Hey ya'll! Can we start talking about the economy again?
This was written by a local DDS from my hometown and pretty much describes how I feel about the goings-on in Washington:
Dear Patriots,
I am inundated daily with 60 - 100 e-mails regarding the government. It would take several hours per day to read all of them. Like many of you, I have a difficult time dissecting fact from fiction and not enough time to research every piece of information. Even when an article contains facts, it is frequently accompanied by opinions as to how those facts are interpreted and what they represent.
For example, I received an article entitled "Mother of all Great Depressions." In it, the article states "According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama's spending will explode the deficit over the next ten years to $24 trillion, a figure that does not include the cost of his intent to enact yet another massive entitlement program -- guaranteed health care for all."
Is the statement accurate, inaccurate, or partially accurate? Most of us have neither the time nor the desire to research these things, so it usually comes down to our gut instincts and personal bias. I am at the point (and probably have been there for quite some time) where I struggle to believe the crap that spews from ANY politicians' mouths. I see them all as having one primary goal.....................staying elected. And that's sad and frustrating because I'm sure there are some who have genuinely good intentions, but who become consumed in the dog-eat-dog world of national, state and local politics. Not a year goes by when we don't learn of yet another political scandal involving some scheme that betrays the public trust. It's not as if these ladies and gentlemen don't know right from wrong, black from white. They just find it far too easy in their own minds to spin what they are doing into shades of grey. And more often than not, Joe Q. Citizen gets left holding an empty bag and paying a mighty high penalty for the transgressions of those elected to serve.
I listened carefully to the President's State of the Union address, I watched silly members of Congress jump up and down like first graders who needed a potty break, and I absorbed the rhetoric from both sides in the post-speech analyses. Unlike some of you, I don't think this President is evil. But I do believe he is completely out of touch with the common man and I do not believe he has the skills to guide the country out of these difficult times (just my opinion). Generations of poor decisions, corruption, greed, incompetence, mismanagement and inefficiency in government, in addition to terrorism and the threat of terrorism (all of which, mind you, preceded Obama's Presidency) have placed our country in a deep, dangerous financial hole. But instead of accepting that one does not get out of debt by incurring more debt, Obama pursues an agenda that Americans know in their guts will only worsen the suffering and contribute more to the debt level. As it would in our personal lives, we all intuitively appreciate that when the debt level reaches a breaking point, those who have extended all this credit to us will one day come calling. We may not be Harvard educated, but we've got the street panache to understand when we're being steered in the wrong direction. The stunning election result in Massachusetts is more than likely a reflection of the common man saying "I know right from wrong, and this feels WRONG."
As for Congress, the Democrats are arguing amongst themselves, the Republicans are arguing amongst themselves, and they're all arguing with each other. Confusion reigns and it's a complete mess.
Now on the heels of all of this, we hear that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are still concocting schemes to get the health care bill passed. They are completely ignoring the reality that while Americans desire a health care system that offers affordable and easily securable coverage, they DO NOT WANT another government give-away entitlement. The politicians claim that they "have not explained it well-enough to us" and "we will like it much more once they have passed it." That's crap. You've explained it to us perfectly. We're not confused at all. We understand that, as with all of the government give-away programs, some Americans are going to have to work harder and/or make more personal sacrifices so that other Americans (and some illegals) don't have to work harder or make sacrifices. We understand perfectly.
We also know inevitably what kind of a political football that becomes. Once you create another entitlement, more people want it and expect it. Politicians then line up to garner votes based upon extending the entitlement to those who will vote for them. We've seen this dance before. Our current fiscal reality is, in large measure, a direct function of this type of governance. We have a Medicare and Medicaid system with an estimated $70-90 TRILLION of expenses for which we have no idea how we're going to pay for it. We have a Social Security system that is an estimated $14 TRILLION in arears because politicians stole from the trust fund to give the money away to other causes. We have two wars in two far away lands with no clear, decipherable policy on how this story ends.
