Bond Not, Waste Not

The annual budget battle here in Maine has proved quite contentious.  Paul Lepage, our Governor, has insisted that significant cuts to the upcoming budget be made and of course now faces recrimination and vilification from the usual sources (Progressives/Liberals/Whatever, unions, the “helping services”, state government aid recipients and a hodgepodge of assorted other special interests groups).

This particular Governor, being a Republican, has been a constant target of smear tactics, character assassination, and viperous (not infrequently hysterical) criticism which is now being echoed by several of Maine’s daily newspapers, a consortium of which was recently purchased by venture capitalist (aren’t these the bad guys Obama rants about?) Donald Sussman, the recently acquired husband of Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree.  Just out of curiosity, I wonder if there are any other politicians who have such direct control over what information can be fed to their adoring voters?

Anyway, a recent part of this conflagration was fanned by the Governor’s reluctance to approve a new bond measure totaling just under $100 million which was being advanced by the state Senate Appropriations Committee.  Gov. Le Page had the audacity to hint that unless his plans to utilize further cuts to welfare designed to bring the state into line with federal standards were approved, he might be less than hospitable toward borrowing more money – perhaps even to the point of exercising his veto powers to deny approval of additional borrowing to pay for pet projects.

The backers of the bond issue (a group which most unfortunately contains some Republicans) trotted out the tired old chestnut that proclaims such borrowing would provide the “stimulus” for badly needed jobs in one of the nation’s poorest states.  Gee, where have we heard that argument before?  And how did that work for America?

A check of the records reveals that during the prior eight years of a Democratic administration here in Maine there were numerous bond issues approved that totaled over $725 million, resulting (according to official Maine Department of Labor statistics) in the creation of exactly 54 jobs while unemployment over the same period grew from 4.8 percent in 2003 to 8 percent in 2011.  On the other hand, from January 2011 to present, when no bond issues had been suggested or approved, the number of jobs tallied by the same source exceeds 3,000.

“Bonds are not the answer”, stated Governor LePage and I am inclined to agree with him.  “If we want good paying careers we must invest in our job creators by reducing red tape, lowering taxes, and making structural changes to energy, education and welfare. These are the long-term solutions that can help revive the American Dream for Mainers,” he said.

The bond package containing $51 million for transportation-related projects, $20 million for research and development projects that would be bid through the Maine Technology Institute, $11.3 million for higher education, $8 million for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects, and $5 million supporting the Land for Maine’s Future Program received glowing endorsements from Republican Senator Richard Rosen (who stated he was proud of the package because Democrats and Republicans came to a consensus on most items) and Democratic Sen. Phil Bartlett of Gorham who pronounced that the bond package will get people back to work and create good-paying jobs.

Gov. LePage suggested that the state “should focus on repaying $500 million that’s owed to state hospitals instead of taking on more debt”.

Getting Maine back on the right side of the fiscal accounting ledger is going to take a lot of hard work a sacrifice considering the hole that the Legislature has previously dug for Maine taxpayers.  It is truly unfortunate that even though the Republicans have for the first time in 35 years gained control of the Legislature and the Governorship, there is, in a number of Legislators of both parties, still a discernible lack of an understanding of what fiscal responsibility must entail.

Good luck, Governor, and keep fighting …… boy, do we need it.

Presidential Rants

I have yet to construct a solid take on last night’s address, but it appeared for the most part to be dedicated to corralling more taxpayer money for his base (public employees, unions, etc.), not to setting up opportunities for private sector growth.  Surprise, surprise.

A big red flag to me is “Pass this right now, right now!”.  Remember the times we have been fed this line and the eye-popping resulting debt?  And, as usual, no details on how this $450 billion dollar giveaway is to be funded.  Nope, just the same old, “details will be unveiled in the near future” – after the bill is rushed through, of course.

Hopefully, the Republicans will stand tall and refuse to budge without vital details.

More later, as the charade unfurls.

 

Had Enough Yet?

I have.

I fired off emails yesterday to each member of my Congressional delegation, informing them that if their votes were for anything other than reduction of federal spending (and therefore a step forward in reducing debt and strengthening our national economic profile) than they would not only lose my vote come reelection time, but I would also do anything that I could to prevent them from retaining their privileged positions.

