SamSaid!

Our country is in a financial mess with an uncertain future. We are daily bombarded with an assortment of financial/monetary terms that seem to defy understanding  –  deficits, foreclosures, forfeitures, bankruptcies, investment banks, interest rates, unemployment, borrowing, debt, capital assets, the economy, bailouts, stimulus, deficit spending, etc., etc., etc. The message seem to be that no one knows with certainty what is going on  –  far too complicated to explain to the non-accounting types. Too complicated?  ………. or is it?

Simple  –  our Washington wizards annually PLAN to spend more money than is expected. That’s right, they PLAN to run the government that way.  By spending more money than they have. It is insulting to taxpayers to call such financing a PLAN.  Don’t try that trick in your own household.

Deficit spending infers that the debt will eventually be re-paid. Over what period of time?  A thousand years? Don’t hold your breath when our national debt is in the TRILLIONS (1,000,000,000,000.00). When Chris Dodd connives to get a sweetheart $80,000mortgage, he must wonder about Congress fussing about chump change.

Obama rightly regards himself as a good word merchant. But it is hard to champion huge expenditures of money we don’t have and convince Americans that it is a good deal. Think of it another way  –  the day of the free lunch has arrived!!

Jobs, jobs and more jobs  –  that is the battle cry from the Obama camp.  And rightly so. An unemployment rate of 10% is downright scary. But there are JOBS and then … there are REAL JOBS. On the top of the Obama deck there seems to be a “stimulus” drive based on using tax dollars to make money available for more job holders. Sounds easy, but is that REALLY JOB GROWTH?  Or is that simply taking dollars from some to pass along to others? It seems more like a form of redistribution of wealth  –  couched in different terms. Of course, the DEMs and their supporters gag at the mention of redistribution of wealth. They prefer, “sharing”, “caring for your fellow man”, “civic obligation”  and other “softer” terms”  –  but not “redistribution”.

My point is that if there is a need for welfare, call it that. The REAL JOB machine that drives our economy is in the private sector where a person is hired to perform a function or duty and the income derived is from  the market –  not someone else’s taxes. Any time job numbers are based on debt or tax dollars, were are being duped. And the idea that “job” money derived from taxes will be repaid over time is downright laughable.  Maybe there is no alternative short range to attack the job issue with tax dollars. But the charade continues about “tax dollars” that are owned by the government and belong to no one. The tax dollars were mine (ours)   –  at least until out Fed Government gives them to someone else.

Take the next door on the right for FairyLand — Bailouts on sale. True, we needs jobs  –  REAL jobs.

Celebrities and other famous people are frequently known publicly by their initals.  In the political arena, FDR and JFK are regularly identified as Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy. It occurred to me that Barack Hussein Obama deserves similar treatment since his 3 names are a mouthfull and eighteen letters are a lot to write or type. Thus BHO was born.

The Dems screamed foul claiming it was an underhanded way to draw attention to his Muslim middle name. In the spirit of correctness, I retreated and settled for simply BO. They didn’t like that either for obvious but unspecified reasons. So, I I sanitized the reference and switched back to BHO. Sorry guys.

Blago has now appointed a Senator to replace Obama and is preparing for his own legal defense. As an opening statement, with his smiling countenance in the background, Blago says, “… all I ever wanted was respect and recognition, but disgust and contempt was as close as I ever got”. Go Illinois.

Mike Blagocevich (Blago, henceforth) is now the Governor of Illinois  –  at least for the moment. His stupidity is obvious  –  to say nothing of his filthy mouth.  But his defense is astounding when he says “I have done nothing wrong”.  In pondering over that defense stratagem, maybe there is a rationale that makes sense. Chicago has long been recognized  as the sewer of political corruption and it just may be that selling or auctioning off political jobs is and has been commonplace over the years. That would certainly explain Blago’s defiance —  “why pick on me?? And if is a Senate seat, so what? What is the big deal”? ?

My experience in Illinois/Chcago politics dates back to 1960 when Jack Kennedy and Bobby came to meet Mayor Daley to plan campaign strategy in Chicago. In order to guarantee secrecy they got a small boat and motored offshore a mile to keep away the press and other snoopers.  After an hour or so they noticed an ominous thunder storm approaching and headed for shore. Then they noticed that the boat only had one life preserver. Honoring their Democratic principles, all three agreed to a vote to see who would get the life preserver. Mayor Daley won 6-2.

The question now is whether Blago will blow the whistle and take a few down with him.