You want to know why entrepreneurs and small business owners are not creating jobs and expanding their businesses? Three primary reasons. First, government incompetence and a social engineering ideology turned a blind eye to banks loaning money for people to buy homes they clearly could not afford. We all know how that story ended............with taxpayers loaning banks money so that they could survive. Now that the banks are back on solid ground, they refuse to loan money to businesses because they don't want to get burned twice. Talk about bite the hand that feeds you. Meanwhile, bank executives still take home six-figure bonuses................as a reward for what?
Second, to expand your business and add employers, you must have confidence that there will be a market for your product or service. There IS no market !!! People are scared out of their wits and hoarding what little cash the government allows them to keep.
Third, to expand one's business and incur more liability and stress, there must be a reward. President Obama still believes, and he makes no bones about it, that if a family makes more than $250,000 per year, that family should be penalized by paying more taxes. Just once, I would love to personally, face-to-face, get to ask him........"Mr. Obama, for the worker who earns more income than your arbitrarily chosen figure, please explain to me how you can rationalize that this person would feel motivated to take on more liability and stress in his workplace if the reward he receives is higher taxes? Why should I be motivated to set my alarm clock, get up, go to work and expand my business if you're just going to take more of my profits and give them away to someone else? What is it in your training or education that leads you to believe this is how America should work?
If you want to stimulate the economy, just get out of our way. Get off our backs. Stop the insane spending, let us keep more of our income and get the hell out of the way. And don't whine to me about the "poor people" the economy is leaving behind. When the economy is humming, there is opportunity for anyone who CHOOSES to participate. "Poor people" are not poor because "wealthy people" are wealthy. This is where most of us will never see eye-to-eye with this President. He seems to believe some people are "victims." No one is a victim, economically speaking, unless he CHOOSES to be a victim. This country has gone above and, in many cases, beyond the call of duty to see that everyone has the opportunity to succeed and be self-reliant. But politicians continue to beat the drum that people need government to survive. Government just needs to make sure the rules are fair. The rest is up to YOU. We cannot be everybody's nanny. It's breaking us down and tearing us apart.
Now the following run-on statement is not literary genius by any stretch, but I submit to you all that the outpouring of public anger at Washington, D.C. is a direct reflection of the realization that, for too many years now, government has pilfered from the producers to give to the moochers, but the moochers are never satisfied and the politicans have racked up a breathtaking, massive debt trying to satisfy them. The producers in New Jersey, Virginia and, most recently, Massachusetts have recognized that this unsustainable accumulation of debt makes us vulnerable to fiscal and physical attack by our enemies and threatens this nation's very existence. If left unchecked, it will make it impossible for us, our children, our grandchildren and future generations to live a better, safer and more prosperous life.
It has been alleged that the Tea Party movement is simply an arm of the Republican party. We're not pushing Republicans because we trust them. No, history has proven many of them can't be trusted either. But we ARE pushing conservatives who offer a hope of restoring some fiscal sanity to government. To the degree practical and possible, we are attempting to wipe the slate clean. We'll stop the futile blame game and finger-pointing of how we got here, we accept the reality of where we are and we begin tomorrow the process of problem-solving to save this nation and restore her greatness. No one person is better than another. Therefore, no one should be mandated to work for another person's needs. Get off your ass and do what you need to do (legally, of course) to take care of yourself and your family. Stop bitching and moaning about your lot in life. Your position in life is a function and consequence of the decisions YOU have made. Whether to stay in school or drop out, whether to work hard in school or coast, whether to have a child you couldn't afford to care for or to wait, whether to buy a house or car you couldn't afford or postpone that purchase, whether to take drugs or not, whether to eat out or dine in, whether to buy health insurance or season tickets, and on and on. Your position in life is NOT someone else's fault and no one else should be mandated to work on your behalf. That's not freedom and that's not America.
Try that attitude on for size, Mr. President, and you just might find a public willing to rally behind you. That's what we've been trying to tell you. You're either just too out of touch to realize it or too much of an ideologue to accept this. Either way, you're on the wrong path. The Tea Party movement, without a recognizable leader, without a specific organization, without any political funding, is taking matters into its own hands..................brick by brick, building by building, state by state. Failure is not an option.
A splendid WHO DAT to all of you,
Dr. Glenn C. Dubroc, Jr.
This was NOT included with the letter, but also pretty much sums up how I feel:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s209/leepullen/image0012.jpgt=1266154573