What set me off?  It is a cumulative reaction to an ever-growing level of disgust with the abhorrent actions of our Ruling Class when faced with a (false) choice of raising our national debt level or “defaulting” on our country’s bills.  There is more than enough money coming in through taxes to allow America continue to function, but our so-called “leadership” is unwilling to curtail their reckless spending habits.  The “establishment” politicians – and this includes members of both parties – are beginning to fear the influence of the new members of Congress who came to Washington to attempt to follow the wishes of those who elected them to bring some semblance of order to a government that sees as its only purpose the redistribution of the wealth amassed by those members of our society who produce rather than take.

No where is this more evident than the growing attempts at denigration of the “Tea Party” and its newly elected Congressional members.  Such ugliness and fabrication is to be expected from the Democratic Party and its arrogant elitist leadership, but now Sen. John McCain has joined the chorus.  This is a truly despicable act, for a senior member of the establishment to attack people of principle in order to protect his own elite status.  I am ashamed to have voted for this man in the last Presidential election.  I should have simply abstained from voting for either Presidential candidate, but I could not bring myself to not vote against the unqualified disaster that now sits in the White House.

The actions of Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are utterly unconscionable when it comes to the budget impasse.  Obama, in his usual fashion, has lied in agreeing to a compromise with House Republicans and then at the last moment interjecting new demands in the form of additional revenues (taxes).  Under Reid’s slimy manipulations, the Democratic-controlled Senate has avoided proposing any budget for the last two years, despite repeated Republican overtures in the form of bills designed to balance the budget and rein in spending.  The true “Party of no” has revealed itself.

The proof is in the pudding.  Democrats will insist on more and more spending to reward their constituents.  This is their only plan and they lack the courage to reveal it as our economy continues to decline.  After all, the Presidential elections are only fifteen months away and all they can hope for is for even minimal economic improvement so that they can boast about their dedication to improving the lives of “ordinary Americans”.  Their desperate attempts to convince voters through lying about improvements to our economic woes have fallen flat simply because the truth is so evident.

In Maine we have two Republican members of the Senate and two Democratic members of the House.  Through their dedication to their fellow members of the Ruling Class, America’s financial problems have increased exponentially during their watches.   Unless they, and their political counterparts, are deposed the downfall of the United States and the loss of the freedoms that make it unique are a given.

Personally, I do not want Marxist rule.

How Not to Cure Unemployment

There is an identifiable problem that requires the attention of anyone wanting to see unemployment decline.  There should be no question that the economic “recovery” so eagerly touted by the administration and its media cheerleaders is, at best, less than mediocre and is limited the recipients of the taxpayer dollars dispensed to favored constituencies who have profited from bailouts to those Obama characterizes as the “greedy rich” (many of whom have contributed heavily both to his election and to other politicians controlling the federal money machine).

Even with such a dismal performance, there are a few bright spots, such as U.S. exports which have risen over the last decade from 10 percent of GDP to a current peak of 12.8 percent.  This positive picture has been generated mostly through the efforts of states dominated by factories and farms that have fueled an emerging market for American industrial equipment and agricultural goods, even though these items face strong international competition.

This limited success story serves to highlight the issues revealed in a report labeled “The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge”, published in March of this year by economists Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo.  This detailed account presents the changes that the American labor market endured between 1990 and 2008 and illustrates the dramatic divergence between the parts of the economy that are internationally tradable and those that are not.  Therein lies the essence of the problems that face anyone who is currently seeking employment in our current economy

U.S. firms that sell goods and services around the world face plenty of competitors on the international scene, but have gone to great lengths to sharply increase their output while at the same time containing costs through greater specialization.  Unfortunately, this has resulted in the attrition of many low and mid-level skilled jobs that have been shed or sent offshore.  Knowledge-intensive industries are showing major gains, while blue-collar manufacturing work is rapidly diminishing as well as are agricultural intensive labor positions (see: “A Nation of Sharecroppers”, National Review May 2, 2011 edition) because of increasing mechanization.  The result has been flat employment in the tradable sector.

