It is November 9, 2009 which means election season on u4prez is officially underway. I am impressed with all 3 candidates in their abilities to staunchly defend, support, and promote their ideals. Now, as a disclaimer, I will simply be analyzing how candidates have run their campaigns, how votes are going, who supports who, etc., I will not publicly support or purposely show bias towards one candidate, I will simply analyze.
Our 3 fine candidates, erock (R), lucky_num1 (I) (recently turned Independent), and brinmat (D), have also chosen stellar and supportive running mates. An erock (R)/ Smashey (L) ticket will lead the way for the Republicans. A lucky (I)/ Big Daddy (Conserv) pairing will take the stand for the Independents. And a brinmat (D)/ kt2020 (I) match will take the reigns for the Democrats. Now, you may have just now noticed that none of the candidates chose running mates from their same party. This was suprising to me as well. I think it goes to show that our 2-party system as we know will soon be breaking down as u4prez does seem to stay ahead of the political curve. But none the less, the Presidential candidates all seem to have selected Veeps that suit them well.
Erock and Smashey were once members of the same party. However, Smashey decided to jump ship and join with Libertarians. However, the pairs views have never really differed despite contesting labels.
Lucky and Big Daddy have taken on the task of exposing the flaws of u4prez's runoff system and have already claimed an early victory because of their "duty to expose".
Brinmat and KT have had their differences on this site. Brinmat overthrew power in the Democratic party during the party leader election thus, leaving KT frustrated and in the dust. KT defected to the Independent party but remains a Liberal Lion at heart. Brinmat and KT have since resolved their differences and have come together to prove to us that the American people have not given up on Obama, liberal policies, or Democrats just yet. I think this match of spunk and smarts can do just that if they succeed in this election.
Site users have placed most of their support behind either erock or lucky with very few voters sticking to their own labels. But as it remains now at 3 AM Central time, 4 hours after the polls have opened, brinmat and KT lead by 1 vote! But we'll see what the rest of the day brings as I predict the race will tighten up between erock and lucky.
Good luck to all candidates and thank you to LearningConformity and RSobien for your work on this site this past year!
President Obama has a new bill on his desk waiting to be signed. S. 1390 is a "must-pass" military spending bill drawn up by Democrats. Like countless other bills, S. 1930 has unrelated amendments attached. The "Matthew Shepard Amendment" is one of the amendments attached to this bill.
The Matthew Shepard Amendment, introduced by the late Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, expands the defintion of hate crimes to criminalize actions against those in the LGBT community. Matthew Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming, was brutally attacked on the night of October 6, 1998. 21-year-old Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address and intended to rob his home. Still tied to the fence, Shepard was discovered 18 hours later by Aaron Kreifels, who initially mistook Shepard for a scarecrow. At the time of discovery, Shepard was still alive, but in a coma.
Shepard suffered fractures to the back of his head and in front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital functions. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. As he lay in intensive care, candlelight vigils were held by the people of Laramie.
He was pronounced dead at 12:53 A.M. on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.
The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis.
In court the defendants used varying rationales to defend their actions. They attempted to use the gay panic defense, arguing that they were driven to temporary insanity by alleged sexual advances by Shepard. At another point they stated that they had only wanted to rob Shepard and never intended to kill him.
The prosecutor in the case charged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Shepard's trust to rob him. During the trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the respective girlfriends of McKinney and Henderson at the time of the event) testified that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge and selected Shepard as their target. McKinney alleged that Shepard asked them for a ride home. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area of Laramie where they robbed him, beat him severely, and tied him to a fence with a rope from McKinney's truck while Shepard begged for his life. Media reports often contained the graphic account of the pistol whipping and his smashed skull. It was reported that Shepard was beaten so brutally that his face was covered in blood, except where it had been partially washed clean by his tears. Both girlfriends also testified that neither McKinney nor Henderson was under the influence of drugs at the time.
Students at the University of Wyoming claim Shepard was not beaten because he was gay. Instead, it is said that McKinney and Henderson were angry with Shepard because he was a known dealer of meth but wouldn't sell to the pair.
In 1998, hate crime laws did not exist. Henderson and McKinney were given 2 consecutive life sentences each because of their felony murder crimes.
Today, LGBT activists wish to come down harder on those who commit crimes against men and women because they are homosexual or transgender, hence the Matthew Shepard Amendment. The amendment is being hailed by LGBT community as the greatest civil rights victory ever for their people.
However, to me, hate crime laws seem redudant. If the accused kills simply because one is gay it should be common sense to throw the book at them. Hate crime laws do not need to be passed to lock up somebody for life. If Lady Justice wears a blindfold in front of defendants, why does she remove it for victims?
Deterannce is often cited by proponents of hate crime laws. A proponet may claim, "If tougher penalties are given to those committing these crimes, less crimes will occur". However, this has proven to be untrue by capital punishment cases. Proponents of the death penalty also claim deterannce as a reason to keep capital punishment around. To the contrary, criminologists have proved that the threat of the death penalty does not deter murder, it simply lessens the brutality of it.
As Larry King said, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck; it must be a duck, right?" Even if its an ugly duck or a pretty mallard, a duck is still a duck. And murder is still murder. Simply lessening the brutality of murder misses the point of actually reducing the murder rate. Passing hate crime laws only gives the illusion that we, as the American people, are doing something to be tough on crime.
So enough with the smoke and mirrors, politicians! What we need is to allow the criminal justice system to do its job and determine who the brutal killers truly are. Because whether a white man, gay man, or Muslim is murdered, its still murder.
Hey, neighbor! No, this isn't Mr. Rogers your friendly neighbor, its Mr. Rogers your friendly Congressman from Michigan. I know you're disappointed that you're not visting an old friend but please take some time to watch this video.
The jury has found you guilty on all counts of first-degree murder and recommends the death penalty. As the gavel harshly strikes the bench a huge weight falls on your shoulders. You shout, proclaiming your innocence, into the less friendly courtroom. Your assertions are useless. The jury’s weighty decision will not budge and the pressure on your shoulders has not alleviated, in fact, it has sunk deeper. Questions fly through your mind. How were you convicted? Were you mistaken for somebody else? Ideas shuffle like a secretary flipping through a file cabinet. Was evidence planted someplace? Did one of the forensic scientists lie on the prosecution’s behalf? There is no doubt these questions shuffle through the minds of everyone who is wrongfully convicted. Fortunately, the same questions are raised in the book Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer. In association with “The Innocence Project”, this book documents the false convictions and eventual acquittals of people accused of rape and first-degree murder. As of today The Innocence Project has helped exonerate over two hundred and forty guiltless defendants through breakthrough DNA research and forensics (Cases). Improved genetic research has not been the only help in clearing defendants. Actual Innocence tackles eye witness error, faulty memory recall, false confessions, white coat fraud, jailhouse snitches, bad science, corrupt judges, overworked lawyers, and racism; all of which have led to wrongful convictions. Readers of Actual Innocence are exposed to the ghastly wrongs of the United States criminal justice system and quickly learn that the “daily operations of the criminal justice system are not nearly so perfect” as to what is depicted on prime-time television dramas such as C.S.I., Law & Order, N.C.I.S, and N.Y.P.D. Blue (Gaines 15). Charles R. Gregg, President of the Houston Bar Association, sums up the legal system best when he says, “What is legal is not necessarily […] about what is right, just or ethical. It is about order. Similarly, ’justice’ is a process that makes things work, not necessarily a result that is good or moral or ethical”. Rarely does the American public see the perfect navigation of the criminal justice path. The most ideal execution of criminal justice appears in high profile court cases such as the Michael Jackson child molestation trial and OJ Simpson’s 1994 murder trial (ibid). Larry K. Gaines and Roger Leroy Miller pin three goals on the criminal justice system in their book Criminal Justice in Action. The criminal justice system must have power over crime. This means the system must be able to prevent and control crime; goals one and two. The third goal is to present and preserve justice; meaning that each citizen is equal before the law and must be aware of reasons for arrests, seizures, and searches. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “No person […] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself”. Basing justice goals from the ideals of society is both a blessing and a curse. Although it is right to make policy similar to that of popular opinion, popular opinion is not always “good, moral […] ethical” or Constitutional. Many of the more informal procedures, such as interrogation, of the criminal justice system go unnoticed by the public and the media; thankfully, Actual Innocence is there to uncover the wrongs of all aspects of the criminal justice system and its proceedings. One of the more serious issues analyzed by Sheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer is that of interrogations and local police using unlawful tactics which cause suspects to confess to crimes they did not commit. Our Founding Fathers, fearful of a strong central government, used federalism to divide authority between the national and state levels (Gaines 12). Within the state, as well as the nation, local police are accountable for the basics of law enforcement work. They detain criminals and participate in court trials. Local police are also charged with many more duties, including interrogation (ibid.). During these interrogations criminals are sometimes made to give self-incriminating evidence which is against the Fifth Amendment and the ideals of our Founding Fathers. Actual Innocence presents the case of Robert Miller in the “False Confessions” chapter. Miller was on trial for the alleged rapes and murders of two elderly women. One out of one-hundred and seventy three suspects, Miller was called into question because he lived three blocks from the scenes of the crimes and fit a loose description of the perpetrator. Out of these one-hundred and seventy three suspects, Miller was one of twenty-three who also submitted an A+ blood type sample. On February 23, 1987 Miller willingly presented himself to police investigators claiming he could help solve the rape/murder mystery. Sheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer claim Miller had felt ill the night he helped detectives solve the crime. The authors also question Miller’s credibility to know about the crimes. A regular user of drugs, he believed someone had laced something that he had ingested with PCP. There is excellent reason to believe that Miller was never involved with the crimes and actually knew nothing of the real happenings however, Miller is not given an alibi. However, the police department saw Miller’s volunteered contribution differently. Miller fit the description, was part of