I intended to post my articles here every week or two when I write them. (They get published in the e-paper E-Ticker News of CLaremont and on my blog site.) So, of course, I forgot to do that the past month... With apologies, here are a couple: Lies, Liars and “Our” Government I don’t know about you but the behavior in Washington DC has me disgusted. I find it hard to believe that so many people who took an oath of office to defend the Constitution are ignoring and/or violating it instead. It is also hard to believe that so many people, our elected officials, have so little sense of responsibility and, apparently, no understanding of economics. Even harder to understand is that the head elected official, the President, would deliberately make decisions that would harm America and Americans; that he would say he wanted the shutdown to be as painful as possible and that he would threaten default. Amazing and disgusting! The Constitution was developed by the Founding Fathers specifically to control the central (Federal) government. They were wise enough to know that a powerful government is to be feared because it will deprive the citizens of their God given rights. Government was viewed by them as a necessary evil that must be controlled and restrained. It is obvious to anyone willing to honestly look at what the government has been doing recently that the Founders were 100% correct. Unfortunately, the beast that is the statist’s dream – a controlling, centralized government – has evolved during the past century, overriding the Founder’s vision and carefully constructed plan for the United States. According to the Founding Fathers’ plan, the people of America had the rights and the power. They would relinquish some of those powers to their local and state governments and the states would relinquish some of their powers to the Federal government. They knew history well enough to know that democracies turn into tyrannies – every time. Accordingly, they created a republic – a representative republic based on a written constitution. The Constitution provided the structure and function for the central (Federal) government. It assigned duties and responsibilities to take care of all the necessary government functions. These duties were divided between three branches – the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial. They devised a system of checks and balances so that the three branches would keep an eye on each other and not allow any one branch to abuse its powers or assume a different branch’s powers. Since the Congress was to represent both the people and the states, it was divided into two sections: the House of Representatives, to represent the people and be elected directly by the people every two years; and the Senate, to represent the states with every state having two senators to represent it and to be appointed by the states for six year terms. What do I mean the senators are to represent the states, and the states are to appoint the senators? That is correct. The original design for our government was that the states had proper representation in the Congress in order that the states powers would not be infringed upon by the federal government. Unfortunately, in 1912 Congress passed the 17th amendment and it was ratified by the people in 1913. This amendment switched the selection of senators to a vote by the people of a state. This, in retrospect, was a huge mistake on the states part because they lost any voice in what the Federal government wants to do. (Recent history is absolute proof this was a mistake on the part of the states!) The Constitution says that all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives. That means the Congressmen and women have the right to decide what government activities they want to spend money on. They chose to fund all of the government except Obamacare. That Harry Reid’s Senate and President Obama chose to not accept the money to run the government because they also wanted Obamacare funded is their right but the result is also their responsibility. It was their refusal to accept the money that caused the government shutdown. It was their refusal to consider, or even discuss, the many separate bills passed by the House to fund various actions of government that prolonged the shutdown. The President’s accusation the House’s action was some sort of new outrage was a lie. This “legislation by appropriation”, as it is called, is both legal and definitely has precedent in our government’s history since it has been used many times. What was unprecedented was the hostility towards all Americans shown in the way the administration, led by Obama, chose to enforce the shutdown. Never before have open air memorials been barricaded, have privately owned businesses and historical areas been closed by the government, have the ill been refused treatment, have military families been denied the death benefit when their loved one died in the line of duty, have Catholic chaplains been blocked from performing mass or administering the sacraments to our military. This has been a revolting display of antagonistic, vindictive behavior showing the low opinion the administration holds of all Americans – even those who are not his political opponents. The U.K. Telegraph described it well as Obama’s” temper tantrum”. Then came the debt limit fight. According to Moody’s, “The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit and a default.” According to Rand Paul, We bring in $250 billion in taxes every month. Our interest payment is $20 billion. Tell me why we would ever default! We have legislation called The Full Faith and Credit Act and it tells the President: You must pay the interest on the debt.