But a different story emerges from a review of the untradable sector where rapid employment growth is visible.  This sector, which includes government and health care (soon, through Obamacare, to be joined at the hip), retail, accommodation and food, and construction operates in a different environment than that faced by the tradable sector.  For instance government accounted for 22.5 million of the 149.2 million jobs in 2008, 6.3 million of which had been added since 1990.  And of course that does not include the wildly surging number of positions created through the recent “stimulus” spending and expansion of regulatory agencies through the efforts of the Obama administration.

Keep in mind that the untradable job positions have resulted in little or no growth for the GDP, since they produce nothing exportable and in most instances depend upon a redistribution of the wealth accumulated through productive labor or creation of value.  Public sector employment, at all levels, is hobbled by rigid work rules and compensation schemes that inhibit productivity while fostering a demand for increasing salary and benefits.  Private service sector opportunities of all types (including many construction jobs) are thereby limited and compensation constrained to inadequate levels since revenues become more and more dependent upon the redistribution of income that lacks replenishment from a robust and creative middle class.

America is beginning to recognize that without employment for the growing mass of less-skilled and mid-skilled unemployed who find it increasingly difficult to find work and avoid dependence upon government for their income, our nation’s headlong rush toward economic implosion is ever more likely.

Ever-growing expansion of public sector jobs is unsustainable.  The fact that ninety-five percent of government funding is generated through personal income taxes (now paid by only one-half of our wage earners), payroll taxes, and corporate income taxes clearly underlines a desperate need for private sector jobs.

The unfettered recycling of public sector wealth, through government structure and intervention, while it fits the Marxist plans to remake America, is a blockade to economic growth, freedom, and the resurgence of a stabilizing middle class that will aid the return of desperately needed jobs.

And that, Class, is why you see no plans from Obama and his merry band that will result in anything other than more taxes from an already overburdened taxpayer base.

The Fallout From “Cronyism Politics”

This past week Maine joined the growing number of states being targeted by demonstrators connected to Moveon.org, labor unions and other organizations that depend upon government largess for their livelihood.

The common link between all of these state governments is an attempt by newly elected Governors and Legislatures to deal with decades of runaway state spending and massive debts incurred through previous administrations’ negligence in funding generous pensions and other benefits.  For decades, state legislatures dominated by Democrats won the loyalty and votes of state workers, welfare recipients and members of the “helping professions” through the unlimited expansion of salaries, pensions and other benefits.

Now, there are only five states throughout the country that are not saddled with massive and unsustainable debt as a result of the failure of lawmakers to adequately fund the promises made in the areas of pension and health care benefits.

Here in Maine, thirty-five years of Democratic control of the legislative branch resulted in an inflated and unwieldy bureaucracy whose number of state workers is 12% above the national average.  In a state where unemployment is rampant, the burden of taxation to support all of these workers is not only hugely burdensome but counterproductive in that coupled with Maine’s unfriendly business climate, Maine citizens are rapidly approaching the point where there will be more people “riding in the wagon than pulling it”.

New Governor Paul LePage has proposed modest increases in State workers’ contributions to pension and health care benefits (which workers’ costs are already far below the norm borne by private sector employees), that have been met with hysterical protests by a few demonstrators and their handlers “from away”.  The Governor’s statement that job cuts will be limited to a dozen or so positions and a few jobs that are currently not filled was also targeted with panicked remonstrations that the sky was in dire danger of falling if these “assaults” were allowed to be carried out.

I watched with irritation a film clip of a relatively young retired state worker who was bemoaning the proposal that her pension (which was close to my military retirement figure) faced limitations in cost-of-living increases.  Since this is the second year in a row that I have been denied any such increase I was unable to sympathize – Social Security recipients, by the way, are facing the same denial.  I fail to see why state workers in any jurisdiction should be granted favored status over those who are required to pay for their “services”.

I do not maintain that police, firemen, EMT’s and other vital professions are overpaid. As a twenty-year military veteran, I can certainly appreciate the dangerous environment in which they work and the tolls that such jobs exact on both physical and mental well-being.  In the case of retired military, we were severely underpaid during active service with the promise that we would be paid a certain percentage of that monthly stipend for the rest of our lives (if we made it past the twenty-year mark).  For other, less demanding professions ….. well, $80,000 plus for nine months on the job for a Wisconsin teacher seems quite generous.

My “free treatment for life” medical benefits have been altered to include both a monthly charge and co-payments, but I still consider myself lucky to have some help in that area.