the select group of A+ blood type suspects, and was eager to help. The department quickly made Miller their man. He was going to be pinned with the crimes through “inherent coercion” (Gaines 183). Miller began his interview by telling police “he could see things through killers’ eyes”. The interrogator, Det. Jerry Flowers, jumped at this. However, Miller’s credibility diminished even more as he attributed his vision power to his deceased Choctaw grandmother. The detective was now attached to one man and failed to recognize Miller’s credibility crumbling quickly. Although Miller was obviously fallible his words were used against him. Making pure guesses, Miller made up what most would consider to be a logical sequence of events. As Detective Flowers introduces the scenario Miller simply reassures Flowers that what he is describing is accurate through the killers’ eyes. Detective Flowers was hunting for his downed bird using Miller as his dog on point. And like a dog trained to bark on command, the more information Miller produced that the police wanted to hear, the more he was praised by Det. Flowers. Searching for Flowers’s downed bird, Miller led the detective on a wild goose chase. For every wrong guess Miller made, the closer he came to the correct solution. Miller made dozens of incorrect guesses; thankfully for the interrogators’ time was on their side. For twelve hours, Miller was questioned. Finally, Miller detailed the situation correctly! After his one-hundredth and thirty-third guess, the police had what they wanted from Miller (Innocence 102). Miller had finally pieced together the correct sequence of the crime and incriminated himself. Like Edison’s 10,000 ways to not make light bulbs and a mathematician guessing and checking numbers in a formula, Miller and the detectives finally had the right combination that added up to a guilty verdict. Sheck, Neufeld and Dwyer ominously state, “Robert Miller never actually admitted to the crime, but he didn’t have to. In the prosecutor’s telling, he had coughed up inside details… Miller put himself into deep trouble with his own words even if the videotapes [presented at the trial] were a lengthy display of “mind games” between the detectives and their quarry” (Innocence 105). Miller was factually innocent of all the charges and his DNA was not present at the crime scene, yet he was convicted and sentenced to 725 years in prison (Innocence 109). An obviously coerced confession through a faulty interrogation led to Miller’s conviction. Interrogation as a method of extracting evidence is not a modern day phenomena. One of the most notorious cases of forced confession came about in the Supreme Court case Brown v. Mississippi (1936). In this case, as outlined by Richard C. Cortner in his book A Scottsboro Case in Mississippi, three black men were accused of murdering a white plantation owner. The prosecution’s main argument in the court case was that all three defendants confessed to some part of the murder. However, during the trial, prosecution witnesses openly stated that the defendants had only admitted to the crime after cruel beatings and torture. Regrettably, the confessions were allowed into evidence causing the jury to reach a guilty verdict of death by hanging. The verdict was appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court but a stare decisis was issued. The case was taken to the US Supreme Court and the verdict was unanimously reversed. Chief Justice Hughes issued a statement citing the fourteenth amendment’s due process clause. The Fourteenth Amendment is a provision that extended the Fifth Amendment into the states. This was one incident when parts of the Bill of Rights were considered essential enough to be applied in both federal and state cases (ibid). Errors in our justice system can be prevented by both those working within criminal justice system and those outside it. Those outside the system can avoid errors and wrongful conviction by being aware of circumstances, their rights, the laws, and by reading the fine print. This includes the concept of coercion during interrogations and when, where, when not, and where not Miranda rights apply. Those inside the criminal justice system should strive to be fair and only willing to convict defendants on the basis of factual and legal guilt. I recommend this book to anyone even remotely involved in the criminal justice system, whether they are professionally employed or simply a citizen of jury duty. Actual Innocence helps readers gain a broad view of both sides of court cases. Those on juries must be certain a defendant is without a doubt guilty of the crime. Juries must also be willing to question all credibility from eyewitness testimony, coerced confessions, and scientific evidence. They also must take into account any racism or bias by attorneys or judges. This call to knowledge however is rather a paradox. Any candidate for jury duty is carefully examined to determine whether or not one has prior knowledge of, or any connections to, the case or circumstances surrounding it. Any candidate found to have these characteristics is waived of duty. In this process, the system works against itself by eliminating those who are knowledgeable enough to take into account human error and internal bias during a trial. Thus, this leaves only those candidates who usually will not question and are unknowingly absorbing the bias of both sides of the argument and will keep their mouth shut when judicial authority is exercised. Actual Innocence implies shying away from crime-control methods of justice apparent today and to be on the lookout for a system willing to do only the minimum to produce a guilty verdict instead of doing everything possible to produce an acquittal. Sheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer also stress the important role science is playing in the criminal justice process of drawing a more distinct line between the innocent and the guilty. With all these new tools in the box of justice reformation all we have to do is pick them up and start building.
Most of us here on u4prez read a few blogs each time we log on. I, myself, read quite a few. But how many of us write a blog everytime we click on u4prez? Very few of us have the talent or time to write daily blogs like kempite or erock. Another large percentage want their blogs to contain original thoughts and ideas so we refrain from simply copy-and-pasting. And still a larger majority do not want our blogs to contain bitching and ranting with little substance.
So... here is my idea to take u4prez to the next level of social networking: Status updates! Short, "what's on your mind?", status updates are more conveinent than lengthly blogs. Also, it gives those who do not write blogs an extremely easy way to share their thoughts. Other u4prezers can simply write a comment on the updaters profile to weigh in and compare their thoughts with that of the update.
Status updates do not have to appear on the homepage but instead will show up near the top of the user's profile. For example... "BradOmland thinks Hillary Clinton's snapping at a Congolese student was unproffesional and poorly represented the US." or, "Kempite is coming up with new ways to promote u4prez and his profile." or, "ericgurr would like all users to stop complaining about user moderators and censoring of swear words." You get the idea.
u4prez will never be able to compete with social networking giants like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace but hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
House Democrats put their divisions on display over the details and timing of health care legislation Tuesday despite fresh attempts by President Barack Obama to hasten the compromise on the issue that looms increasingly as a major test of clout.
With the self-imposed deadline for action in jeopardy, the Democratic leadership juggled complaints from conservatives demanding additional cost savings, first-term lawmakers upset with proposed tax increases and objections from members of the rank-and-file opposed to allowing the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry.
The oppositions' concerns are certainly viable, too. When public government competes in private industry, the private citizens supporting the public goverment lose. Governments can consistently lower prices on goods and services because their products are subsidized. This is bad for the free market. More and more tax dollars will be taken away from private, economy-growing industry and put into wasteful government hands.
"No one wants to tell the speaker that she's moving too fast and they damn sure don't want to tell the president," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a key committee chairman, told a fellow lawmaker as the two walked into a closed-door meeting. The remark was overheard by reporters.
Mr. Rangel, if you won't tell Nancy Pelosi or Obama, I will do it for you. MADAME PELOSI, CONGRESS IS MOVING TOO SWIFTLY on all legislation supported by the Democratic majority. The Founding Fathers did not intend for Congress to be fast moving or popular. This is why, today, one wins a seat in Congress by running against it.
The brilliance of the Founding Fathers shines through once again through un-intended consequences. The House is meant for action because it is directly elected by the people. (Senators were not originally elected by the people.) The people want action, especially when Presidents like Obama, who stirs the masses are put in charge. Thankfully, deliberations in the Senate are meant to be slow and arduous. Harry Reid just announced today that debate on the House’s version of the healthcare bill will not come until September and this is only if it passes the house!
Speaker Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed weeks ago that the House would vote by the end of July on legislation to meet two goals established by Obama months ago. The president wants legislation to extend health care coverage to the tens of millions who now lack it, at the same time it restrains the growth in the cost of health care far into the future.
The president also has vowed that the legislation will not swell the deficit, although a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday that the pledge does not apply to an estimated $245 billion to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients over the next decade.
Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, said that was because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to avert a scheduled cut of 21% in doctor’s fees.
At the White House, Obama and moderate and conservative Democrats verbally agreed on “some type of hybrid of a Medicare advisory council,” said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. Obama last week urged lawmakers to adopt something along those lines, saying it would slow the growth in the health care programs for seniors.
For all the attention generated by Barack Obama's candidacy, the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in November declined for the first time in a dozen years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Obama or John McCain stayed home.
Census figures released Monday show about 63.6% of all US citizens ages 18 and older, or 131.1 million people, voted last November.
Although that represented an increase of 5 million voters-virtually all of them minorities-the turnout relative to the population of eligible voters was a decrease from 63.8% in 2004.
Ohio and Pennsylvania were among those showing declines in white voters, helping Obama carry those battleground states.
"While the significance of minority votes for Obama is clearly key, it cannot be overlooked that white support for a Republican candidate allowed minorities to tip the balance in many slow-growing 'purple' states," said William H. Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution, referring to key battleground states that don't notably tip Democrat or Republican.
"The question I would ask is if a continuing stagnating economy could damage that," he said.
According to census data, 66% of whites voted last November, down 1% from 2004. Blacks increased their turnout by 5% to 65% nearly matching whites. Hispanics also improved turnout by 3%, and Asians by 3.5%, each reaching a turnout of nearly 50%. In all, minorities made up nearly 1 in 4 voters in 2008, the most diverse electorate ever.
By age, voters 18-24 were the only group to show a statistically significant increase in turnout, with 49% casting ballots, compared to 47% in 2004.
Blacks had the highest turnout rate among this age group-55%, or an 8% jump from 2004. In contrast, turnout for whites 18-24 was basically flat at 49%. Asians and Hispanics in that age group increased to 41% and 39%, respectively.
"The state is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." Frédéric Bastiat
The question is, "How long can that great fiction continue?"
