Accountability?

Recently I engaged into an interesting topic with a close friend of mine. We were discussing various political topics which included the "Buffet Rule", entitlements, health care and other topics. During our conversation we touched on war. The question my friend offered up is, and I paraphrase, why is it that in war today that the country doesn't sacrifice as it was expected when the United States entered in World War II?

 It is a great question. So we brainstormed on why there isn't the level of sacrifice displayed now with two wars going on as there was during World War II. The reason for our resurgence into Afghanistan was to get Bin Laden - well we have him yet we have troops still there and in Iraq. While I acknowledge it is not as easy as flipping the light switch to pull out, it should be noted that we still have not. True a time table exists for Iraq. Throughout our conversation my friend pondered if we should feel guilty for not making sacrifices as brave men and women fight in a land with no clear objective. Granted one could argue that the objective is to root out Al Queada.

 I offered up a theory as to why American's may not feel guilty or have the sense of sacrifice that has allowed Iraq and Afghanistan to drag on and on and on. That theory is that American's have become so reliant on the Federal Government that if our elected officials say its good to stay then it must be so. When our ancestors lived through their Great Depression they did something about it. They didn't look for the government to provide them a paycheck for 99 months or pay for the health care. We have become so reliant on the Federal Government that we have lost our way as Americans. Freedoms have been slowly eroded away for various reason - National Security, general health and welfare - and instead of America standing up to our elected officials, we cower and wait for our next entitlement.

 After Sen. Obama won the Presidency a sector of society started to wake up to the fact that our deficits are too large, our spending is out of control and we have lost a number of person freedoms. Freedoms that our Founding Fathers agreed to, in the end, belonged at the State level. Instead of American's embracing this movement - Tea Party or the Coffee Party - the Right worked hard to CO-OP them while the Left looked to demonize them. The same can be said of the Occupy (fill in the blank) group. The Left is working to back them while the Right is looking to point out their flaws. We have lost the ability to be accountable for ourselves, our town, our community, our county, our state and our Federal Government. While a small part of society gives the ultimate sacrifice in the Middle East, the rest of us go about our lives looking for the next entitlement program. We don't demand that our Commander in Chief go before Congress to engage our country in armed conflict nor do we demand our Congress to hold said Commander in Chief in contempt for doing so. Instead both parties play their political theater and grand stand the soupdujour in an effort to get re-elected.

 Damn straight we should feel guilty. Trouble is that we allow this to continue, we allow our elected officials to dictate to us how it is we are to live and which freedoms we get to enjoy. Be accountable, hold others accountable. Call, write, visit your elected officials at every level of government and demand accounability. America is living on borrowed time and money - time has come for all of us to make sacrifice and demand our society to do so as well.

Are Americans on the cusp of a Second American Revolution?

After getting back this morning from a business meeting and setting up quiet time for the kids, I started my daily task of clicking through my internet list of new outlets. I came across this link on the Drudge Report: Paper: Will Washington's Failures Lead to Second American Revolution? (http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/542171/201007301830/Will-Washingtons-Failures-Lead-To-Second-American-Revolution-.aspx). The article is written by Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins and discussed if changes by the current regime are doing "more harm than good" and if "Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives." While the article does call out, briefly, President Clinton and G W Bush it evokes a warning that President George Washington had in his farewell address in regards to public credit and the revenue source from which it is paid back. So I looked up President Washington's farewell address to gain some context, especially after the recent dust up with words being said not in full context leading to knee jerk reactions, and read firsthand the thoughts of our first US Constitutional President.

Here is a link to the entire address: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/farewell/text.html . The consideration made in the article, by Christian and Robbins, was if Obamcare through it's "insidiously powerful" new rules and regulations; the Dodd-Frank power grab that will allow the President to "control all credit and financial transactions, rewarding friends and punishing opponents, discriminating on the basis of race, gender and political affiliation"; or the attempts by the Obama administration and the EPA "to impose by "regulatory" fiats many parts of the cap-and-trade and other climate legislation…" will lead to a "Second American Revolution." While I believe armed insurrection is a thing of the past in the United States, a sentiment among the populous may be gaining strength. The catalyst of how strong the populous movements of the Coffee and Tea Parties become lie in the decision Congress makes in regards to the expiring Bush tax cuts.

In President Washington's farewell speech he warned:

    As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted an article that was spurned from Governor Tim Pawlenty's statement, "I don't think the argument can be credibly made that the United States of America is undertaxed compared to our competitors" (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jul/29/tim-pawlenty/tim-pawlenty-says-us-not-undertaxed-compared-its-c/). To which the article posted pointed out that in a sample graph in 2007, established by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), compared the United States overall tax burden to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and ranked us with 30 other OECD countries. The results were, in 2007, the United States overall tax burden was 28% of GDP and the average of the 30 OECD countries is 36%. The authors of the article did talk to several experts to gain their take and they cautioned interpreting the results as it does not paint a complete picture without taking into consideration deficits of the countries. As William Ahern, the director of policy and communications at the Tax Foundation, cautioned about solely drawing a conclusion from the OECD chart that, "a country with a low tax-to-GDP ratio may have a substantial deficit, and in time, that deficit will put upward pressure on taxes."

