Federal overspending made simple to understand

The following comes from David Barton at Wallbuilders. It puts the federal budget into numbers that are much easier to comprehend for those of us who don’t deal in millions, billions and trillions!

If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in debt on their credit card. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. That is a cut of $3000 per year. They are still going to overspend their income by $14,000 each year. So in another 10 years they will owe about ½ million dollars on their credit card.

These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we canunderstand.

Here’s another one that was published on The Wall and Broad Report:

The USA Has NO BUDGET since OBAMA has Become President!!!

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so federal spending needs to be broken into simple terms to be understood.

Let’s put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

• U.S.income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let’s remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to their high-interest credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

Because the Jones’ realized they’re in trouble, they decided to become responsible and cut their spending. After a lot of posturing and wrangling, they agreed to cut a whopping $385 from their budget.

Either way we’re in a heap ‘o big trouble in America and our elected representatives — OUR EMPLOYEES — are committing malfeasance on a daily basis and we the people seem to be powerless to stop it. Well, we’re not!

The patriotic premises of liberals and the lies they tell

Did you know that children who attend American Independence Day celebrations are more likely to vote Republican (gasp!) when they grow up?

Don’t tell the Obama regime, otherwise they might concoct a scheme to ban the celebration altogether.

Oops! Too late: the media arm of the Obama regime has already posted the story.

It’s true. Well, almost… Not really. ABC News admits that even the study’s co-author, David Yanagizawa-Drott of Harvard University can’t match up the thesis with the facts. Not to worry folks; like the Christmas stories that proclaim Jesus wasn’t really born on Dec. 25th or that what he said and did can’t be authenticated, this is just another attempt by the anti-American media to belittle you for waving your American flags and celebrating the moral convictions of those who risked life and livelihoods to declare themselves and others free and independent from the tyranny of King George by signing the Declaration of Independence.

According to the story’s author:

One thing not addressed in the report is that nearly every kid in America attends Fourth of July celebrations, but the Republican Party is a minority party.

Minority party? So what’s the problem? If most kids grow up to be Democrats who cares?

Let’s apply a little Philosophy 101 here… If there are fewer registered Republicans in America then certainly the premise must be that there are more registered Democrats.

US voter registration in 2004.

The 2004 census statistics even bear this out. So, if nearly ever kid in America attends an Independence Day celebration in the United States as declared in the story, simply philosophy would suggest that celebrating Independence Day would make one more likely to be Democrat than Republican, even though ABC News declared the exact opposite?

Halfway through the story ABC News printed this joke: “Calls to Democratic officials were not returned because they had left their offices early to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

Really? How did the author of the story know they were out celebrating Independence Day? Come on now: George Stephanoloulos works for ABC News and is one of the Democrat Party’s biggest apologists around! Isn’t he one of the author’s colleagues? Even if he was reluctant to make up a quote I’m sure he could find someone out there to make up some lies about Republicans and Independence Day.

Of course that isn’t why they printed the paragraph. For Liberals, the time off for patriotic or religious holidays has nothing to do with celebrating the memory of the holiday. You don’t believe for a moment that Liberals actually go out and celebrate Independence Day, Christmas, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving or Easter for the rememberances that they are? That’s not the purpose of a holiday for these folks. The purpose of a national holiday for these people is just another paid vacation on the taxpayer’s dime.

As an aside, I thought that children weren’t affected by the things they watched, did or played? We’re always told that the violent video games kids play are perfectly harmless, that they don’t lead kids to violent tendencies, or that the music they listen to doesn’t encourage them to act out in ways that are counter to the morals of a good and just society.

So what’s the worry Mr. and Ms. Liberal? These kids at the Independence Day ceremonies will likely continue the practice of drinking the kool aid you serve up to their older brothers and sisters in college and continue to vote with the premise that government is good, politicians are the only people in America who have your best interests at heart and that freedom and liberty are the archaic, evil and racist outcomes of a bunch of hooligans who dared to break away from the theocratic and despotic regime of King George.