For too long Washington has told us that we can live at the expense of future generations -- that we merely "owe it to ourselves." But if the current crisis has taught us anything it is that our decisions have long-term implications and we cannot continue to ignore economic reality. Yes, we owe it to ourselves. But we also owe it to our children. We owe it to them to begin restoring some fiscal sense to Washington so that they are not burdened with our massive debt.
Balancing the budget is no longer an academic question but an economic imperative. We are drowning in a sea of debt and the repercussions will come sooner rather than later.
I do not believe the debt will simply burden future generations. I believe we will begin to pay for it in the next few years through significant inflation. If we continue along our current course we may see 1979-style inflation, 15-20% or more. Imagine the turmoil when a fourth of one's savings is lost in a year or a fourth of one's income is lost. Imagine what happens to citizens on fixed incomes.
For every dollar that the government spends, it must tax a dollar from the real economy. This means that we can either have government spending or economic growth; there's no way to skirt around this economic fact. And just as it is irresponsible for an individual to spend more than he takes in, so too is it irresponsible for the federal government. Balancing the budget is so important because it forces Washington and the current administration to contend with fiscal reality.
But the federal government does not like to deal with reality. It likes to operate in a fantasyland where money grows on trees and deficits don't matter. But deficits do matter because at some point we have to pay the piper.
We pay for government in three ways: direct taxation, borrowing, and printing money.
The first is the most visible. When the government taxes it takes money from entrepreneurs, capitalists, and businessmen and gives it to government contractors, politicians, and bureaucrats. The more money in the hands of politicians, the less money in the hands of people who actually contribute to society. It's that simple.
The second way the government finances itself is through borrowing. While many Americans buy government bonds, much of our debt is held by foreign governments. This creates a dangerous situation where our government makes policy based on what's in the best interest of foreign governments and not our own. While free trade is essential to global and American prosperity, government manipulation of currencies is not.
But the final, most pernicious way government tries to evade economic reality is through the printing press. Our Federal Reserve System, the unaccountable, semi-private institution that controls our nation's money supply essentially has the power to create money and credit out of thin air. Basic economic principle states that the greater the quantity of any good (including money itself) the less valuable that good is. The more money the Fed creates, the less each dollar in your pocket can buy. So while you aren't taxed directly, your money can buy less and therefore your real income goes down.
This is one of the major ways Washington has managed to pay for its welfare and warfare -- through the printing press. Because people don't directly see the consequences of printing money, it is especially popular for the politician. Thus it is all the more important for Americans to know about the Fed, which is why I fully support legislation auditing this institution and making it accountable to the American people.
The Republicans have lost a lot of their credibility because they have campaigned on balanced budgets, but once they get to Washington they spend like Democrats. This is why we have been losing elections.
While I was campaigning around the country for my father the real story was not who won the Republican primaries, but how small they were. People are fed up with politicians who behave irresponsibly and renege on their campaign promises. Instead of pledging to balance the budget in ten or fifteen years, Republicans need to cut spending now. The longer we wait and the more interest accrues on the national debt, the harder it will be to make the cuts down the line.
Throughout the following months, I hope to talk to the American people about the importance of fiscal responsibility. President Obama has told the country it needs to cut back in order to get out of this recession. I say that Washington needs to cut back. Washington needs to get its own house in order before telling us how to run ours.
Thirty-two states require that their legislatures and governors pass balanced budgets. When they try to pass the buck on to the next generation, they get massive problems like they are facing in California.
Congress, too, has at various times passed a Balanced Budget Amendment. The Senate passed one in 1982 and the House in 1995. Thirty-two state legislatures passed a Balanced Budget amendment to the Constitution, two states short of what would be required to call a Constitutional Convention. Never quite enough resolve to force government to stop the deficits.
Republicans have, on occasion, been good at cutting taxes, but have never even attempted to cut spending. We must cut across the board. And not just the "easy" cuts.
Republicans like to blame the "welfare queen" for the deficit. Democrats like to blame it all on military spending. The truth is you can never balance the budget unless every facet of the budget is reassessed and pruned.
Whenever these sorts of arguments are brought up our politicians try to scare us into thinking the world will end if we cut spending. Here's a little thought experiment: if we simply used the 2002 budget for 2009 we would not be running a deficit. We would still be spending $2.2 trillion dollars and taking in roughly the same. Certainly, civilization would not crumble with a federal government of such magnitude!
I hope to make this issue a focal point of my campaign as it speaks to the heart of what I believe America can be. A true politician will lead by example -- he or she will make the tough choices. I say let's focus the debate on a balanced budget.
A 5 month recount would be enough to fill one Senate seat for one state right? WRONG! The ability to fill all of Minnesota's two Senate seats appears to may have gotten more difficult. Nevermind the recount between Norm Coleman and Al Franken, this is Amy Klobuchar's seat I'm talking about!
Minnesota's only Senator is Amy Klobuchar (DFL) and she has been placed on the very short list of Obama's possible Supreme Court nominees to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Klobuchar says she is honored by the thought but says she would rather remain a Senator. As a young political junkie looking forward to my first playground we call elections, I say Klobuchar, a young Democrat from outside of the judicial system, should go for it! She is exactly what Obama is looking for in a new justice.
Since Klobuchar is only beginning her third year of a six-year term, a special election will be held to replace her.
Now, think about what this means to the current recount. Let's say Klobuchar accepts Obama's nomination and is approved as the new Supreme Court justice before the recount is decided (it could go into July after all). This would mean that Minnesota would temporarily have NO voice in the Senate. Now, let's assume that Franken wins the recount before the special election takes place, filling one vacant seat.
Next, who will be on the ballot for the special election? For arguments sake, let's say Charles Aldrich is placed back on the ballot for the Libertarians, Dean Barkley for the Independence party, James Niemackl for the Constitution party, and Coleman for the Republican party. Who would be nominated by the Democratic party? Surely they do not have someone who could compete with the name recognition and newfound zeal of supporters due to the recent recount loss of Coleman. The best bets for the Democrats would be Mike Ciresi, Priscilla Lord Faris, or Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer; all candidates for the Democratic-Farm-Labor party's Senate nomination in 2008. After all is said and done, I would say Coleman will emerge and become Minnesota's second Senator which would really render the recount a moot point besides the fact that Franken got a seat he never had before. Is this not getting ridiculous?
Klobuchar has stated that she would rather serve Minnesotans as a Senator instead of the nation as a Supreme Court Justice. If she really wants to ease the minds of Minnesota voters, she will take the justice nomination and Coleman and Franken should both get a seat, ending the recount.
I do not support Klobuchar as a Senator but I encourage her to take the Court seat to get her out of Minnesota's hair. Besides, if she declines the seat will go to someone very similar anyways and we will still be stuck with her.
Ready to get craz(ier)y Minnesota? I am! My tool set is already out ready to build the playground set for the special election!
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday said that the panel would hold a hearing to get to the bottom of reports that the National Security Agency improperly tapped into domestic communications of American citizens.
"We will make sure we get the facts," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinsteain, D-Calif.
It looks to me like the Senate Intelligence Committee is extremely lacking in any real intelligence itself! How about the Senate look at itself, the House, and former President Bush for authorizing the government's wiretapping of citizens private telephone conversations.
The Justice Department confirmed on Wednesday that it had reined in the NSA's wiretapping activities in the United States after learning the agency had improperly accessed American phone calls and e-mails while eavesdropping on foreign communications.
HELLO???? What about the US government's improper and unconstitutional access to American phone calls, e-mails, and foreign communications?
Department officials said the problems have been corrected, but they declined to say what measures have been taken. Justice officials would not detail how the law governing NSA wiretapping was violated or for how long. They would not estimate how many Americans' communications were compromised.
Congress has not corrected to problem of the US government listening in on Americans' communications nor have any measures been taken. There is no telling how many Americans' communications have been compromised by this injustice of the United States government.
In true Franklin Roosevelt-fashion, President Barack Obama's economic stimulus, or what many are calling his own "New Deal," is being applauded by supporters as bold and progressive. Few liberals have accused the president of dragging the United States "backwards," because in terms of massive government expansion, most "progressives" consider 1930's America a good place to be.
The same cannot be said of 1830's America, when the concept of unlimited federal government was still considered a menace, not a solution. When South Carolina recently joined a number of states in passing a state sovereignty resolution, the bill's author, Rep. Michael Pitts, said it was a "wake-up call," and that Americans had ignored federal intrusions for too long -- economic, cultural or otherwise. Said Civil War historian W. Scott Poole of the bill, "I was fairly horrified actually ... it clearly harkens back to nullification," referring to U.S. Sen. John C. Calhoun's famous defiance of federal tariffs in 1832.
So being "backward" or "reactionary" now means questioning the power of government or invoking "horrible" men like Calhoun. And being "progressive" or "forward-thinking" now means fully embracing government and invoking those like Obama and liberal hero FDR.
And yet, I know few liberals who support the War on Drugs, marriage "protection" amendments, or the Patriot Act. In fact, if you talk to the most vocal Leftists about drug criminalization, gay marriage, or the loss of civil liberties, their anti-government rhetoric can sound downright reactionary. "Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers," Calhoun said. Today, much of the American Left agrees with him.
So how do liberals square their fear of intrusive government with their enthusiasm for Obama? The opposite question could also be asked: how did so many conservatives square their fear of big government with their enthusiasm for President George W. Bush, whose unprecedented spending and increasing of the power of the state set the stage for Obama?
Sadly, most liberals or conservatives never think in such terms. Bush Republicans had no problem with big government so long as their guy was in charge of it, and now the same is true of Obama Democrats.
Some already comprehend the liberal value of states' rights. In an article entitled "The New States' Rights?" published by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, authors David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd wrote, "Just when you thought federalism was dead, and the 10th Amendment guaranteeing power to the states had been erased from the Constitution, state governments have asserted themselves on an astonishing array of issues traditionally the province of the federal government.
