Wake up Rip!

Rip Van Winkle wakes up after 25 years. When he went to sleep Ronald Reagan was President. The country was strong economically and militarily. She was a leader of the free world. Communism was reeling and losing ground politically and economically.

Boy does Rip get a shock! He turns on the news or probably gets on the internet since the main stream press has quit journalism in favor of propaganda. The revelations -

- Scientists have lied and fudged data to support their position on global warming - and to protect the big federal grant money coming their way.

- The vote of a United States Senator has been bought for $300 million of the taxpayer's money destined for her state. Additionally, she corrects with pride, the original disclosure that it was only $100 million.

- The Chinese communists are lecturing us on fiscal responsibility.

- Federal spending is out of control - TARP, stimulus, omnibus spending bill, cash for klunkers, cap and trade and the push for nationalized health care - of course not under that name.

- Gamesmanship by the Democratic controlled Congress to misinform the public as to the cost of the health care bill by taking payments to doctors out of the legislation and by including tax increases during a ten year period and expenditures for five or six.

- Unelected and unconfirmed Czars exerting huge power over virtually all areas of the economy.
Many of these Presidential picks have either communist leanings and/or affiliations as reflected in their recorded speeches and publications.

- The taking over of a major auto manufacturer. Setting caps on salaries in the private sector.

All of this and much, much more, from a President who campaigned on transparency, bipartisanship and fiscal responsibility.

Our founding fathers stressed the need for virtue by the citizen's in order to make our system of government work. Do we have enough character, morality and love of freedom to ward off the wave of collectivism being thrust upon us? I don't know . I pray that we do. I pray that the good solid citizen's of this country will rise up civilly and say enough is enough at the polls while we still have the ability to do so.

If you think that our form of government can't fall, I invite you to seriously look at the events in Italy , Russia and Germany during the early twentieth century. I have, and the similarity in many areas with what is going on today are frightening.

As Patrick Henry said, "what we gain too easily, we esteem too lightly." Lest we forget.

The Blame Game

A day hardly passes that we don't hear from the Obama administration cries about the mess which they inherited from the Bush administration. My, but memories become short and selective when it is convenient.

In the election of 2006 both houses of congress came under the control of the democrats. If my memory is correct all legislation is passed by the congress. All spending is authorized by the congress. I think it is then reasonable to ask who really was in control of the economy the last two years of the Bush administration?
I think President Bush only vetoed one bill during that time - the CHIPS program expansion.

When the democrats took control of congress in 2007, the Dow was about 12,500. GDP had grown about 4.8%. The national debt was less than nine trillion and unemployment was at 4.6%. Inflation was in check with the CPI around 2.5%. This hardly sounds like a mess to me.

All of the spending bonanza passed in 2008 was authorized by a democratic congress. TARP was passed by a democratic congress. I am not trying to say that the republicans were not complicit in what went on. President Bush should have used the veto pen more often or, at least, the bully pulpit of his office more effectively to reign in spending. His political myopia on the war and national defense is good in that we won in Iraq - despite what the media says - and at home we were free from further attack. It was bad in that more attention on what was happening at home was lacking by the country's chief executive.

In any crisis there is going to be plenty of blame to go around. To plead innocence for the so called mess that developed when you controlled both houses of congress is hypocrisy taken to a new level.

Some Questions for the President

Those of us in "the great unwashed" have some questions we would like answered. I'm sure there is an academic response but, humor me, lets just revert to logic.

Questions for the governing elite-

1) If there is a great amount of fraud and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid and the President knows how to correct it, why doesn't he do it? Why wait for sweeping new legislation? If he can and will fix it now, the voters will listen to his new proposals.

2) The President says that the economy has bottomed out and is getting better. The stimulus was by definition, the vehicle of doing this. Only about 25% of the stimulus money has actually flowed into the economy. If he fixed it with 25 % why doesn't he return the other 75% to the folks he took it from. ( Yes, took!)

3) The President says there will not be rationing. If there are 30 million people ( the revised number) coming into the system and the same number (or less) of doctors, nurses and hospitals, how will there be the same amount of services available for the larger number without cutting someone off - either by not providing the service or by stringing it out ( i.e., long lines and adverse conditions for waiting).

4) If the health plan is so great, why are Congress, the Unions and other politically favored groups excluded from participation.

5) Some 81 % in a recent poll showed satisfaction with their current plan. Why should the system be torn apart and rebuilt for the 19%.

6) The President has referred to people being denied health care, yet it is the law that emergency rooms have to treat all, regardless of ability to pay. Isn't this a contradiction in terms.

7) The CBO estimates a cost in ten years of up to 1.6 trillion dollars. Using the figures which government usually uses for decision making, how will the proposed legislation produce a bill that the President can sign given his pledge not to sign a bill that increases the deficit.

8) If the President will not accept earmarks from Congress, why did he sign a budget reconciliation bill that had thousands?

9) Name a government run enterprise that is running in the black and surpassing private enterprises in efficiency and cost?

10) If Medicare is going broke, Medicaid is going broke, Social Security is going broke, Fannie and Freddie are in trouble, and the Post Office is predicting a two billion dollar plus deficit, why should any sane person think that the government can run a national health program. Have you been to a VA or Indian Reservation health facility lately? I have.

11) If we're in trouble from global warming why has the earth's temperature cooled over the last ten years.

12) Why should a day in which this nation was attacked for the first time since 1812, be commemorated by a day of service.

13) When the polls show 52- 80 percent, depending on the policy, to be opposed to the President's proposals, why is he pressing them.

I don't think asking for an answer to these questions, some or all of which have been considered by many citizens other than me, is asking too much.

I won't hold my breath for an answer. I hope this doesn't place me on the "Enemy's List".