Government at all levels is fraught with waste and redundancy.  The protest that budgets “have been cut to the bone” is both spurious and laughable.  Worse still is the contention that government workers at any level should have a special exemption when it comes to the belt-tightening that must be accepted by all of us citizens to save America from financial and social ruin.

What we are witnessing is an orgy of self-interest and entitlement from the public service sector.  And it is all directly connected to decades of failure by elected officials to serve the best interests of the American public.  Instead, we are trying to deal with the fallout produced by a climate of corruption and cronyism engineered by the foxes who have guaranteed the welfare of selected residents of the chicken coop in return for a quota of vociferous clucking on demand.

Health Care Can Be Reformed

The knee jerk mantra from the Left has been that Obamacare is sacrosanct and anyway, the opposition (meaning Republicans) has failed to come up with any alternative suggestions.  This is prevarication and obfuscation at its worst.  In 2009, House Republicans offered a plan to improve health care and lower the costs which was rejected out of hand by Obama and his advisers and mostly ignored by the mainstream press.

The result is Obamacare, which has been roundly repudiated by the American public, both in the polls and by the November elections.  Mr. Jeffrey H. Anderson, in the February 14th edition of The Weekly Standard, provides a illuminating explanation of why the American people have proved unwilling to accept Obamacare as a permanent fixture of American life:

“If an architect gives you a horrible plan for a house you didn’t ask for, can’t afford, and don’t want to live in, you don’t work with the architect to change the color of the paint or modify the placement of a closet – especially when the foundation hasn’t yet been poured.  Rather, you fire the architect and get to work on replacement plans for something far more livable and affordable.”

Our system does not allow us to fire the architects of Obamacare on the spot, although a significant number of their supporters were nudged out of their comfy nests following the November elections.  The House Republicans did construct an pass  a bill repealing the forced legislation, even though it was understood that the Senate would never go along with such action, nor would President Obama sign off on it.

So now the Republican majorities need to redouble their efforts provide America with a choice of meaningful, sensible alternatives to Obamacare’s  most grievous and comprehensive failings and thoroughly publicize their efforts.

Mr. Anderson suggests that Republicans concentrate on and emphasize three “relatively simple things”.

First: lowering health costs.  A health care plan released by House Republicans (and ignored by the Administration and the mainstream media) already provides a viable framework by allowing “Americans to buy health insurance across state lines”, allowing “small business to pool together to buy insurance”, allowing “private entities greater latitude in following the Safeway cost-cutting model of offering lower premiums for healthier lifestyles”, preventing “runaway malpractice lawsuits, which lead doctors to practice defensive medicine and thereby substantially raise health care cost for everyone, and “make it easier to use pre-tax Health Savings Accounts”.  Mr. Anderson reports that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the 2009 Republican plan would lower premiums by 5 percent to 8 percent on the open market while Obamacare would raise them by 10 to 13 percent.

Second: stopping the tax code from discriminating against the uninsured.  The important thing here is to understand that the “discrimination” involved is not that insurance companies charge more for people who incur more costs – that is simply a business procedure – but that the tax code offers tax breaks to those who obtain health care through their employer’s plans (pre-tax contributions, etc.) that are not available to those who try to purchase policies on the open market using after-tax dollars, thereby forcing them to pay rates that are much higher than anyone else’s.  Refundable tax credits to the uninsured while not changing the tax status of employer-provided insurance would be one option to pursue

Third: providing sensibly structured federally funded, state-run community “high-risk pools”.  The Obamacare plan that everyone would be force insurers into covering all comers at the same price (which is not scheduled to go into effect for three years) would simply guarantee a higher premium for all in addition to being overregulated, underfunded, and mandating overly expensive benefits.  The pools should be intended for people who are “high cost” rather than “high risk” and would benefit from an overhaul with better design, lower cost, and less regulation with more local control as goals.

This, in a nutshell, describes Mr. Anderson’s advice to Republicans.  It could be noted that many of his suggestions and comments are addressed in the 2009 Republican plan.  That could be an excellent starting place for bi-partisan collaboration in structuring a replacement bill that would provide improvements in the costs and administration of American health care.

We will soon see if our elected politicians are up to the task.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the mainstream media played a helpful and informative part?

