Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Party of No

Why are the Republicans always accused of being the “Party of No”? Can anyone tell me?

I personally think most people hear them being called the “Party of No” and associate the Republicans with not wanting to work together with Dems to pass any legislation. While it does seem like that is the case due to the spin that Democrats are so good at presenting, that isn't the case. Take the whole debt-ceiling fiasco that is currently going on, the Republicans have presented and passed multiple plans (all while being accused by the Dems of not doing anything). Meanwhile the Dems in the the Senate (even the White House) keep insisting that that anything the Republicans in the House passes, they (the Dems) will not even allow it to come to the floor to be looked at. How are any bills supposed to get passed when half the people involved in the process (the Senate Dems) refuse to even look at any of the plans the Republicans have passed?

The really sad thing about how this process usually goes is, each time the Senate refuses to look at these bills that have been passed by the House, the House then turns around and writes up another plan that is a gutted version of the previous bill. The newly gutted bill passes the House, then goes to the Senate where they won't look at it yet again. I think the Dems plan is to just keep rejecting House bills till the House sends them a blank page. So far who sounds like the “Party of No”?

All the while, the Democrats are constantly accusing the Republicans of not wanting to compromise and blaming them of being an obstacle that is preventing anything from passing. The thing that makes this even more absurd is, while they are blaming and spreading demagoguery, they refuse to present any ideas in writing. They work only towards making the Republicans look like villains when in truth the Republicans are the only ones working toward solutions.

The big problem with the Republican party is that in the past when the Dems have used this tactic, it has always worked in getting the Republicans to give in and agree to anything the Democrats want. The Dems even get the Republicans to draw up all the paperwork on it once they give in so that the Dems can come back behind them, copy it and claim that they are the ones who got it done. This definitely made the Republicans the “Party of No”, or as I think of it, the “Party of No Spine”.

Now with the current debt-ceiling debacle, the Democrats are lost once again on what to do so they look to the Republican party for ideas all while blaming the Republicans of doing nothing. Yet this time something is different. Yes, the Republicans have caved little by little on the one-sided (because the Dems are still refusing to do anything) debt-ceiling debate, there are new members in the Republican party that are from the Tea Party crowd. They appear to have at least given the Republican party a partial spine. For once the Republicans seem to be standing firm, refusing to give in anymore past the point that they have (sadly) been whittled down to. While I disagree with how much they have given up due to the Dems tactics, at least they seem to have stopped caving on their principals for the moment.

The Republicans are finally standing up and saying “No”. No new taxes. No new spending. No promised future cuts to the budget that will never come. No allowing the Dems (Obama) to rule against the will of the people.

Lets hope they stick to their guns and stand proud as the “Party of No”

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Debt-Ceiling Bonanza or Power to the 14th

Let me start by citing the part of the 14th Amendment that I am going to be referencing in this post.

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment states:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

The reason I started with this is due to the fact that the White House is gearing up for an attempt to bypass Congress, citing this section of the 14th Amendment, saying that no matter what we cannot default on our debt. They will say that, due to Section 4, if Congress refuses to raise the debt-ceiling (they may even argue the debt-ceiling is illegal due to Section 4's wording) then the President, as a last hope to prevent default, can raise the debt-ceiling with an executive order. This is one hundred percent untrue.

Nowhere in the Constitution is authority given to the President to...
  1. Make laws in order to pay the debt of which the nation has accrued.
  2. Levy any taxes in order to pay the debts that the nation has accrued.
  3. To bypass Congress in order to pay the debts that the nation has accrued.

In fact in Article 1 Section 8 (the part of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to tax, appropriate and regulate commerce) states that Congress (not the President) shall have the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. The 14th Amendment doesn't and cannot affect the power that was given to Congress in Article 1.

All the 14th Amendment does is require Congress to make sure that the debts of the nation are paid and the majority of those that are covered are the bonds held by bondholders. Almost everything else is required to be put on the back burner if necessary to insure that the bondholders get paid. This puts all payments to social programs (because they are not covered) on hold if the United States cannot afford to pay for them and pay the bondholders. Congress can chose to raise taxes to fund all other programs if they chose, but they must make sure the bondholders get paid before a penny goes to anything else. If Congress chooses not to raise taxes, then they are responsible for cutting spending to these programs (even if it means cutting them out all together) till the bondholders get paid. End of story. That is a fact that cannot be disputed no matter how much the White House try's to spin it.

If the debt-ceiling is not raised, the Obama administration would have you believe, that the US will default. Unless our Lord and Savior Obama, sweeps in and raises the debt-ceiling himself, superseding Congress in all his glory, we as a nation are doomed and will go bankrupt. This is simply not true, and no matter how much the administration says it is, it never will be true.

If the debt-ceiling is not raised, Congress will have 2 options left for them to pick from.

First, they can raise taxes, this is what the Dems are pushing (ever though Obama stated that in a recession you don't raise taxes due to the damage it will cause to the economy) for because that is all they seem to know. They don't care about the fact that that will hurt everyone financially during a time that they are already hurting, all they want is the increased revenue coming in to fund their lavish lifestyles. The Republicans don't want this option to be put in place because they understand that no matter who you raise taxes on, the working middle class and the working poor are going to be the ones to suffer in the long run due to inflation on goods and services.

The second option is to reform entitlement spending on social programs and put the responsibility in the hands of the people, not the government. This is the option that the Republicans are pushing for due to the huge amounts of waste and abuse that is rampant in the system. The Democrats don't want this, stating that it will disenfranchise minorities. What this translates out to is this... “We don't want to force these people to have a chance to better themselves by lifting them up and out of the state they are in by giving them personal control of their financial outcome in life.” Therefor the Dems elect to try to keep the people down, therefor making them reliant on the Democrat party to hold their hands since they will never learn to walk on their own.