My letter to Speaker Boehner

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

The following is a copy of the e-mail I was encouraged to send to House Speaker John Boehner.

I am completely disgusted with the GOP and its policy of giving into the Democrats every time they whimper, whine or threaten.

While the enemy does always get a vote in war, the objective is to always work to veto that vote by utterly annihilating the enemy! To be perfectly clear, the Democrats and anyone else who stands in the way of freedom, liberty and doing what’s best for the United States of America is an enemy, even if they call themselves Republican!

I then provided a link to my blog post “Democrats, the media and their terrorist agenda.“

Related Articles

• Dems Target John Boehner With Mocking Medicare Ad (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Will Boehner need Democratic votes to avert shutdown? (dailykos.com)
• Republicans in Disarray! Boehner a Weak Leader! (balloon-juice.com)
• Boehner wants to pass spending cuts with GOP alone (dailycaller.com)

Democrats, the media and their terrorist agenda

America has an avowed policy against negotiating with terrorists, particularly when those terrorists are holding hostages. Or at least that’s what we’re told.

It certainly makes sense politically and militarily. If your enemy knows that all he needs to do is take something of value that you possess, then wait until you give in to his demands, the enemy has won without firing a shot; He owns you.

Why then do the Republicans continue to “reach across the aisle” and negotiate with Democrats while the American public is being held hostage to high unemployment, high gas prices and high taxes? What is it about the mainstream media that makes the Republicans like Charlie Brown agreeing to let Lucy hold the football?

For the last several days Rush Limbaugh has been talking about how the GOP gave into the Democrats on a new continuing resolution, rather than live up to their promise to the American voters to cut $100 billion from the federal budget and further control government spending. Limbaugh, however, has been arguing that the mess America is in hasn’t happened overnight and won’t be cured by a single victory by the Republicans.

Whatever! That’s not the point.

The point, and I’ve been waiting for Rush to articulate this, is that the American taxpayer is being held hostage by Democrats, the media and their shared policies. These terrorists learned back in 1995 that their most successful weapon isn’t one that blows things up or tears flesh, but a boogeyman called “government shutdown.” You could hear it in House Speaker John Boehner’s voice when he promised that he would not shut down the government because the GOP and Democrats could not agree on a new continuing resolution to fund the government for another week or so.

Never mind the fact that when the Democrats controlled all three branches of the government that they never put forth an annual budget for the country; never mind the fact that Americans in large numbers told the Democrats last November to pound sand, never mind the fact that Obama promised to halve the national deficit within his first term, but has instead increased it more in two years than the total deficit amassed in the previous 200-plus years of American history!

This government shutdown boogeyman really has two faces. The other face is the one the GOP wants to believe will smile favorably upon them if they just say the right things. It’s sort of like Charlie Brown agreeing for the umpteenth time to let Lucy hold the football while he tries to kick it. Lucy will never let Charlie Brown kick the football and the media will never truthfully report that Democrat policies are the very reason why America’s actually unemployment is well over 10% and that Obama’s policies are why gasoline prices have surpassed $4 and are likely on their way to $6 by the end of the year.

Like the foreign terrorists who hold American citizens hostage, the media and the Democrats hold the American taxpayer hostage via our elected representatives, who we believed when they said prior to the November 2010 election would seriously cut federal government spending and the overall size of government. When the GOP leadership agreed the other day to avoid a government shutdown by cutting a paltry $38 billion from government spending, some of which had already been agreed to in previous negotiations, it was sort of like the American family deciding that while their expenses are way out of line with their income and the credit cards are all maxed out, to skip Starbucks once a week when the real solution to their overspending will require much more drastic cuts and a serious attitude adjustment.

 

Conservatives can’t win playing prevent defense

President Ronald Reagan did not have a Conservative majority in the House or Senate, nevertheless, he managed to advance conservatism in ways today's Republicans seem impotent to do. Image via Wikipedia

If ever there were something I could be jealous that I didn’t think of first, this could be it.