 

Where Should Priorities Lie?

America’s government entities, state and federal, are faced with a host of problems.  Taken as a whole, this mountainous stack of items that need fixing can easily appear insurmountable.  But for those of us outside of government (accustomed to dealing with the real world, if you will), such challenges are not necessarily the unbeatable troll that lives under the bridge or the unstoppable ogre who is bent on dismantling the castle and devouring its inhabitants.

An old saying is truly applicable; “If you find yourself in a deep and seemingly inescapable hole, the first thing to do is stop digging”.  Alas, if only all of our government officials would heed that pithy advice.

No matter what the circumstances, there are always choices involved.  Perhaps they may all appear to be choices with unpleasant consequences, leaving the searcher with only varying degrees of discomfort available to choose from – or, in the case of terminal disease or injury, only one eventual scenario.  In many instances, however, pre-disaster choices (stop smoking, don’t walk on busy train tracks, avoid traveling during blizzards, STOP UNFUNDED SPENDING) can set up a more propitious outcome.

As individuals, the choices that we make can have an enormous impact on our lives.  In working out our daily problems and conflicts, we often employ the technique of prioritization, thus selecting the most important current issue or issues to address in hopes of maintaining at least some semblance of equanimity.

Governments, being a lodestone for politicians and bureaucrats, are by nature ill-equipped to make decisions without endless study and discussion (unless, of course, the decision has to do with their personal welfare and/or prestige, or payoffs to those who helped them gain admission to the Ruling Class).  A case in point is the existence of over 1,000 “commissions”, funded at a cost of over $400 million, that have been appointed to provide “guidance” to government entities who have already been staffed (at great expense) with those who have been selected because of their perceived ability to make appropriate decisions.  Makes your head hurt, doesn’t it?

But such excesses blow a huge hole in the argument that no programs or funding can be cut or reduced without destroying our nation.

An argument can be made that our most pressing national and local problems revolve around the economy and a supposed lack of money available to work our way out of the swamp of overspending that impedes economic recovery.  As anyone (politicians and bureaucrats excepted) who has despairingly struggled with the family budget has come to realize, you cannot spend your way out of debt.  Stop digging, if you are searching for solutions.  In America’s case, the production of rights and benefits is at the tipping point of overcoming the production of wealth.

Keep in mind that government does not create wealth – it taxes the producers of wealth (be they business owners or the workers they employ) and redistributes the proceeds ……. after feeding the government machine, of course.

For example: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are rightfully praised as safety net programs for aging or otherwise destitute citizens.  These programs are regarded as imperative.  Fine, but just suppose that limits/priorities were applied.  Suppose that monthly Social Security payments were frozen for a defined period.  Suppose that means testing was applied and payments were further adjusted.  Suppose that such entitlements were reserved (prioritized) for only citizens or immigrants with legal status (green cards).  Would you anticipate any savings?

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.  Now there is a good example of establishing priorities.

How to achieve those goals is why we have elections as part of the process of continuing our Representative Republic.  “We the People” …. not, “We the Government”, or “We the Bureaucrats”, or “We the Town Council”, or “We the Politicians”, and certainly not “We the Citizens of Other Countries Who have Entered America Illegally”.

We the People must hold our elected representatives accountable for their promises and to living up to their oaths of office.  We must insist that they stop digging the hole of astronomical debt deeper and deeper.  We must insist that they apply the concept of prioritization.  I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to send letter after letter, email after email to elected politicians who continue with “business as usual”, but repetitive demands are vital in gaining the attention of the managerially challenged.

So, unless we make it a priority to continually prod these miscreants into improving the lot of the citizenry at large – and not their own personal and/or ideological interests, improvement will remain beyond reach.

Stay alert, stay interested, stay informed, stay active.  Consider making those actions part of your priorities.

 

America’s “Greediest Generation”

Former Senator (1979-1997) Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) seems to have made perfectly clear his feelings about America’s “entitlement programs”.  In a recent interview printed in the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, Simpson, co-chair of Barrack Obama’s National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, leaped to label critics of his decades-long crusade against Social Security as members of the nation’s “Greediest Generation”.

“We had the greatest generation,” Simpson said. “I think this is the greediest generation.”