Since Obama has taken office, and one can even go back to Bush's term, America has increased the deficit percentage in regards to GDP substantially. The Congressional Budget Office reports that, "Over the past few years, U.S. government debt held by the public has grown rapidly—to the point that, compared with the total output of the economy, it is now higher than it has ever been except during the period around World War II. The recent increase in debt has been the result of three sets of factors: an imbalance between federal revenues and spending that predates the recession and the recent turmoil in financial markets, sharply lower revenues and elevated spending that derive directly from those economic conditions, and the costs of various federal policies implemented in response to the conditions. (http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=116590). This is precisely what President Washington was warning us about. Our elected officials need to "cherish public credit" and understand that "to have Revenue there must be taxes" to abuse these tenets, as we have seen over the past 10 years, is an "inconvenient and unpleasant" assault on our peace, prosperities and freedoms.

Could we see a Second American Revolution? Has the ruling class embedded themselves in far enough that the only method of removal is by force? Does the current oligarchy of political power preclude Americans from making transformative decisions at the ballot box?

Minnesota State Legislative Session is a foot

The Minnesota State Legislature kicked off a new session yesterday. The session will be interesting as the Democrats look to press lame duck Governor Pawlenty on several issues facing the state. The main push by the DFL appears to be, at least early on, for job creation and higher education. Yesterday the DFL party unveiled a $1 billion public works proposal that has many on the other side of the aisle shaking their heads. A claim by the DFL is that the proposal will add 10,000 new jobs while the Republicans contend these jobs will be only temporary. If what the Republicans say is true about the temporary job creation, why would any rational person vote for such a bill when Minnesota is already facing a $1.2 billion deficit?

When I think of job creation my thoughts drift to sustainable and permanent jobs not temporary work. Granted some of the temporary work may lead to permanent employment but let's think wisely before we through around tax payer money. My hope is that the Minnesota State Legislature will learn from the mistakes of the Congress and the Obama Administration that government intervention is not the answer to sustained growth in the economy or the job market. Yesterday there was an article in the Star Tribune that discussed the windmills that dot the metro area and attempted to answer the question: Why are they not spinning?

While I agree that looking for alternative fuel sources is a good thing, we need to be smart about the choices pursued. The trouble with the windmills is that they were not properly outfitted for Minnesota Winters. That lack of thought boggles my mind. If the Minnesota State Legislature is serious about job creations then craft legislation that opens the door for nuclear energy. I understand that the Carter law has put a moratorium on new nuclear plants and the reusing of spent rods to which I say, "So what." We must take care of Minnesotans first and lead the way for other states to have the courage to stand up for their Constitutional rights as states.

I challenge the Minnesota State Legislature to fight for state rights and enact legislation that opens the way for more nuclear power plants in Minnesota. Previously I blogged about the job creation one new plant brings to a community. Not only will it bring new jobs to communities and Minnesota but it will also bring renewable energy as well. A renewable energy source that is cheaper per kilowatt than solar and wind combined. Does that not make sense? We are able to kill two birds with one stone; we create thousands of jobs and establish a green source of energy.

For those that live in Minnesota, please take time to contact your representative and express your concerns. If you do not know who your representative is start here to find out: http://www.leg.state.mn.us/ Also check back to that website to keep tabs on your representative as I will be. A goal of mine this year is to interject more local politics into the blog too.

Middle Class Beware

Beware of things to come as the results of the actions of the Democrat led Congress and Obama’s bold initiatives. The $787 billion stimulus bill and the $1 trillion budget are saddling the United States with a deficit that is expected to be $1.8 trillion next year. The deficit does not include the Cap and Trade and health care reform that are currently being debated on Capitol Hill. Over the weekend Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on ABC’s “This Week” when he said, “We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we can convince the American people that we’re going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established.”

President Obama’s plan for recovery is not complete until health care reform and cap and trade are passed. Both of these pieces of legislation are exempt from the “pay go” philosophy. It is estimated that health care reform will add another $1 trillion, spread over ten years, to the deficit. When pressed on how the United States is planning to pay down the deficit a campaign promise by President Obama to not raise “any taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year” was put in jeopardy when Geithner said “it is absolutely right” that the middle class tax hike is on the table.

The Senate will be debating whether to approve the $2 billion, which the House of Representatives approved last week, addition to the “Cash for Clunkers” program. The plan is to divert the $2 billion from money already set aside for another program in the Stimulus Bill. As I stated last week, why didn’t someone do the math to start with? It is a bit disheartening when reading the headlines on how “successful” the CARS program has been.

The difficulty is in the details of the program that plagues the claim of success. As displayed by the Ford F150 swap from a 2000 to a 2009 only improves gas mileage by 1 mpg. Please tell me how this gets a gas guzzler off the road. Americans should look at the CARS program and the mounting deficit to see how short sighted Congress and President Obama is right now. As Rep. Lewis stated in the Wall Street Journal, “if this is how the government is going to handle billion-dollar programs affecting all Americans, I ask, whatever will we do if this administration takes control of our health care?”

Rep. Lewis’s concern is valid. It is not just a symptom of Obama’s administration as examples are abound of entitlement programs that government has mishandled. To make matters worse is the manner in which Obama’s administration is moving things through Congress. The Stimulus Bill was read prior to passing and the Cap and Trade bill had about 390 pages added to the bill at 3 am only 5 hours prior to debating and passing it. The kicker on Cap and Trade was as the House debated, the bill was still being assembled and only two copies existed; neither copy was complete when the final vote was tallied.

Ford reported that their July sales rose nearly 1.6 percent over 2008 July sales which Ford attributed to the “cash for clunkers” program giving them the boast. It will be interesting to hear how the Government owned car companies performed in July. Which makes one re-think the role of an ever expanding government under the Obama administration and it is no longer a question if but when will the middle class see a tax hike?