"Suddenly, there are state laws on everything from global warming to same-sex marriage, and states routinely challenge Uncle Sam's authority in court ... Can we really have 50 state global warming policies or 50 different definitions of marriage? We are a long way from that academic question posing any kind of real problem. [But] why not allow for more state, regional, and local differences on social issues? If Oregon wants to be more flexible about the use of medical marijuana, for example, and Kansas does not, why should that become a federal issue?"
Indeed, as of this writing, Vermont has pending legislation that would make full-blown same-sex marriage -- not merely civil unions -- legal, and California is looking for ways to legalize and tax marijuana to generate government revenue. Both constitute direct challenges to "Uncle Sam's authority." Liberals should find both developments encouraging.
And so should conservatives. While the recent state sovereignty resolutions that have been passed in multiple states are no doubt reactions from the Right to Obama's statist agenda, any attempts to put the federal government back in its constitutional box is unquestionably a conservative endeavor. Reports the Charleston City Paper on the author of S.C.'s state sovereignty bill, "Pitts notes he first designed his bill in response to mandates that the state provide education and emergency medical treatment to illegal aliens. [But] it goes beyond that to other concerns, like the threat of stricter gun control laws under the new Democratic administration, Pitts says, as well as Bush-era policies, like No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act. The U.S. government has been continuously overstepping its bounds since Roosevelt, Pitts says."
In rejecting Roosevelt's big government legacy and invoking the 10th amendment, are Pitts and his colleagues suggesting states can -- and should -- nullify unconstitutional federal laws? Damn straight. And liberals who still find states' rights objectionable, laughable, or horrifying, can expect to continue enduring the War on Drugs, give up on gay marriage, and surrender their civil liberties unless Obama comes to their rescue -- or until the next Republican president comes to take their liberties away.
This piece originally appeared in the Charleston City Paper.
Congress on Thursday decisively passed a measure that will impose a 90% tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid by troubled insurance giant AIG and other bailed-out companies; calling AIG's bonus payouts "squandering of the people's money."
The House vote was 328-93. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate and President Barack Obama quickly signaled general support for the concept.
"I look forward to recieving a final product that will serve as a strong signal to the executives who run these firms that such compensation will not be tolerated," the President said in a statement.
I, on behalf of the citizens of the United States, hereby release a statement calling Congress's bailout of AIG and other failing companies a squandering of the people's money! Nevermind that AIG gave their executives bonuses, Congress should have to live with their mistake. Congress can't have its cake and eat it too. I, on behalf of the citizens of the United States, would also like to say that I look foward to the day when other citizens will send a strong signal to the executives and legislators of our country that corporate bailouts will not be tolerated!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told colleagues "We want our money back now for the taxpayers. It isn't that complicated."
Well Madame Pelosi, I would like to address my fellow citizens to say that I want my tax money back in my pocket. Obeying the Constitution isn't that complicated.
"This political circus that's going on here today with this bill is not getting to the bottom of the questions of who knew what and when did they know it," said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.
This political circus that's going on here today that you called a bailout, is not going to fix the economy, the economy will fix itself.
I have not seen any recent "job approval ratings" but I can bet money that Congressional approval ratings are up slightly since they started pointing their finger back at AIG.
The House vote, after just 40 minutes of debate, showed how quickly Congress can act when they want to cover their ass and pass the blame elsewhere.
On May 7, 1933, just two months after the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New York Times reporter Anne O'Hare McCormick wrote that the atmosphere in Washington is "strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan.. America today literally asks for orders." The Roosevelt administration, she added, "envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy."
That article isn't quoted in Three New Deals, a fascinating study by the German cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch. But it underscores his central argument: that there are surprising similarities between the programs of Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler.
With our knowledge of the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, we find it almost impossible to consider such claims dispassionately. But in the 1930's, when everyone agreed that capitalism had failed, it wasn't hard to find common themes and mutual admiration in Washington, Berlin, Rome, not to mention Moscow. (Three New Deals does of no great importance in the era following democracy's triumph over fascism, National Socialism, and communism. Schivelbusch concludes his essay with the liberal journalist John T. Flynn’s warning, in 1944, that state power feeds on crises and enemies. Since then we have come to accept a more powerful and more intrusive state than existed before the 30’s.
Schivelbusch finds parallels in the ideas, style, and programs of the disparate regimes- even their architecture. “Neoclassical monumentalism,” he writes, is “the archiectual style in which the state visually manifests power and authority.” In Berlin, Moscow, and Rome, “the enemy that was to be eradicated was the laissez-faire architectural legacy of nineteenth-century liberalism, an unplanned jumble of styles and structures.” Washington erected plenty of neoclassical monuments in the ‘30’s, though with less destruction than in European capitals. Think of the “Man Controlling Trade” sculptures in front of the Federal Trade Commission, with a muscular man restraining an enormous horse. It would have been right at home in Il Duce’s Italy.
“To compare,” Schivelbusch stresses, “is not the same as to equate. America during Roosevelt’s New Deal did not become a one-party state; it had no secret police, the Constitution remained in force, and there were no concentration camps; the New Deal preserved the institutions of the liberal-democratic system that National Socialism abolished.” But throughout the ‘30s, intellectuals and journalists noted “areas of convergence among the New Deal, Fascism, and National Socialism.” All three were seen as transcending “classic Anglo-French liberalism”-individualism, free markets, decentralized power.
Since 1776, liberalism had transformed the Western world. As The Nation editorialized in 1900, before it too abandoned the old liberalism, “Freed from the vexatious meddling of governments, men devoted themselves to their natural task, the bettering of their condition, with the wonderful results which surround us”-industry, transportation, telephones and telegraphs, sanitation, abundant food, electricity. But the editor worried that “its material comfort has blinded the eyes of the present generation to the cause which made it possible.” Old liberals died, and younger liberals began to wonder if government couldn’t be a positive force, something to be used rather than constrained.
Others, meanwhile, began to reject liberalism itself. In his great novel The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil wrote, “Misfortune had decreed that… the mood of the times would shift away from the old guidelines of liberalism that had favored Leo Fischel- the great guiding ideals of tolerance, the dignity of man, and free trade- and reason and progess in the Western world would be displaced by radical theories and street slogans.”
The dream of a planned society infected both right and left. Ernst Junger, an influential right-wing militarist in Germany, reported his reaction to the Soviet Union: “I told myself: granted, they have no constitution, but they do have a plan. This may be an excellent thing.” As early as 1912, FDR himself praised the Prussian-German model: “They passed beyond the liberty of the individual to do as he pleased with his own property and found it necessary to check this liberty for the benefit of the freedom of the whole people,” he said in an address to the People’s Forum of Troy, New York, on March 3, 1912.
American Progressives studied at German universities, Schivelbusch writes, and “came to appreciate the Hegelain theory of a strong state and Prussian militarism as the most efficient way of organizing modern principles.” The pragmatist philosopher William James’s influential 1910 essay “The Moral Equivalent of War” stressed the importance of order, discipline, and planning.
Intellectuals worried about inequality, the poverty of the working class, and the commercial culture created by mass production. (They didn’t seem to notice tension between the last complaint and the first two.) Liberalism seemed inadequate to deal with such problems. When economic crisis hit- in Italy and Germany after World War I, in the United States with the Great Depression- the anti-liberals seized an opportunity, arguing that the market had failed and that the time for bold experimentation had arrived.
In the North American Review in 1934, the progressive writer Roger Shaw described the New Deal as “Fascist means to gain liberal ends.” He wasn’t hallucinating. FDR’s adviser Rexford Tugwell wrote in his diary that Mussolini had done “many of the things which seem to me necessary.” Lorena Hickok, a close confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt who lived in the White House for a spell, wrote approvingly of a local official who had said, “If [President] Roosevelt were actually a dictator, we might get somewhere.” She added that if she were younger, she’d liked to lead “the Fascist Movement of the United States.” At the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the cartel-creating agency at the heart of the early New Deal, one report declaring forthrightly, “The Fascist Principles are very similar to those we have been evolving here in America.”
Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices… Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised, “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”
In Rome, Berlin, and DC, there was an affinity for military metaphors and military structures. Fascists, National Socialists, and the New Dealers had all been young in World War I, and they looked back with longing at the experiments in wartime planning. In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt summoned the nation: “If we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible, a leadership which aims at a larger good. I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army… I shall ask Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis- broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
That was a new tone for a president of the American republic. Schivelbusch argues that “Hitler and Roosevelt were both charismatic leaders who held their masses in their sway- and without this sort of leadership, neither National Socialism nor the New Deal would not have been possible.” The plebiscitary style established a direct connection between the leader from “old-style despots, whose rule was based largely on the coercive force of their own praetorian guards.” Mass rallies, fireside radio chats, and in our own time television can bring the ruler directly to the people in a way that was never possible before.
To that end, all the new regimes of the ‘30s undertook unprecedented propaganda efforts. “Propaganda,” Schivelbusch writes, “is the means by which charismatic leadership, circumventing intermediary social and political institutions like parliaments, parties, and interest groups, gains direct holds upon the masses.” The NRA’s Blue Eagle Campaign, in which businesses that complied with the agency’s code were allowed to display a “Blue Eagle” symbol, was a way to rally the masses and call on everyone to display a visible symbol of support. NRA head Hugh Johnson (awesome name) made its purpose clear: “Those who are not with us are against us.”