This from a career politician who inherited his exalted status from his career politician father and who has made a living from the public sector for nearly all of his adult life, who has been involved in advisory commission after advisory commission for over a decade after retiring from the Senate with an exorbitant pension, and who was the recent recipient of a $70,000 knee replacement (courtesy of the taxpayers who pick up the tab for the medical plan for present and former legislators that provides the Cadillac of all plans for them and their families).

What a perfect example of the Ruling Class that we, as voters, have allowed to develop.  I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t add, “Let them eat cake”.

Okay; in the spirit of full disclosure, I am one of the geezers who is eligible for Medicare.  And I also am a retired Army noncom with a modest monthly pension and a medical plan for which I make monthly payments and additional co-payments whenever I utilize the plan (not exactly in line with the “free medical care for life” that military retirees were promised, but so much for government promises).

After leaving the military, I continued to work until reaching the age of full eligibility for these benefits.  During my entire working life including military service, I continued to pay into both Social Security and Medicare.  That was the contract that was proffered to working Americans – you pay into the system during the time that you are most productive to help support those who no longer are able to completely support themselves and then you become eligible for some benefits.  To me, that is not an “entitlement”; it is the return on an investment.  Unfortunately, these programs have been expanded to include many who have contributed very little, if anything during their lifetimes to funding the costs and the money that has been collected has been looted by successive administrations to pay for overspending in other areas.

It is most telling that this “commission” has focused on these programs rather than coming up with inclusive, across-the-boards reductions in government spending.

And now some preening jackass who has avoided productive work for most of his life is freely doling out insults?

This is one of the incompetents who helped engineer the redirection of the funds that were meant to support Social Security and Medicare into other areas of government spending, leaving current and projected deficits that threaten the programs.

It is, of course, the “wisdom” of Obama to stock a commission of this type with the political hacks who contributed to the problem.  It is Washington’s usual solution any spending problem – recommend cuts to the most visible and important programs, hoping to manufacture enough public outrage to divert any attempts to impose fiscal responsibility on a government whose spending is out of control.  Compiling earmarks, payoffs to favored constituents, growth of government jobs (patronage) and innumerable other schemes to ensure their reelection is, of course, immune from cuts.

Hey, for the second year in a row there is to be no cost of living increase for either Social Security recipients or military retirees.  The same cannot be said for government workers and politicians.

Do we need to rein in spending?  Yup.  But let’s take an inclusive approach, designed after careful and thorough review by legislative committees and ignoring the “solutions” dished out presidential appointees.  At least, those who make the decisions would be held responsible to the voters.

 

 

 

The Enemy Within

The gyrations of the “controlling party” in this lame duck Congress are painful to behold.  The bitterness and obstinacy of the Liberal segments of the Democratic Party seem to indicate that they learned nothing from this past November’s election results and are possessed with the desire to cram through as much of their Progressive agenda as they can during these last few days of their reign.

The President deserves some credit for attempting to deal with the problem of the expiration of the current tax rates and the imposition of huge tax increases on the tax-paying public (it is important to recognize here that approximately 40% of the citizens of the United States pay no income tax at all and that 40% of all income tax revenues are paid by the 1% of the wealthiest among us).  Unfortunately, as in most of his policies, Obama’s utter lack of understanding of how to structure compromise among members of Congress and his  lack of leadership qualities have constructed a mare’s nest of epic proportions.

An initial promising compromise that extended tax cuts for all taxpayers for the next two years in return for an extension of unemployment benefits for an additional twelve months for those who will have exhausted their eligibility at the end of December has met with a cacophony of caterwauling resistance from the Marxist groups who insist that allowing “the rich” to continue to be taxed at their current rates is an obscenity that will decimate the lives of the “middle class taxpayer”.

I have never been able to comprehend the depth of the utter hatred exhibited by the Left toward the most successful of our citizens.  Personally, I don’t really care that John Kerry married into money and has multiple homes and many playthings (although it pisses me off that he tried to avoid paying taxes on his luxury yacht).  Nor do I begrudge John Edwards for the fortune that he made off the backs of poor plaintiffs ( although I wish he would shut up about saving the planet when the carbon footprint of his mansion is more than some small villages throughout the world).

