Chart by Grumpa Joe May 18, 2011, Data from various Internet sources
This week, I learned from a very reliable source that the cursed “green” nemesis of the liberal world is in trouble. The Alaskan pipeline is running at only thirty percent capacity. Why? Because the oil field it serves is running dry. In a short time the cost of operating the line will exceed the value of oil coming through. When it finally shuts down, conservationists will dismantle it. Once that happens, any chance of drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), only seventy-five miles away from the pipeline, will be slim to none.
The Alaskan pipeline began operation in 1977, and the greenies have been bitching about the negative effect it has on the environment ever since. The opposite is true, wildlife has adapted to the pipeline and the countryside remains pristine. Conservationists should concentrate on picking up liter in trashy U.S. cities before they hit on the pipeline.
It is clear to me that Obama wants to sink the country with his “green ” policy. He does not have a single rational concept for keeping the country moving while making it more green except to increase the cost of energy to the point of bankruptcy. He doesn’t want to bankrupt the government, he wants to bankrupt the citizenry. He lovingly refers to it as “redistribution of wealth.” I call it white slavery. He wants the working stiffs to feed his poor. If you have a job, you are also feeding a shadow family the size of your own.
If Obama is serious about anything, he will work a compromise and allow drilling in ANWR immediately. He will encourage a short pipeline be built to connect ANWR to the Alaskan line. If he knew anything at all, he would want to light a fire under the economy to increase the flow of taxes into the coffers. The increases could then fuel his dream to power the world with windmills. What is his problem? His dreams are too large for one term as president. His capability lacks the leadership required for the job of transforming America into socialized medicine, green energy, and a muslim nation. The job is too large. It will take a hundred years to make all that happen. In order to fulfill that dream he must eliminate every conservative from the face of the planet. Don’t get me wrong, he is working on that too. His fantastic ability to multi-task is turning him into the huge failure he is.
The trillion dollars he wasted went to buy votes, to shore up state governments, payback unions, take over banks, buy car companies, and to nationalize student loans. During the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties, FDR at least got us some infrastructure for the money he spent. The projects didn’t have any effect on ending the Depression, but they did yield benefits. Have you ever visited a National Park to see brass plaques designating features within the park as a CCC effort? Have you wondered where Hoover dam came from, or the TVA? What is Obama’s lasting legacy: Obamacare, General Motors, Chrysler, Student Loans, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac? I’ve included Obamacare even though it is not bearing fruit for you and me. It needs a four-year head start to collect money to get is jump started. Once it gets started, the money it took four years to collect will run out, and the system will be bankrupt in eight years. Meanwhile, Medicare, a system invented in the sixties, will also be run out of money.
Big government as seen by liberals and Obama only feeds off itself. Systems get fatter, efficiency of systems drop, and we the people suffer more. Meanwhile the Fat Cat Bureaucrats continue to whip the white slaves to extract more.
I just received a bill that set me back on my heels. What the heck did I spend on to get a bill like the one below? I do not spend much at all, but the government spends on my behalf. They do a very good job too. The problem with their spending is that I do not see any benefit. So why am I getting the bill? You will get one too. This invoice is for every person in the USA. The problem is that after I pay this bill, I will get another one to pay for my counterpart who has not worked.
It is hard to believe that in the sixty-plus days since the BP oilrig blew up that no one has coined the phrase Barack Petroleum. A while back, I posted apiece titled Big Fat Lie in which I postulated that the oil rig blow up was a government sponsored conspiracy. I claimed it was a save-face cover for POTUS to rescind his generous relinquishment of off shore drilling. There was no doubt; my theory was so far out it fell into the category of a Big Fat Lie.
As the oil continues to spew into the Gulf and the politics of it begins to unfold, I am leaning to another big fat lie theory. This one has the Administration sending Navy Seals to blow up the rig, but the rationale is different. This time, it is because POTUS wants to take over BP. Why is that? He wants to add an energy company to his growing stable of government controlled or owned companies: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Student Loan Program, Chrysler, GM, and Health Care Insurance. What else does he want? Perhaps, he will add your soul and mine too.
POTUS put the gun to BP’s head and extorted twenty billion dollars from them as payment toward the lost wages of the coastal residents. The clean-up costs are extra. A few more payments and he will have another trillion to deposit into a Swiss bank account for retirement. The company will have to give him stock to make a payment like that.
Is it the big fat lie syndrome, or is it I? Is it coincidence? Or, is it Rahm’s theory that every catastrophe becomes an opportunity to build a bigger government?
This is another story sent to me by a dear friend. This one represents the feelings and thoughts of many people in the USA today. This author had the moral courage to put his own thoughts in writing for me, and you too.
I’m 63 and I’m Tired
by Robert A. Hall
I’m 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.
I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.
I’m tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China , the crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela .
I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.
I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.
I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.
I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.
I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.
I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.
I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military…. Those are the citizens we need.
I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.
I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet.
I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.
I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.
This post is copied from his BLOG, The Old Jarhead. Go there to see all the comments he received for this piece, and for a complete profile of Hall himself.
The same old tired ideas that don’t work, TAX, TAX, TAX.