Scholars still study that propaganda. Earlier this year a Berlin museum mounted an exhibit titled “Art and Propaganda: The Clash of Nations- 1930-45.” According to the critic David D’Arcy, it shows how the German, Italian, Soviet, and the American governments “mandated and funded art when image-building served nation-building at its most extreme… The four countries rallied their citizens with images of rebirth and regeneration.” One American poster of a sledgehammer bore the slogan “Work to Keep Free,” which D’Arcy found “chillingly close to ‘Arbeit Macht Frei,’ the sign that greeted prisoners to Auschwitz.” Similarly, a reissue of a classic New Deal documentary, The River (1938), prompted Washington Post critic Phillip Kennicott to write that “watching it 70 years later on a new Naxos DVD feels a little creepy… There are moments, especially involving tractors (the great fetish object of the 20th century propagandists), when you are certain that this film could have been produced in one of the political film mills of the totalitarian state of Europe.”
Program and propaganda merged in the pubic works of all three systems. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the autobahn, and the reclamation of the Pontine mashes outside Rome were all showcase projects, another aspect of the “architecture of power” that displayed the vigor and vitality of the regime.
You might ask, “Where is Stalin in this analysis? Why isn’t this article called Four New Deals?” Shivelbusch does mention Moscow repeatedly, as did McCormick in her New York Times piece. But Stalin seized power within an already totalitarian system; he was the victor in a coup. Hitler, Mussolini, and Roosevelt, each in a different way, came to power as strong leaders in a political process. They thus share the “charismatic leadership” that Schivelbusch finds so important.
Schivelbusch is not the first to have noticed such similarities. BC Forbes, the founder of the eponymous magazine, denounced “rampant Fascism” in 1933. In 1935 former President Herbert Hoover was using phrases like “Fascist regimentation” in discussing the New Deal. A decade later, he wrote in his memoirs that “the New Deal introduced to Americans the spectacle of Fascist dictation to business, labor, and agriculture,” and that measures such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, “in their consequences of control of products and markets, set up an uncanny Americanized parallel with the agricultural regime of Mussolini and Hitler.” In 1944, in The Road to Serfdom, the economist FA Hayek warned that economic planning could lead to totalitarianism. He cautioned Americans and Britons not to think that there was something uniquely evil about the German soul. National Socialism, he said, drew on collectivist ideas that had permeated the Western world for a generation or more.
In 1973 one of the most distinguished American historians, John A. Garraty of Columbia University, created a stir with his article “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression.” Garraty was an admirer of Roosevelt but couldn’t help noticing, for instance, the parallels between the Civilian Conservation Corps and similar programs in Germany. Both, he wrote, “were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth ‘of the city street corners,’ Hitler as a way of keeping them from ‘rotting helplessly in the streets.’ In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps… Furthermore, both where organized on the semimilitary lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.”
And in 1976 presidential candidate Ronald Reagan incurred the ire of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), pro-Roosevelt historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and the New York Times when he told reporters that “fascism was really the basis of the New Deal.”
But Schivelbusch has explored these connections in greater detail and with more historical distance. As the living memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust recedes, scholars-perhaps especially in Germany- are gradually beginning to apply normal political science to the movements and events of the 1930s. Schivelbusch occasionally overreaches, as when he writes that Roosevelt once referred to Stalin and Mussolini as “his ‘blood brothers.’” (In fact, it seems clear in Shivelbusch’s source- Arthur Schlesinger’s The Age of Roosevelt- that FDR was saying communism and fascism were blood brothers to each other, and not to him.) But overall, this is a formidable piece of scholarship.
To compare is not to equate, as Schivelbusch says. It’s sobering to note the real parallels among these systems. But it’s even more important to remember that the US did not succumb to dictatorship. Roosevelt may have stretched the Constitution beyond recognition, and he had a taste for planning and power previously unknown to the White House. But he was not a murderous thug. And despite a population that “literally waited for orders,” as McCormick put it, American institutions did not collapse. The Supreme Court declared some New Deal laws unconstitutional. Some business leaders resisted it. Intellectuals on both the right and left, some of whom ended up in the early libertarian movement, railed against Roosevelt. Republican politicians (those were the days!) tended to oppose both the flow of power to Washington and the shift to executive authority.
Germany had a parliament and political parties and business leaders, and they collapsed in the face of Hitler’s movement. Something was different in the United States. Perhaps it was the fact that the country was formed by people who had left the despots of the Old World to find freedom in the new, and who then made a libertarian revolution. Americans tend to think of themselves as individuals, with equal rights and equal freedom. A nation whose fundamental ideology is, in the world of the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, “antistatism, laissez-faire, individualism, populism, and egalitarianism” will be far more resistant to illiberal ideologies.
congratulating Brad Omland of Blue Earth, Minnesota, for recieving his Eagle Award.
WHEREAS, the Eagle Award is the highest award given by the Boy Scouts of America; and
WHEREAS, Brad Omland is a member of the Boy Scouts of America and has displayed the attributes of a responsible and serving member; and
WHEREAS, he has demonstrated mastery of all scouting skills and completed a community service project, which involved relandscaping at Trinity Lutheran Church, replacing grass and small shrubbery with stone wall and rocks to prevent erosion, and
WHEREAS, an Eagle Court of Honor will be held in his honor; NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the State of Minnesota that it congratulates Brad Omland of Blue Earth, Minnesota for receiving this Eagle Award.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of the Senate is directed to prepare a copy of this resolution, to be authenticated by his signature of the Chair of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and trasmit to Brad Omland.
Juval Aviv was the Isreali Agent upon whom the move 'Munich' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard--she appointed him to track down terrorists and bring justice to the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.
He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occured.
Now for his future predictions: He predicts the next terrorist attack on the US will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know people on board will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke--that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective. For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal and the new explosives are made out of plastic.
2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary'.
3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when and where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person to watch them for a minute while they go to the restroom, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Isreal, security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate (Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time.
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities because at places like MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car filled with explosives and walk away.
Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles but that our US government does not want to "alarm American citizens" with the facts.
The world is quickly becoming "a different place" and issues like global warming and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
On an encouraging note, he says that terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They will use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, easy, and effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to "meet their destiny".
He says that the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, "homegrown"- having attended our own schools and universities right here in America. He says look for students who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East. These young terrorists will be the most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans.
Aviv says that as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will inevitably face. America still has only a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact- SOON!
So, what can we as Americans do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says that the US needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Isreal's, Ireland's, and England's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust "aware" citizens to help.
We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our US government continues to treat us, its citizens, like babies. Our government thinks we "can't handle the truth" and are concerned we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
Aviv recently created/ executed a security test for our Congress by placing 5 empty briefcases in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought out a policeman to check it our. In Chicago, someone even tried to steal the briefcase!
In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Isreal are so well trained "that an unattended bag or package would be reported within seconds by citizens who know to publicly shout "unattended bag". The area would be quickly and calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortuantely, America hasn't been "hurt enough" by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line defense against terrorism.
Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11 who were "lost" without parents being able to pick them up and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there.
He stresses the importance of having a plan that's agreed upon within your family to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools develop plans of action as they do in Isreal.
Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough to follow that even our youngest children can remember and follow.
Aviv says that the US government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediatley cut-off EVERYONE'S ability to use cell phones as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorism and is often used to detonate their bombs.
How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event of an emergency? We as Americans need to have a plan and encourage our government to install proactive plans instead of a one-size-fits-all/ everyone-is-a-suspected-terrorist reactions.
President Obama's Budget for FY 2010 - A Continuation of the Bush Era
President Obama's Budget for fiscal year 2010 (for some reason titled "A New Era of Responsibility") in a nutshell:
- Department of Defense and international expenses (spending on wars and occupations) will go up from $666 billion to $673 billion (under President Bush it grew from $316 billion to $666 billion)
- Other appropriated programs will go up from $613 billion to $695 billion (under President Bush it grew from $298 billion to $613 billion)
- Social Security expenses will go up from $662 billion to $695 billion (under President Bush it grew from $406 billion to $662 billion)
- Medicare expenses will go up from $425 billion to $453 billion (under President Bush it grew from $216 billion to $425 billion)
- Medicaid expenses will go up from $259 billion to $290 billion (under President Bush it grew from $117.9 billion to $259 billion)
- Other mandatory program expenses will drop from $673 billion to $571 billion (under President Bush it grew from $290 billion to $673 billion)
- Net interest will go up from $139 billion to $164 billion (under President Bush it dropped from $222.9 billion to $139 billion)
- Disaster cost will go up from $4 billion to $11 billion (under President Bush it went from $0 billion to $4 billion) The total of proposed federal government expenses for FY 2010 is $3,552 billion. President Obama is planning to spend more on virtually every government program, except for other mandatory programs.
During and after his campaign President Obama talked a lot about "tough choices" we will all have to make. I would like him to tell us where in this budget he made a single tough choice. He promised to go through the budget line by line and eliminate wasteful programs. Where did he do that in this budget? He is even proposing to spend more on wars and the military. A budget that President Bush inlfated by more than 100% from $316 billion to $666 billion! I would like President Obama to answer one simple question: Why?
The president's budget estimates tax receipts of $2.2 trillion, $2.4 trillion, $2.7 trillion, and $3 trillion for 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively. These estimates are laughable. My projections for tax receipts, as I explained in The Coming US Tax Receipt Shortfall: Federal tax receipts will fall to $2.25 trillion in 2009, to $2 trillion in 2010, to $1.75 trillion in 2011, and to $1.5 trillion in 2012.
Meanwhile there is no indication that government expenses will fall. Even with the current, now completely obsolete, budget estimates for government expenses, the Federal deficit would develop as follows:
- $850 billion for 2009 - $1 trillion for 2010 - $1.3 trillion for 2011 - $1.7 trillion for 2012
These are very optimistic figures. It wouldn't be surprising if actual figures turned out to be around double or triple those numbers, unless a true change in policy were to occur.