And I don’t even care about the untold billions of dollars that Warren Buffet has made through no honest toil that I can identify – I will take objection to him insisting that we all need to be taxed more, however.  If Mr. Buffet feels that is not taxed enough, he can always give all he wants to the U.S. Treasury to make up the difference.  Sure you can, Warren; just write a check.

One might think that, for elected officials, the most important goal at this time would be to decide on policies that would improve the lives of their constituents, policies dealing with the lack of jobs facing the unemployed, policies designed to lower the Federal deficit rather than to explosively expand it, and policies that would solidify and improve the value of the dollar on the world market.

Instead, we discover that there is indeed a voice of “NO” in Washington.  Contrary to what we have been hearing over the past couple of years, this attitude is not the province of one particular party.  Instead, it can easily be identified as the creed expressed by one particular political philosophy and that is the “Progressives”, Socialists, Communists, or whatever the hell they have decided to call themselves these days.  They are easily identified: watch and listen to the actions and words of such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, John Kerry, Anthony Weiner and others who make it crystal clear that their aim is not to aid America, but to destroy it in its present form.

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.”

–British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

And that description clearly fits the Administration of Barrack Obama and a large segment of the Democratic Party.

January cannot come quickly enough.

 

 

What Will it Take?

The elections have been over for almost a month.  New members of Congress have been sworn in.  By now the message from the American people that “business as usual” is no longer going to be tolerated should have sunk in.

So what do we have?

A group of Progressive ideologues (Democrats) determined to use a lame-duck Congress to impose as many of their rejected attempts to strangle America’s recovery as they can possibly cram into this last desperate Congressional session before they have to relinquish their four-year long control of U.S. government.

Delay, delay, delay.  Multiple problems still face the nation and this group of fanatics still insist on “our way or nothing”.  Steps could be taken to begin to alleviate our economic woes and yet the Democrats are insisting on implementing new programs that will only exacerbate the effects of their failed policies.

In all seriousness, what has Democratic leadership done to make things better?  Unemployment continues to rise (9.8% as of today), the dollar’s international value is still declining, businesses are still in limbo because they have no clue as to what havoc taxes may wreak on their endeavors with the beginning of the new year, prices of food and petroleum products have just shown a substantial increase ….. the list goes on and on.

Agreement over how to address the most pressing issues is stalled.  There is hope that this may change after a new Congress is sworn in, but that too far away to wait for.  One hopes that the message of discontent revealed in the election results would have resulted in a realization by our elected representatives that the public in general is not content with the way that they have been handling the nation’s problems.  Immediate positive action on the part of politicians would help to restore some of the lost confidence in our government.

It is not as if there were no solutions at hand.  A pertinent example is a recent proposal released by Democrat Alice Rivlin (former budget director under Bill Clinton) and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin that addresses our exploding health care entitlements.  Highlights of their proposal would not affect the benefits of current and near-retirees untouched.  But for those now 55 and younger, Rivlin and Ryan describe a shift from Medicare’s direct payment for care in an open-ended way to an opportunity for retirees to utilize government funding to purchase health insurance on their own.  The amount would be based on “average annual per capita expenditures in 2021″ and subject adjustment by income, geography and health risks so that those who need increased aid can get it.

Such a sensible, controlled approach would be aimed at cost-containment, allowing individuals more control over their coverage and care, and giving states more control over their budgets by transforming the federal share of the Medicaid program into block grants to each state.  And, most importantly, the program’s details would result in a reduction of health care costs.  Contrast this to Obama’s pork-laden, government-heavy, tremendously expensive ideologically based disaster.

As it is, Congress cannot currently manage to construct a coherent agreement to deal with the looming expiration of the current tax breaks and the impending huge tax increase that will affect all citizens.  Headlines these days feature the argument over extending unemployment benefits for those who have already been supported by the tax payers for two years.  Hey, there is work available.  I know families here in Maine who are working two and three jobs to put food on the table.  Ideal?  Hardly.  But they are survivors.

The American people are demanding change …… substantive changes, not the empty promises of Obama that were employed to mask his plans to nudge our country under the camouflaged netting of the overweening Socialist state.

Put the pressure on your local representatives.  Tell them to do the job that they were elected to do or be prepared to leave town and try to make a living out of the wreckage that they have created.