The thesis that Conservatives are good at complaining about Liberal policies while even fewer of them can actually articulate conservatism, has not been lost on my Conservative friend here.

It’s time as Conservatives we go on the offensive and set our own agenda, promote what’s right for America and stop playing prevent defense with the Liberals. It’s not enough that we simply prevent them from scoring points: they must be summarily destroyed.

I’m frankly tired of hearing Republicans, for example, say that there might be some good things about the Obama Health Care Bill, and thus, we must somehow find a way to keep some of the less egregious parts of the bill while trying to repeal the rest of it. NO! America didn’t want it, doesn’t want it, and most certainly doesn’t need it!

Purging the GOP of the liberal-lite

Articles like this seem to be growing in popularity as the partisan political operatives masquerading as journalists try to convince us that the days of the Tea Party are over. This might be true for those who tried to co-opt the Tea Party for their Republican election gain, but not for those of us who still hold the core conservative beliefs that started this movement in the first place.

But, like a gift from God, other reports point to a concerted effort by opponents of liberty and freedom to paint Tea Party participants in a negative light. Words like “racist” are peppered in a recipe that attempts to color every-day people as bitter clingers holding fast to their fringe conspiracy theories. The only thing they don’t regularly talk about is how many people are wearing tinfoil hats.

An opinion piece on the website examiner.com uses the case-in-point example of California’s gubernatorial race between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman where the differences between the two are arguably only visible in their gender. In the process of trying to defend their thesis that millions of hard-working Americans are stupid, the opinion piece suggests that Tea Party folks and those supporting a third candidate for California governor are not only wasting their time, but are not being good Americans by supporting the GOP, which has become nothing more than the new Liberal-Lite party. It tastes great and is less filling, but it’s just as deadly to our Constitutional Republic.

We all know what happened years ago when Conservatives and Libertarians got behind Ross Perot in the national presidential election. We wound up with a liberal named Bill Clinton instead of re-electing George (“read my lips”) Bush. While I’m not supporting going back to that failed example by endorsing the move to get behind Chelene Nightingale as a third party candidate for governor in California, I would like to see the philosophical and practical conservatives supporting her truly infiltrate the GOP and permanently purge the RINO’s from the GOP and give those of us tired of holding our noses every election a true choice when we go to the voting booth.

McCain protests like a Liberal

Sen. John McCain does himself a great disservice when he protests accusations that he’s more of a Liberal than a Conservative. While his party affiliation says he’s a Republican it’s no secret that there’s a large chasm between his core beliefs and that of a true Conservative.

It’s offensive when politicians try to convince us of something that they’re not. I once had this experience with a Republican state senator in California when, as a newspaper reporter, I pinned him down on his votes to raise taxes via something called the Vehicle License Fee. His answers to my questions sounded an awful lot like Sen. McCain’s protests covered by the Yuma Sun, or Nancy Pelosi’s “We have to pass the (health care) bill so you can see what’s in it.”

Hey Senator: we’re not as stupid as you think we are. In fact, we’re a lot smarter than you because we haven’t had our minds reprogrammed by the Washington establishment after decades of insulating ourselves from the people you claim to serve.

The rise of Conservative media and the web it weaves

I had a question posed to me the other day that got me to thinking. I’ll expand the question somewhat to fill in some of the thoughts that ran through my mind as my friend and I talked about this.

Where are all the loud and avowed Conservative artists and how do we support them? The question really comes from a lament by a friend of mine that people might not be supporting Conservative artists as they do those who seem to loudly proclaim their Liberal ideals.

Take some of the more popular musical artists over the past 20-30 years. I’m sure some of us have been to concerts where at some point the great music stops and the tirades start regarding the latest political issue of the day. Sting did this in the late 80’s at a concert I was at. I wanted to yell, “shut up and sing!” I wasn’t there to hear his rant on why he thought Conservatives are simply the doormen at the Gates of Hell, I was there to hear him sing.

So maybe I shouldn’t have been there, but I liked his music, so I went.