Now that we have updated figures on coming expenses it's time to update the deficit predictions:
- $1.65 trillion for 2009 - $1.6 trillion for 2010 - $1.95 trillion for 2011 - $2.2 trillion for 2012
If President Obama keeps spending like this, and really wants to cut the deficit in half by 2013, he will at one point be faced with no other choice but to raise taxes on all Americans, rich, middle class, and poor. This is of course nothing new. Taxes have been rising in the US for the past century.
It is certainly disappointing that Obama has now undoubtedly expressed his intention of continuing the irresponsible policies of the Bush era. But it is not really surprising. Obama has already promised us more of the same during his campaign and before taking office.
The End of Consumerism
In a free society where individuals are allowed to make choices by themselves so long as they don't infringe upon their fellow men's life, health, and property, entrepreneurs use natural resources, transform them and/or combine them with previously produced factors of production, and turn them into either consumer goods or other factors of production. They employ workers in the process who provide the production factor labor.
They exchange consumer goods on the market against money obtained from consumers. They exchange factors of production against money obtained from other entrepreneurs.
Factors of production, once completed at some point in the future, enable entrepreneurs to produce more consumer goods during the same amount of time. But while factors of production are being built, workers and natural resources are being used in processes that don't turn out any consumer goods. It is thus necessary to only employ workers and resources in the production of factors of production to the extent that individuals in society are willing to not consume the full output of their labor, and hence generate savings.
On top of that, it is necessary to maintain the existing stock of productive factors, lest their wear and tear cause a decline in the output of consumer products. Thus a continuous level of savings needs to be maintained by individuals in society.
Interest rates on the market give entrepreneurs an indication of the market participants' time preference, meaning how much immediate consumption people are willing to forgo in exchange for the prospect of more future consumption. In other words, interest rates give an indication as to how much people are ready to save and thus contribute to the maintenance and new developments of factors of production.
If the the government pursues a policy of credit expansion, the interest rate indicator is manipulated by force, as opposed to voluntary individual time preferences. The interest rate drops below the level that represents those actual preferences. Now entrepreneurs think that consumers are ready to sacrifice more immediate consumption than they actually are. Credit becomes cheap. On the other side, consumers think that fewer savings are needed than is actually the case. Savings pay little interest. They begin consuming more and hence save less. The Business Cycle ensues.
This creates a double mismatch, from the consumers' and from the entrepreneurs' end. Entrepreneurs employ more workers in longer term and in riskier projects than they normally would have. The prices of factors of production and thus of the common stock of businesses go up significantly. Fewer consumer goods are produced, more resources are allocated to longer term projects. At the same time those workers consume even more than they have been consuming before and logically save less. Since fewer and fewer savings are available, the maintenance of existing factors of production falls behind. The capital stock in the country becomes less effective, its output drops, capital consumption ensues. Thus prices for consumer products, such as gasoline, houses, food, etc. rise.
At one point they rise to a level that indicates to all market participants that the current allocation of resources is unsustainable. Consumers can't afford to consume goods at current prices. Entrepreneurs realize that they have employed resources in projects that yield goods that are not as demanded as previously existing consumer goods.
Consumers realize that they need to cut down on their lavish consumption and once again begin saving more. Entrepreneurs realize that they have to abandon their current projects and release workers for employment in projects that yield more demanded, simple consumer goods. If the government lets this process occur without any intervention whatsoever, balance is restored quickly, and resources will be employed in more demanded projects once again. If the government tries to do the opposite, and get people to consume and borrow more again, the correction will take a very long time.
This is what is currently happening in the United States. The end of conumerism really means the end of capital consumption. It means that people realize that they need to save more and consume less, so as to provide for economic progress and more efficiency in the future, and to restore balance to the economy as a whole. It means that people have understood that too much of the existing capital stock has been consumed and has deteriorated.
This is the causality that the majority of pundits and economics professors that one can hear talk every evening on the news simply don't understand. All their theories and policies are ignoring this one crucial fact: That Americans are done consuming for the time being. The end of consumerism isn't just a temporary ditch. It is a one in a lifetime occurence. This is why it is so hard to grasp and to accept. But it is very simple to understand when one approaches it with sane common sense. How many more Starbucks branches do we need in the streets of New York? How many more gas guzzling cars should each family posess? Three, four, ten . . . ? How many more different brands of detergents, shampoos, toothpastes, and consumer electronics products do we really need?
It is time to cut back and restore sanity and balance. Individuals have realized this and are doing the right thing. The government has not understood this fact at all. It is trying to keep alive failed businesses that should release resources for more demanded projects. It is trying to make up for the "lack of consumption" in the private sector. All these attempts will fail miserably. All they will accomplish is to slow down the corrective phase and turn it into a decade of agony.
I have been on u4prez since March 2007. A LOT has changed since then, most things for the best. There are many topics I would like to cover in this entry, here we go.
First I'll start with the political parties here.
DEMOCRATS: All Democrats celebrated the election of Barack Obama last year on this site. However, this is all the more dynamic the Democrats were here on u4prez. I didn't really notice any major hubbubs, upheavals, or controveries this past year. The biggest one I recall was Brinmat's (who is the party leader) desire to censor any material that may have been offensive to gays on his blogs. In my view, he did (and still does) have ultimate discretion over what goes on his blogs as do Gurr and Matt over what goes on this site. The Democrats are still going stong with JKurth, sparks420, Progress, kt2020, GreyHawk, Think08, Markus08, bkevin, faustus37, bluproject, Oprama, ben_m07, PoliticsGeek08, G Money, buckeyekid, and Imagine89 all in tail. I think the Dems on this site can do alot more to push the national Democratic agenda to promote "real" change in the next 2-4 years. I have faith that this intelligent and passionate group can carry the Democratic party into a bright and successful future both on the site and off.
REPUBLICANS: The Republicans always have big goals as has been shown both on the site and off. Nationally, the Republicans wished to maintain a hold on at least the executive office for a third straight term. However, this goal failed and both the legislature and the executive offices are dominated by Democrats. This being said, I also have faith that the Republicans will rebuild (or deconstruct) their party back to the true conservative roots that our Founding Fathers wished to see perpetually see in America. However, I see this "new conservative vision" as a reprive towards the policies of Ronald Reagan and not those of Ron Paul. Nevertheless, I feel that the Republicans can reconstruct themselves to get back in fighting shape against the Democrats. On this site, alot has happened within the Republican party. BigDaddy stepped down from his post as party leader after declaring that he was smarter than everyone on the site and then subsequently left the site only to return shortly thereafter. When BigDaddy took over the party, I saw some new hope for the site GOP and I jumped back on the bandwagon. BigDaddy was Libertarian Republican and was a staunch supporter of Ron Paul. However, this vision of a new party on this site quickly crashed and burned through many events. If I recall correctly, Copulate left and this was a big relief for many GOPers. Copulate cut fellow party members down to put himself on top and deeply offended some other users on this site. I won't rehash all the events as to not re-open the wounds. The next big event was when The Demo and Cubsfan82 moved to the Republican party and re-aligned the rankings many of us (I was in the GOP at this time) who had fought tooth-and-nail for. A movement, led by the now inactive Dascody, sought to pose an Inquistion (and ultimatley purge) on those who wished to disrupt the bureacratic system that was the Grand Old Party of u4prez. After The Demo explained herself many times and Cubs ignored the questions for long enough, the angry mob moved on. Cubs remains active in the GOP today but The Demo has moved to the Libertarian party. After the GOP was relatively settled, BigDaddy began collectively moving the GOP away from the policies of Bush and towards the policies of fiscal conservatism and social freedom. This period of time, in my opinion, was the brighest spot for the GOP in 2008. Unfortunantly, things quickly declined. Friday and musicman were accused of trying to undermine BigDaddy's leadership role in the GOP. After an alleged unsuccessful attempt, they pitched the sale of a new Conservative Constitutionalist Party, but this failed. Friday and musicman both defected the the Independent party and musicman has recently left the site. Friday has since created the successful "Take Back Our Party" caucus aiming to lead the GOP back to a Conservative Constitutionalist base. Seemingly at peace, the GOP began to debate which candidate to support in the 2008 election. Romney was supported by the far right wingers, Paul was supported by those who aligned with Big Daddy, McCain was supported by the neo-conservatives. Ron Paul ended up winning the endorsment from both the party and site. After this, things got rough again for the GOP. BigDaddy, in cohorts with lucky_num1, began to manipulate the runoff votes so they would win every runoff they were in. Lucky, a Libertarian, and BigDaddy also created a Democratic profile in order to maximize wins. To many, this seemed like bigotted attempt for BigDaddy and lucky to bully their way into all major leadership positions on the site. However, they claimed to have an ulterior motive. They say that this manipulation is being done to expose the problem of a 4 vote per IP address system. BigDaddy has pushed for a 1 vote per IP address system to end the manipulation (as it used to be). Meanwhile, BigDaddy "quit" the site and gave up his leadership position to Austin08. Austin is an excellent candidate but I feel that he has done little to move the GOP in a new direction. Kempite, however, has encouraged user input in the GOP's "Rebuild the Party" website and I applaud Kemp for his encouragement. The Republicans on this site remain fiesty! Austin, Smashey, stk, eaglescout, fatngassy, Hawk, erock, kempite, Cubs, crushnik, mrpresident806, BluExtacy, BigDaddy, Trish214, Dominic(gopwire), thecastout, fairmont sentinel, and Jeff Freeman2010 are now leading the GOP into the future. Best of luck to you guys!