…” Yet Obama said America would default if the debt ceiling was not raised – it would have been his fault if we defaulted. This shutdown showed us that Obama is willing to hurt the country to satisfy his need to exercise power over others and so are his cohorts who helped and used scare tactics and lies. A far cry from the government our Founding Fathers designed! Running for Cover Remember when the “sequester” was coming? All the drama? All the dire warnings? It sounded like the end of the world as we knew it. Well, the sequester happened and most Americans have not noticed any difference. Remember the “shutdown”? The threats and drama? Remember the vindictive nastiness of the president’s orders about how the shutdown was to be enforced? Well, the shutdown came and went. Some Americans were actually harmed by the Executive branch’s orders and many more were inconvenienced by those orders. However, Americans en masse were not harmed or inconvenienced. The drama queens’ predictions of the end of the world were wrong once again. Then there was the debt ceiling problem. (Déjà vu!) The president threatened America would go into default if he didn’t get the increase in the debt ceiling. The world would end (again) because America wouldn’t pay her bills. This was another falsehood since the debt ceiling effects future spending not debt payment. America collects millions more each month in taxes than she needs to pay her debts every month. Well, Congress kicked the can down the road and increased the debt ceiling. Many Americans haven’t felt the negative effects of this yet, but we all will in time! As a direct result of increasing the debt instead of dealing with our debt problem, our credit rating has been downgraded again. So, during Obama’s presidency, America’s credit rating has been downgraded from A+ to and A, and now downgraded again to A-. So what? Every time you, or a company, or a country borrows money, interest must be paid in addition to repaying the loan. Your credit rating is a major factor in what interest rate you pay on the loan. So, each downgrade means we will be paying higher interest rates on the money we borrow. That means we will have larger repayment costs every month. In fiscal year 2013 (which ended October 2013), the United States government paid over $415 BILLION in debt interest! This will be going up because we will be borrowing more and paying higher interest rates. The U.S. debt exceeded $17 trillion on October 17 – the day the ceiling was increased by Congress. This is three times the debt we had in 2000, which was “only” $6 trillion. Numbers this high are hard to imagine. To put it in more understandable terms, let’s change the numbers but keep them in the same proportions. Say your home had an income of $52,000. This year your household spent $64,000. You would have to put that extra $12,000. on your credit card. That may be doable once in a while but certainly not every year. Now, if your credit card already had $312,000. in debt, do you think the bank would let you put that extra $12,000. on your card? You know darned well they would not! But, our Congress just told our government that they can put that extra debt on the country’s “card”. I want to know why the President and Congress hate America so much that they are willing to bankrupt us. Why are they spoiling the American dream of having a better life for our children and grandchildren? If this dereliction of duty is not pure malevolence on their parts, then it is a combination of ignorance and fear. Either way anyone who supported this increase in the debt ceiling does not belong “leading” this country! We need leaders who actually understand the problems and have the courage to guide the country through them! All the chicken littles running around saying the sky is falling lately have been looking at the wrong thing. The sky isn’t falling but we are running along the edge of a great precipice and are about to fall in if things don’t change very quickly. “Running for cover” also makes me think about the Democrats in the Senate. A few weeks ago, they refused to even discuss stopping or delaying Obamacare. They caused the government shutdown that lasted 17 days because of this. During that time, the roll out of the Healthcare.gov website occurred. The government has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars creating this magnificent website which has been an abysmal failure! The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, is President Obama’s signature legislation that became law three years ago. For years Obama and the Democrats have been telling us how wonderful this law will be when in effect. As per plan, the positive features – like not excluding individuals with pre-existing conditions – have been put into effect already. In 2014 the mandates were to start. These mandates are not so likeable. The administration has been handing out wavers like candy at Halloween – mostly to Obamacare supporters or businesses that either belong to them or are in their legislative districts. The president has illegally made changes in the law – for example, postponing the employer mandate for a year. (This is illegal because the president does not have the authority to change a law. His job is enforcement. Changes are supposed to come from the legislature. Oh, that’s right! That is what the Republicans in the House tried to do that caused the Democrats in the Senate to shutdown the government!) Anyway, now that the media and liberal politicians can’t distract Americans from the fiasco of the website’s rollout and some of the unintended consequences of the law are starting to be seen (over 750,000 Americans have already had their health insurance policies cancelled and premiums are going up dramatically), now the Democrats are distancing themselves from the law. Quick! Run away! Run for cover! Democrats are talking about the need to have the start date be delayed and the tax (“fine”) for individuals to be delayed. There are several Senate Democrats who have proposed a bill to postpone the individual mandate for a year. (Shades of Republican ideas!) I wonder if those senators are proposing this because they are up for re-election in November?????? Run away! You can contact Marie at marielozito4nh@gmail or on Facebook
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 15:25:23 +0000
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