I'm not saying that the social programs are bad, don't get me wrong there. We are a compassionate society and we take care of those who can't take care of themselves or have fallen on hard times. The problem is we have to many people who are dipping into the system that are very capable, they just don't want to take care of themselves because the government will do it for them. In some cases people will actually lose money if they go off government assistance. But I am getting off the point.

The point being, if the debt-ceiling is not raised we will not default, we cannot default. Congress has to pay the debt one way or another. The only way the this nation will default is if Congress refuses to do the job that they are bound by law to do. The Obama administration needs to stop the fear mongering (Obama stated today that that the government wont be able to issue social security checks on August 3 if the debt-ceiling isn't raised) about what the serious reforms Republicans are proposing to social security and medicare will do, and start talking seriously with Republicans on how to bring these needed changes about as smoothly as possible for all involved. Until Obama gets serious about this problem, the deadline will come and then it will really be time for the hard decisions.


Update:

The Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has proposed this afternoon, a bill that will strip Congress of its power to chose to raise the debt ceiling and turn it over to the President. I cannot put into words how big of a mistake this is. The proposal states that the President can propose a raise to the debt-ceiling up to 3 times a year, provided that he submit a plan with as much in budget cuts as he is raising the debt-ceiling by. Congress then can vote to disapprove the Presidents proposal blocking the raise... or does it? Here is the tricky part... the President can then veto (as long as there was not a veto-proof majority vote) the disapproval resolution and implement the raise without the spending cuts.

This is a stupid proposal on the Senator McConnell's part and any Republicans who vote for this proposal to pass are showing their real colors, they need to be removed from office and replaced with people who are looking out for our best interest. Giving up Congressional power just so you don't have to make hard decisions is a cop out and the American people don't need people like that in power.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Lindsay Smarter Then Obama? The Apocalypse is Nigh!

Recently Lindsay Lohan tweeted this "“Have you guys seen food and gas prices lately? U.S. $ will soon be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money!”  Is this a sign that even Lindsay Lohan understands economics better then our own president?  Does she have a better grasp of the irreparable damage that Obama himself is leading us to while claiming that he is fixing the problems?  The answer.... sort of. 

True, Miss Lohan did tweet a statement about the state of the US dollar and true, it made a lot more sense then anything that Obama (who is seemingly detached from the reality of the state that our economy is in) has said so far.  Unfortunately, (much to my disappointment because I would have had more fun with this post) those words were not her own.  Miss Lohan was paid by the National Inflation Association to tweet those words.  When criticized about the tweet by her fans though, she replied “I actually do care about gas and food prices, so whether it’s an [advertisement] or [not], it’s important for people to be aware of it.” showing that even though the words were not her own, she at least aware that people should be informed about what is going on. 

If Lindsay Lohan can sober up enough to realize there is a problem with the Obama administrations solution to the falling dollar, why can't Obama (who hopefully is sober, though sometimes I wonder) see that his policies are broken and breaking things further.  I often wonder how Obama and his worshipers can look at the way things have gone downhill at an alarmingly fast rate since he started implementing his policies and think that things are on an upswing.  It is plain for me (and most of the other people I have talked to) to see that his policies are destroying the dollar, why can't he see it?  I honestly think Obama knows exactly what he is doing.

Originally I wasn't sure if Obama realized that his policies were destructive.  I thought "Maybe Obama honestly thinks that his proposals will drive the country forward and upward even though historically socialism has failed every time they have been tried.  Maybe he thinks that the American Machine will be the one thing that will change the fact that socialism fails."  Now, I'm not so sure this is the case. 

Ignorance of historical fact is one thing, staying the course and claiming things are getting better when at best they have plateaued is a different matter.  Obama refuses to admit that there is a problem with any of his policies, in fact he goes out to address the people of this nation and lies straight to their faces.  At this point, in my opinion, there is no way he can be ignorant of the facts.  He is knowingly lieing to everyone about the state of the dollar, the unemployment numbers, the costs of Obamacare, as well as the policies the Republicans have introduced in an attempt to fix Obamas screw up. 

The Republicans have even had to sit down with him and call him out on the lies he has told about the policies they were trying to pass to prevent the hole he is putting us in.  Despite the Republicans correcting him (in case he was speaking out of ignorance) on the lies he was telling, Obama goes right back out and continues telling the same lies.  This says to me Obama is willingly distorting facts in order to sabotage the plans that the Republican propose.  I think he is doing this because he feels he has to prove his way is right and anyone else being right is a threat to his picture perfect world. 

Obama feels he has to be right, therefor (in my opinion) he lies about things in a vain attempt to convince himself that he is right.  If he keeps up his mantra long enough, I think that he thinks it will eventually become truth.  Any sane person knows that just isn't the way the world works but that seems to be the way Obama thinks it works.

You can't print trillions of dollars to cover your costs and expect the value of said dollars to remain the same, just like you can't claim that you have positive unemployment numbers (it amazes me whenever Obama brags about how many jobs he has "saved or created" when unemployment is still creeping up and that's not even counting the people who have just given up) when you are still in the negative.  Oh, and for the record, government jobs shouldn't be included in that because they are more of a drain (not saying government jobs are bad for the record) on the governments resources then they bring in.

Miss Lohan may not have tweeted her own words yet she at least seem to have a grasp on the fact that there is a problem even if she is just hitting on a small part of it.  Maybe Obama needs to take a tip from Lindsay Lohan and acknowledge that there is a problem.  Once he does that he can start working towards solving the problem, not making it worse.