INDEPENDENTS: Aren’t quite all on the same track, but hey, what did you expect? Within the “Independent” catergory here on u4prez is a Libertarian sector, Green Sector, Reform Sector, and even a Socialist party is trying to get recognized. The u4prez President, Learning Conformity, and her Vice President, RSobien, both call the Independent party their home. I’m positive that most independents either did not vote in 2008 or voted for a third party candidate as many Independent users have expressed displeasure with both major parties. I believe it is the Independent political activists on this site who will support real change in the political system. Change will not come from a party that only points out the other party’s mistakes and does not take responsibility for its own. You cannot reduce the size of the bureaucracy by creating more oversight agencies through stimulus packages and bailouts. For all you independents out there: maditude, Learning Conformity, Friday, The Demo, RSobien, bernisava, The Wiz, ndfan12, lucky_num1, dk08, AntiFederalistJackie, conjure1, MAP2010, Nobody, ajgarzoli2012, Jamescart, Kevak, johnnymars, sleazyearl, mejicojohn, V, and Youngfella, I call upon you to bring about real change within our government through third parties and protest!!!
Next subject:
RUNOFFS: I have not participated in runoffs lately. The system is flawed as Arjay, lucky, BigDaddy and others have blatantly pointed out. Secondly, I do not vote in runoffs because it does not seem that those in the runoffs care whether they win or not. This site was launched for users to conduct a virtual campaign for President so its time to START CAMPAIGNING for your runoff wins! Leave a short comment on my profile, send me a PM, I don’t care. Just show me that you want to win! Show me that you care about my vote! Especially you new candidates on this site. I may be able to read your platform but your platform means nothing if you don’t promote it or back it up! I will refrain from voting in the runoffs until the runoff system is fixed and candidates start caring about their wins and my vote.
Next:
CAUCUSES: These have recently lost some of their life due to the success of blogs. However, I believe that caucuses remain a vital part for political debate and discussion on this site. As I have said before, I think that we as users have not used caucuses the same way they are used in government. We could clear up some of the caucus garbage on here by allowing users to not only view the top caucuses but also delete caucuses that are out of date, no longer in use, etc. I talked to Matt and he said that Gurr was thinking about deleting causes from the site. I ask, Gurr, that caucuses remain on this site because they are an integral part of politics in the real world!
BILLS: Many bills lately have been rendered pointless or have been spam. Matt has also told me that Gurr is thinking about cutting bills from the site. I ask that these also remain, Gurr. Bills are an excellent spot for users to introduce changes not only in the real world, but also on this site. I have introduced a bill to allow users to vote on new bills and then the bills would be ranked by how many supporters it had. Sounds like an okay idea to me, what do you think? Arjay recently released a bill that calls upon the users of this site to liven up. RepublicAmerica recently released a bill to legalize hemp for the production of new bio-fuels. Both of these ideas are great. Keep posting bills, people!
EDITORIALS: If something should be removed from the site, this should be it! The editorials have become obsolete and unused. Since blogs were introduced at the end of December, only about half a dozen editorials have been published compared to hundreds of new blogs.
BLOGS: Have become a great new way for users to express their opinions. Blogs have cut down on the number of stupid caucuses (yes there have been stupid blogs, you can’t fix stupid.) and spam bills. Blogs have generated new discussion and have increased site activity after the post-election slump. I applaud Gurr and Matt for creating this blog system.
In conclusion, I love this site and hope to remain active here for years to come. This site has opened up my political perspective and has deepened my understanding of the government and its agencies. Also, let’s not forget my friends and political allies on this site, thank you! You know who you are!
I hope u4prez keeps up its status as one of the top political websites on the internet for a long, long time!
Brad Omland has earned the right to join an elite group of men and soar among Eagles such as Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the U.S., Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and Neil Armstrong, astronaut and the first man to walk on the moon.
The son of Brian and Jody Omland of Blue Earth, Brad recently completed the necessary requirements to become an Eagle Scout.
Not every boy who joins a Boy Scout troop earns the Eagle Scout rank; only about five percent of all scouts do. This represents about 1.7 million young men who have earned the honor since its inception in 1911. They exemplify the goals of scouting – citizenship, training, character development and personal fitness.
Eagle Scouts are expected to set an example for other scouts and to become the leaders in life they have demonstrated themselves to be in scouting. Because of this, they are disproportionately represented in the military, service academy graduates, major professions, business and politics.
Omland’s future goals are a good fit with other famous Eagles.
“I plan to attend the University of South Dakota and pursue a double major in political science and philosophy,” says Omland. “I would like to teach one of these at the high school level then become a public servant like Senator Amy Klobuchar or even run for the Presidency.”
“If I were the President,” says Omland, “I would cut taxes and reduce government spending. I would also scale back in Iraq.”
A member of the BEA choir, Madrigals and Men of Note, Omland has also participated in football and been a member of the Knowledge Bowl team. Academically, his favorite subjects have included government and history classes.
When not in school or working with the local scouts, Omland enjoys reading political non-fiction, spending time on the internet, watching TV, playing video games and hanging out with friends. Since he likes to grill, he works occasionally as a cook at the Country Kitchen. Two to three nights per week and one shift over the weekend, he serves as the ice rink attendant. He says his duties include sweeping the rink and making sure the kids don’t get too rambunctious while there.
The journey to become an Eagle Scout has been a long and intensive one.
“I began when I was in first grade,” recalls Omland. “I got a Tiger Scout registration form at school and showed it to my Dad. He asked me if I wanted to join and I said ‘yes’ and have stuck with it ever since.”
It was only natural for Omland to continue the path toward becoming an Eagle Scout since he has one uncle and three cousins who also have earned this honor.
“I became an Eagle Scout partly because I knew I would feel better if I finished what I had started,” says Omland. He also adds his Dad’s persistence was a major influence in keeping him focused and on track for the Eagle award.
In order to earn the Eagle Scout rank, Omland had to show a mastery in the areas of leadership, service and outdoor skills before advancing through the ranks. To advance, he had to pass specific tests that are organized by requirement and merit badges.
Merit badges signify the mastery of certain outdoor skills, as well as helping boys increase their skill in areas of personal interest. Of the 120 merit badges available, 21 must be earned to qualify for Eagle Scout. Of this group, 12 badges are required, including First Aid, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, Citizenship in the World, Communications, Environmental Science, Personal Fitness, Personal Management, Camping and Family Life. In addition, a scout has a choice between Emergency Preparedness and Lifesaving and a choice among Cycling, Hiking and Swimming.
Omland confesses he has patches and badges galore as a record of his scouting years.
For the past five summers, he has spent five weeks at the Cuyuna Scout Camp in Cross Lake working on badges.
Other experiences and opportunities he has had, earning him patches and badges, include attending the National Jamboree for three weeks in 2005, participating in the National Order of the Arrow Conclave in 2006 and canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe area as a troop in 2007.
“I have liked scouting because there’s always plenty of activities to do and it gives one the chance to be with friends,” says Omland. He summarizes scouting by saying, “you learn a skill, you then teach it to others, then you learn another skill.”
Once Omland attained the Life Award in 2005, he then began the final phase in becoming an Eagle Scout.
“It took me about three years to gather information, complete the necessary steps, find a community project then complete it,” says Omland of the Eagle Scout award process.
“I saw a notice in the ‘Trinity Trumpet’ about the need for landscaping on the east side of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Blue Earth,” says Omland.
The major requirement for the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project is for a Life Scout to plan, develop and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to one’s religious institution, school or community. The project idea must be approved by the organization benefitting from the effort, the local unit leader (Scoutmaster), unit committee and by the council or dist-rict advancement committee before one starts.
Omland’s project to re-landscape the east side of his church was approved. He replaced the grass and small shrubbery with a stone wall and rocks to prevent erosion. The project would benefit his church because it would correct the damage the eroded soil caused by exposing the insulation and sheetrock of the church. It also would prevent any soil from washing on to the nearby sidewalk which had created hazards for people walking there.
First, he removed the existing plants and landscaping features. Then Blue Earth Landscape brought in the first layer of brick and placed it in the ground. Omland’s project crew then finished placing the rest of the brick. After the wall was in place, dirt was added then the rock. Spaces were left for plants to enhance the area. Omland completed the project on Sept. 27, 2008.
“It was a lot of paperwork,” says Omland of the project.
Currently, the senior at BEA High School is an Assistant Scoutmaster, meeting weekly with younger scouts.
Scouting, says Omland, has given him a real sense of service and leadership.
Although Omland has not been formally recognized for his achievement, he has earned the honor and will hold the title of Eagle Scout for life, thus giving rise to the phrase ‘once an Eagle, always an Eagle.’
Brad Omland has joined the elite few and will soar among Eagles.
President-elect Obama said today that he plans to ban earmarks from the latest $775 billion economic stimulus package to promote "new, higher standards of accountability, transparency and oversight." My only question to this is: how will Obama ban earmarks?
It is next to impossible to ban all earmarks on only one specific bill. In order to ban earmarks, Congress would have to pass a law saying so. However, this will never happen because Congress will never pass laws which will limit their power to spend money. The only other way Obama can "ban" pork barrel spending is to continuously veto any stimulus bill with pork-barrel spending that comes to his desk. But, this would be near political suicide if the elections had not recently occured. By vetoing all pork-laden packages he will only lose popularity among the people and subsequently among the Democratic Congress. Also, by vetoing something he promised, Obama will portray the image of a negative, do-nothing President. One which the American people were not promised his campaign. Next, this will cause the Democrats in Congress to do what they are notorious for: implosion. Meanwhile, the economy will continue to reel and become worse (this being said, I do not believe any economic stimulus package will work).
Since Obama feels he can fix the economy through government stimulus packages and bailouts, it is time he take the "good" with the bad. After all, a bridge to nowhere would create jobs, which is what the latest package is supposed to be all about!
A new proposal, now backed by two federal agencies and other independent ones, is calling for a 50% gas tax hike! The purpose of the tax increase is to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge, and tranist programs. In a report expected later this month, members of the infrastructure financing commision say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon on gasoline and the diesel fuel tax by 12 to 15 cents per gallon. At the same time, the commision will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation. The commision will also recommend states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.