It is said that the darkest hour occurs just before dawn. If so, the Repubs can take heart. There are two rays of light on the horizon  –  Sarah Pilan and Mike Huckabee. Sarah is speaking in support of Repubs all over the country and is being very well received. The Dems may sneer, but all of their efforts to destroy her have failed.  Her winning ways have won support from both Rs and Ds, and she likely made the difference in the Georgia Senatorial runoff race that scuttled the Dem hopes for a veto proof Senate. Huckabee now has his own one hour TV show on Sundays evenings (try it if you haven’t tuned in). He’s pretty good even when not playing his guitar. If nothing else, the show will build on name recognition across the USA.

These two might not be the smartest duo or the best campaigners, but they have a lot of appeal to most Americans. It is a long way till the fall of 2012, but candidate appeal can  offset Slick Willies or Bama wordsmithing, particularly when the Dems provide a lot of ammunition. Sarah and Huck  –  keep your eyes on them.

I was a little kid when I first heard the story about killing the goose that laid the golden egg. For a number of years I simply regarded the old story as a fable, but then in adulthood the point of the story became clear. Capitalism is  by far – the best  socio-eco system in the history of civilization. More good has come from this system than anything else conceived by man. It has one failing   —- while benefiting 85-90% of the populace, there are others for whatever reason who are left behind. Now our left wing friends are our to undermine or destroy capitalism because the fruits of success are not distributed “equally” —  i.e., to  the have-nots of society. I don’t quarrel with the noble idea of caring for our fellow man. But I strongly disagree with the notion that the solution is “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

The taxing authority is a very powerful tool of government. Taking from one to give it to another is a major step toward killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Loading the burdens of society on the backs of business operations has its limits in terms of finance, quality, spirit, pay and all of the other benefits of employment. “Share the wealth”, they say. That is a nice euphamism for the State to decide how you live your life. The State will decide how much of your income you can keep. Our capitalism system can carry only so much of the cost of government and when the cost burden gets too high the Goose will die and there willno longer be any golden eggs. Too dramatic??  I don’t think so. As long as our politicos continue to blame and bad-mouth business for the ills of society the downhill slide becomes steeper. the old axioms still hold true   —-tax, tax, tax –  spend, spend, spend,  —  Tax, Tax, Tax.   And the left wingers give it the ho-hum. “Its only tax money  –  doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Now that we are blessed (?) with the leadership of Bam Bam for the next 4 years, I am reminded that there are two types of Presidents. Do-ers and Talkers. Mr Obama did not rise to his present station based on a long string of achievements or accomplishments.  His track record is as transparent and shallow as a sheet of seranwrap. There is no record of “Do-ing” either in the Illinois phase or in the US Senate. He is a Talker  –  and a good one. Sometimes (Reagan, Churchill)  Talkers can become good Do-ers  –  but not very often.     Anytime a President depends largely upon his skills as a persuader he is skating on thin ice, especially in a age of wide-open communications in the mass media. Harry Truman got it right, “The buck stops here”. And remember, we are still cleaning up the messes of the last Prince of Glib.

In our political system in the TV Age, the best Pitch-man almost always wins  –  Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton— and so it is with Obama.  The game plan  —  “tell ‘em anything . The idea is to get elected. Explain it away later”.     A Uniter?
He deserves a chance, but keep your hands on your wallet. You can’t get tax money from people who don’t pay taxes in the first place.

From the time I initially became eligible to vote, I have never failed to cast my vote in State or National elections. Some times I knew that my vote would not make a difference, i.e., “my guy” had a big safe margin and didn’t need my vote, or else he was so arrears that one vote made no difference. But I voted anyway. I strongly support the idea that there should be standards of voting eligibility and that fraudulent voting be dealt with strongly.  Each time I approach the ballot box, I wonder whether some derelict will cancel my vote via $25 bucks and a pint as the reward for a “friendly vote. Mistakes occurr and I recognize those few incidents. But the idea that unscrupulous politicians try to forge or buy votes really rankles me.  Election after election we read or hear about phony ballots and our leaders wring their hands and profess outrage. But in the election aftermath not much seems to be done about it  —  see ACORN. Those who might profit from voting fraud are not much interested in changing the rules.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with a national requirement for a picture ID as a voting requirement. Inconvenient to some?  So??  If democracy requires safeguards to prevent fraud and dishonesty,  Is that unreasonable ?  If I need a photo ID to cash a check or register my car Is there something wrong with that?  Or should I expect the government to tell me, don’t sweat it – it doesn’t happen that often. I say, if it happens one time it might be my vote that is negated.  Am I off the reservation on this one??

In election campaigns or other forms of public debate, sooner or later one or the other of the combatants will play the “race card”. You would think that after decades of debate, preferences, education, statutes and court decisions, some of the heat would leave this sore point. Not so.  Some things never change.

Here in 2008 we have a prime example. If 90% of blacks vote for Obama, that is a clear example of the activism of an informed electorate; but if 70% of white people vote for McKain, that clearly shows racial bias.   Everybody got that ??