I think this helps illuminate the main question: Where are the Conservative artists out there and what can we do to support them? After all, they seem to speak for many more Americans than do the Liberal artists who’s cause du jour has nothing to do with making America a better place to live and work. Just look at the rise of conservatism on social media, the Internet and through large events such as the Tea Party movement. There’s a groundswell of conservatism going on out there that can’t be ignored.

I came across one such artist recently who, in my own opinion, seems to have captured the sense of the rising anger in America: a righteous indignation over the principles and morals of a depraved Liberal society that believes people who work hard for what they have ought to be stripped of what they’ve earned so those who’ve sat on the proverbial couch and ate from the Liberal tray of chips can have more chips because somehow it’s not right to require them to work for a living so they can buy their own food, health care, houses and other things.

A visit to http://www.joedanmedia.com/ doesn’t take one long to discover that the Liberal mindset is one worthy of scorn, ridicule and contempt, if not simply an ideal who’s only worth is to spur laughter. It’s this mindset that has helped plunge the American economy into a massive recession. Certainly the similar Liberal policies that have plagued Europe for decades is the reason why the economy of Greece collapsed recently, and will likely be the cause of America’s ultimate collapse in the very near future if we can’t wrestle away the control of Congress from those who’s spending-spree attitude is nothing short of evil.

Many of these short video spots — the shortest is a 39-second spot that decries the desire of Liberals to confer US citizenship rights to terrorists captured on the battlefield, rather than dish out the appropriate punishment via our military — call attention to the utter degradation of America under Liberal rule. The site’s owner, Joe Dan Gorman, simply uses the statements of and facts surrounding those Liberal politicians who’s sole purpose is to remake America into their own fiefdom where the controlling authority is not democratic but authoritarian.

Such video messages can be very powerful if done right. Consider the “Daisy Girl” television ad, which ran one time on Sept. 7, 1964 during the NBC Movie. The advertisement was very likely the reason why Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater lost in a 44-state landslide to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. It certainly helped cement the Liberal mindset that Goldwater was an extremist who would destroy America, when a careful study of his ideas suggests that had he succeeded, the Vietnam War might not have drug on for another decade like it did.

While it’s easy to agree with television producer and former Nixon campaign consultant Roger Ailes when he said: “Television is no gimmick, and nobody will ever be elected to major office again without presenting themselves well on it,” I find myself somewhat agreeing, if somewhat nostalgically, with Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who in 1956, said: “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”

Nevertheless, mass media being what it is, especially today, means that candidates will continue to be defined by sound bytes and notable video spots, whether on television in the form of slick commercials, or on the Internet via YouTube or some other yet-to-be-invented medium. Personally, I think the Internet is the future of political advertising and marketing.

That’s why I like what I see coming out of the Conservative movement in America, and why I think that these talented media artists need to be supported, financially and otherwise, for their efforts. Folks with a flair for media or the ingenuity to capitalize on social media and other forms of Internet media are taking advantage of the Internet in ways that will forever change the political marketing landscape in America. I just wish I had a great idea for how to create the business model that turns this passion into profit. I’m hopeful that this change will be good as the stranglehold that the mainstream television networks have had on American politics for decades is forever broken, dismantled and defunded.

Amazing how little things really changed since 1948

American Newspapers apparently okay with shredding of the US Constitution

It took all of a day after the party to celebrate the shredding of the US Constitution — otherwise known as the signing of the Affordable Health Care for America Act — for the local newspaper to try to eviscerate our local congressman for his opposition to the recent health care bill in Congress.

This doesn’t come as a surprise that an American newspaper would say something negative about a Conservative Republican congressman. And sadly, it’s no surprise to those of us who do follow the Visalia Times Delta and Tulare Advance Register here in Central California that their editorial board is as naïve as they are. In fact it’s actually pretty comical to watch them try to be relevant when they have proven themselves irrelevant time and time again.