A tax increase on this order would be politically treacherous for Democratic leaders in Congress, a gas tax hike is why they lost control of both Houses in the 1994 elections. But thankfully, President-elect Obama has expressed his disapproval of this plan because of the recession.
Meanwhile, many Americans are driving less and switching to more fuel efficent cars and trucks.
The Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commision, in a January 2008 report, called for an increase in as much as 40 cents per gallon in the gas tax, phased in over 5 years.
Yet another measure to raise taxes is to tax drivers based on how many miles they drive and what type of roads they drive on. This would then require all cars to have a global positioning system installed which may take up to 10 years to complete.
From a libertarian point of view, the whole proposal looks like a big NO! Here is why: 1. Any tax increase, especially during a recession is horrible because it takes capital away from those who spend, invest, and create jobs. 2. Creating more tolls, especially in rush hour traffic, is quite unsafe. Freeway driving at constant speeds is much safer than stop-and-go rush hour traffic. Living in Minnesota, I know what it is like to drive in stop and go traffic shortly after a snow storm. Creating more stops and more goes will only allow for more accidents to occur. 3. If the Democrats wish to maintain control of the federal government, they will not raise taxes in order to avoid a GOP upheaval of Congress which will take place due to the natural checks and balances the parties play on each other. 4. "Phased in" taxes are an okay way to go as long as people have the money to give up. As of now, most people are pinching pennies and are unwiling to give away anymore. 5. The proposal to install GPS systems will allow for more big government spying into the private sector just as the Patriot Act has allowed. Does the government really need to keep track of where we are driving and how we're getting there? Not to mention the added cost to the government and the consumer to place a government-mandated GPS in a vehicle which only only cause more money to be spent in order for more money to be taken away.
In conclusion, these taxes need to be avoided because of the current recession, for the safety of the driver, and for the liberty of Americans!
Governor Blagojevich recently appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to Illinois's vacant Senate seat. Burris is assumed to be an honest man with no ties to Blagojevich's selling of the seat.
Meanwhile, the Illinois state legislature has been taking action to impeach Blagojevich and the US Senate promised not to seat whoever was appointed too.
Does Blagojevich have any sense??? Before this scandal broke, it was common knowledge in Illinois that the governor was quite crude in his language and showed little class. Then he tries to sell the Senate seat and claims that he deserves to get something out of it. Next, he defies popular opinion and arrogantly remains at his post. Then he takes the liberty to appoint someone who will only be thrown to the wolves and disgraced in the Senate. Is Blagojevich trying to honor Obama's "Audacity of Hope" by being audacious? Could there be anything more audacious? More so, could there be anything more contemptible?
Alexander Hamilton was correct when he stated, “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing”. A minimal national debt to American taxpayers and banks is a fiscal necessity because it shows the citizens that their dollar is still valuable and thus, will have the confidence to continue spending. Nevertheless, the national debt should be watched by an eagle eye to keep inflation at a minimum, maintain a strong dollar, and a stable economy. But, what happens when the national debt reaches unsustainable levels? A new report released by the Treasury Department and the White House budget office found that the current budget deficit is not sustainable! Since the deficit has been said to be unsustainable what can we do to reduce the debt to minimal levels? The federal deficit can be depleted by reducing government spending and by cutting taxes for all citizens. The federal debt is now $10,630,556,502,899.88 . The only way to reduce the debt is for the government to spend within its means. In other words, cut spending so that it matches or is under the total tax revenue in a fiscal year. The US tax revenue for 2007 was a record $2.6 trillion. If even one-eighth of the total tax revenue could be put towards paying off our federal deficit, and the other seven-eights be spent, $325 billion annually (at 2007 revenues) could be used to reduce the federal deficit in less than thirty-five years! To reduce the federal deficit without cutting spending, taxes would have to be raised. However, spending could easily be cut by twelve and a half percent. The spending cut could start with a reduction in the federal bureaucracy. The Departments of Energy and Education could both be abolished. This would then cut more than eighty billion dollars out of future budgets. The Department of Energy could be cut because all energy should be regulated by free market capitalism. When the federal government wants to study energy issues, the study can be contracted out to private agencies just as it would be at the local or city level. The Department of Education is unnecessary at the federal level because education is not defined as a federal issue in the Constitution and is delegated to the states in amendment ten. Our war on terrorism has been the largest budget focus in recent years. $133.6 billion was allotted for the Iraq war in 2007 alone. If President-elect Obama sticks to his word on Iraq and we are out by the expiration date of the new troop deal (December 31, 2011) this multi-billion dollar chunk could be taken from the budget in about three years. After the departments are abolished and the Iraq war is over, approximately $213.9 billion will be cut from the budget which is over sixty-five percent of the necessary annual spending cuts needed to reach the thirty-five year goal. Even if another $111.1 billion spending cut is impossible the budget deficit would still be eliminated in fifty years! Once government spending is reduced there will be less of a need to tax the people. Joe Biden once claimed in a campaign speech that, “Paying higher taxes is patriotic!” The fact of the matter is that paying higher taxes is not patriotic when the government is fiscally wasteful. Biden also claims that the Obama/ Biden administration will spend liberally and that your “donation” to the government will go to spreading the wealth and helping the less fortunate. Yet who, in their right mind, would donate money to a charity that is wasteful and in debt? The free market has time-and-time again proven that people spend money more efficiently than the government does. As has been the case with our recent economic stimulus packages. “[The government’s] only resources come from producers in the economy through means of inflation and taxation. The government has an obligation to be good stewards of these resources. In bailing out failing companies, they are confiscating money from productive members of the economy and giving it to failing ones. By sustaining companies with obsolete or unsustainable business models, the government prevents their resources from being liquidated and made available to other companies that can put them to better, more productive use. An essential element of a healthy free market is that both success and failure must be permitted to happen when they are earned. But instead with a bailout, the rewards are reversed – the proceeds from successful entities are given to failing ones. How this is supposed to be good for our economy is beyond me. ” The only way to truly fix the economy is to let the free-market run its course and let failures fail. I would trust my dollar to go to better use in a company that caters to my wants rather than my tax dollars that may go to a failing company. Consumer money is also better spent through direct donations to charity rather than an aid program funded by the government. Only pennies on the dollar are actually given to government charity once the money is collected by the Internal Revenue Service, allotted by Congress, dodged red tape in the bureaucracy and then finally, some could be wasted in special interest groups that are out for their own good and not for the nation as a whole, before money is actually given to those it was intended for. However, if money is donated directly to a charity, more of the donated dollars will go to those in need. So, how do we keep money out of the governments hands? Citizens must demand that Congressmen lower taxes and cut spending! Everybody deserves a tax cut! This is a concept neither Democrats nor Republicans can seem to grasp. Democrats tax the rich only to level the playing field for the poor and middle-class, while Republicans cut taxes for the rich to stimulate economic growth. Again, everyone deserves a tax cut, here is why: “In a free country, money belongs to those who earn it. The most fundamental reason to cut taxes is an understanding that wealth doesn’t just happen, it has to be produced. And those who produce it have the right to keep it. We may agree to give up a part of the wealth we create in order for such public goods as national defense and a system of justice. But we don’t give the government an unlimited claim on our money to use as it sees fit. […Two,] higher taxes discourage work and investment. Taxes create a “wedge” between what the employer pays and what the employee receives, so some jobs don’t get created. High marginal tax rates also discourage people from working overtime or from making new investments. It’s true, as some critics say, that our current marginal rates of 39.6 percent […] do not depress economic output as much as the 70 percent rates that taxpayers faced in 1980. But most economists now agree that a reduction in marginal tax rates will increase output to some degree. [Third,] income taxes should be cut because the overall tax burden is quite high right now. As of the third quarter of 2000, federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product hit a peacetime high of 20.8 percent. Prosperity has made Americans more accepting of the rising tax burden, but the current economic slowdown will make high taxes harder to bear. [Fourth,] if we don’t cut taxes, Congress will spend the money. If one thing is certain in Washington, it is that Congress will spend every dollar it can get its hands on. Every interest group wants something, a road, a dam, a social program, more teachers, more policemen, more corporate welfare, and members of Congress want to be liked. The only way to ‘put the surplus in a lockbox’ is to let the taxpayers keep it. Lower taxes are the only real check on the expanding size and scope of the federal government. If we want smaller government, our best strategy is to reduce to the amount of money Congress has to play with. […] For Bush and Republicans in Congress, this may be the most important reason of all: Republicans win when they cut taxes. Tax cuts unite the Republican base. The tax consumers in our society are organized; the taxpayers need to be organized, too, around a tax cut program. In 1980, 1984 and 1988, Ronald Reagan and George Bush won three presidential elections by promising to cut taxes and then cutting them. George Bush raised taxes and lost the next election. I wager this is a lesson not lost on George W. Bush. ” The biggest political issue of Election 2008 was the economy. The economy can be stimulated by giving every citizen, regardless of class, an equal opportunity to spend their income as they please! Federal deficit reduction will stimulate the global economy because loans and debts to foreign governments and banks will be paid back, thus, “freeing up” money in the system. Cutting taxes for all citizens will encourage economic investment on all levels whether the investment is in stocks, cars, or even groceries. Any money spent in the free-market economy is money well spent. The government is wasteful! Do not let the federal bureaucracy tell you how to manage money! "You and I have the ability, the dignity, and the right to make our own decisions and to determine our own destiny."--Ronald Reagan. The only way we will reduce the federal deficit is to give our government less and demand that money is not overspent or wasted. Corporations decrease in size when capital is scarce. The government will decrease in size when tax money, which is its capital, is scarce. We must reduce the size of government, cut taxes, and reduce the federal deficit if we want to see a healthy and free America in the future!
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