In the grand scheme of things, the Central Valley of California has benefitted over the past year or so in an ironic sort of way with respect to water and politics. Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have highlighted the water issues impacting California’s Central Valley, and our own Congressman here in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has been eager to give voice to a region of the United States that is disappointingly ignored in both the state and US capitol buildings.

Last week during the debate leading up to the vote on the health care bill, and in the days since it was approved and signed, Rep. Nunes made numerous appearances on local and national television and radio. This apparently caught the eye of the editorial writers at the Visalia Times Delta, who lambasted Nunes in the March 24^th edition for using “some of the most extreme language of any Republican in trying to block passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act.”

In a telephone conversation I had later the same day with Nunes’ chief of staff, Johnny Amaral, we laughed over how naïve and infantile the editorial board writers appear to be. Of considerable note to Amaral was how the editorial contrasted Nunes to Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. While it was no surprise that Nunes would vote against the Affordable Health Care for America Act (the title itself would be laughable if it wasn’t so offensive to the intelligence to the millions of Americans who openly opposed the bill), to be placed in the same sentence with Stupak, who stood firmly on principle until someone showed him the money, is hilarious in its naïveté. As Amaral put it, “Stupak is the laughingstock of Washington DC right now.”

The VTD’s point throughout the editorial appeared to be Nunes’ firm opinion on the bill — not just that he voted against it, but that he couldn’t be swayed to vote in favor of it. This seems to be consistent with past editorials that have chided Nunes for being too partisan in his opinions on various matters. But, as Amaral noted in our phone conversation, Nunes wasn’t the only one voting no on the health care bill. Every Republican in the House and even several dozen Democrats voted against the bill. So in the grand scheme of things, this health care bill remains the most partisan piece of significant and sweeping legislation passed in the history of the United States.

The editorial also chides Nunes for apparently not bringing home the pork to the district and gaining “nothing from his opposition” to the bill. Apparently the editorial writers figure that Stupak gained a lot from his early opposition to the bill, even though he played the appropriate part of an expensive whore, holding out for the right price. In fact that was the accusation made against Nunes’ fellow California representatives, Dennis Cardoza, D-CA, and Jim Costa, D-CA. The consummate spineless moderates that they are, they played their cards close to the vest until very late in the game, and as a result, were “awarded” with a 25-percent allocation of farm water to their already dead agricultural districts. Not quite Sen. Mary Landrieu’s “Louisiana Purchase” deal, but nonetheless offensive to many here in the Golden State, including the wealthy farmers who have bankrolled Cardoza and Costa’s campaigns in the past. Of course Costa and Cardoza deny being “bought” with this allocation of farm water, but it sure stinks given the timing of the whole deal.

The editorial also criticized Nunes for accusing the Democrats of “totalitarian” tactics as they rammed through the health care bill.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

“On television, his Web site and the floor of Congress, Nunes used some of the most extreme language of any Republican in trying to block passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act,” the editorial states.  “Nunes called the Democrats’ tactics ‘totalitarian,’ referred to health-reform supporters as ‘communists’ and predicted America’s decline into socialism.”

What else do you call it when the President of the United States forces an issue so unpopular, and the House of Representatives resorts to unconstitutional tricks, in order to pass something that most Americans don’t want? By what other name do you ascribe those who support forcing people to buy health insurance or go to prison? For all his faults and all the baseless criticisms of President George W. Bush, at no time during his two terms did he even come close to attempting to force such an unpopular piece of legislation down the throats of the American public. Even Bill Clinton knew when to give up on his attempts to socialize the health care system in America.

Nunes deserves much credit for trying to encourage his colleagues to live within the proper constraints of the US Constitution. To accuse Nunes of using “extreme language” when his language was true and to the point is offensive to everything this country was founded upon. For those interested in reading some “extreme language,” I’d invite you to read the Declaration of Independence because many of the complaints the colonists had against King George pale in comparison to the treason committed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., President Barak Hussein Obama and the others who supported this piece of legislation. And while you’re at it, continue by reading the US Constitution and other historical documents from the founding of this country and then report back on how folks like Rep. Nunes are somehow misrepresenting their constituents.