The country does not need to create another federal agency when the federal debt is over the $13 trillion mark and climbing at the rate of over 3 million dollars a minute.  That’s $4.3 billion added per day.  Your share of the federal government debt is $42,800 and climbing by the minute.  Not a small sum in my neck of the woods.

Can it be paid off?   Ain’t no way.  Only once in our history has the US been debt free.   So what’s all the fuss about.  It’s natural for the federal government to operate in the hole.  Right?   We’ve all taken it for granted that it must assume debt because of the unexpected that will happen just around the corner.   Things like a war, or a hurricane wiping out a community, a tornado tearing up towns, or a flood like Katrina devastating millions.  Then the feds must act to alleviate the suffering of the people, which causes a drain on resources.   And we expect them to do their best protecting we the people.  

But this debt is not because of natural disasters, and just a small part of it is because of wars.   It’s the daily spending and expansionary programs that hurts.

We can and should hold the elected people accountable for this humongous debt.  But do we?   No, we just keep on putting them back into office election after election. 

 

So, we the people are responsible for this.  Huh?  You say.  Yes, we are.  We the people keep re-electing the ones who have added to this debt by piling on one pork barrel project after another, expanding the reach of federal power way beyond any common sense reading of the constitution.   What do we do?  We’ve applauded these people when they bring home the money for some “worthy” project in the home district.  The local news broadcast these projects as good news for the community, good for the local economy, long waiting for this and needed for that.  And then we the people send them back to Washington to get us more tax funded projects.  

Them days should be ending right now, this year, this November and then again two years from now, and repeated every two years from now on out.

How can the debt be kept from increasing?   Duh.  Stop spending more than taxes bring in.  Economics 101 calls it a balanced budget.

So, to get matters under control, a balanced budget amendment to the constitution would be a good place to start.

Second, stop creating new offices and new agencies.  Stop it immediately.  No new offices should be created under any other federal agency.  Put a freeze on new hires for new positions.   No new positions in any agency.  Just stop expanding the federal government.   Why should our federal government get away with creating a budget deficit so huge it’s unimaginable?   So huge, it is pushed off as impossible to do anything about.

We got to start somewhere.  Start with stopping the newest expansion.

“In June 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined together to form the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an unprecedented agreement to coordinate federal housing, transportation, and environmental investments; protect public health and the environment; promote equitable development; and help address the challenges of climate change.”   White House Blog.

A new bill ( S-1619 Livable Communities Act of 2009) was just passed out of committee that would create a New Office (the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC) under the current Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).   Introduced and sponsored by Chris Dodd (member of congress since 1974).

The purposes of this Act are–

(1) to facilitate and improve the coordination of housing, community

development, transportation, energy, and environmental policy in the

United States; 

(2) to coordinate Federal policies and investments to promote

sustainable development;

And 7 other purposes.  Read the PDF

This one must be stopped.  Read the bill and keep in mind that when any federal office or agency is created, it never goes away, it just keeps getting larger and larger with increased far reaching powers.   The Fedzilla gets bigger with more control.  It would be a good prognosis that 20 years from now this new office will have thousands of federal workers shuffling papers and telling local communities where and how to expand the city, even reaching out to the small 300 people bergs all across America.  The local mayor and council will have to get approval from the feds to zone land for building a new housing development.  Why, those homes must be energy efficient, they must be in a sustainable affordable planned community with bicycle trails, mass transit availability, schools within walking distance, shopping within a bike ride, parks for recreation meeting the goals of “healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods—rural, urban, or suburban”

 

They are the experts after all.  What do we know about building people friendly sustainable communities?  

 

We the people must put a stop to the spending habits of congress and the executive branch as well.  No new agencies.  Incumbents must be put on notice and sent back to civilian life ASAP.

 

Over the years, we the people have been led to believe that progressives, also known as higher education academia, liberals, politicians called democrats (and many republicans too), and socialists/Marxists were the experts continually providing Americans with all that expert advice on how we needed to live our lives.   They’ve insisted they had our best interests in mind.   They’ve insisted they had the evidence.  Just as we’ve seen in the UNIPCC temperature data to manufacture the GW agenda, the evidence was tampered with.  Now we’ve learned that there really is a brotherhood of journolisters conspiring behind the scenes.   Independent news broadcasters?   Yeah sure, we bought that line.   You’ve seen the news broadcasts over the years telling us that the “experts” have discovered . . . . blah blah blah, and that . . . . blah blah blah was good for us.   It continues on for weeks as daily sound bites.   Repeating something over and over will finally sink in and soon the “we the people” will fall in line and behave as sheep.

The progressive expert scientists have told us the world began with a big bang, but how can nothing make a bang?   From that we have had blah, blah, and more blah about how removing the Ten Commandments from schools was about separating church and state and that it was really really good for us to be quiet as there are those who might get offended.  We were told that banning DDT would save the earth, but the fall out of not killing mosquitoes was killing millions of people. The progressive science experts told us melting icebergs will flood our lands unless we abandon our vehicles and comfy lifestyles, but suspend a glass with ice and water in a bathtub and it won’t flood over the tub.  How many melted ice bergs will it take to raise 71% of the earth’s surface to flood stage?  Blah blah blah.   Are those experts secretly building an ark somewhere?  Now, even a Christian denomination has accepted the . . . blah blah blah and are allowing celibate homosexual priests to be sexually active.   Huh?  Scientific studies said they have an abnormal gene and can’t help it?  Experts?  How can a government funded scientific study be seriously taken as seriously scientific?

So now the experts have a plan to provide health care and insurance for everyone, and it would dramatically improve our health care system, and . . . it will really be affordable for everyone, of course.  So say the experts.  It will revolutionize American health care.  No one will be without insurance.   You will no longer have to worry about a health emergency wiping out the bank account.  Children will be covered for all their growing up wheezes and accidents, and gang members can get treatments too.  The ones with previously existing conditions will be covered removing the anxiety and decisions of paying the high cost of insurance or feeding the family.  Yes, it all sounds so morally right.  It all sounds so caring, so charitable, so timely.  How could anyone stand against such a utopia?   No worries from here on out.  The experts will take care of Grandma too.  Trust them.  The congressional committee “studies” confirm the experts.  

The story will be similar to what is happening right now to the British system started in 1948.

Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use the money to buy services from hospitals and other health care providers.

The plan would also shrink the bureaucratic apparatus, in keeping with the government’s goal to effect $30 billion in “efficiency savings” in the health budget by 2014 and to reduce administrative costs by 45 percent. Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost because layers of bureaucracy would be abolished.   Read it all. . .

How long will it take our leaders, our experts to learn from historical accounts of what’s been tried before by previous “experts”?

39 new drilling permits have been issued this week in the north western part of North Dakota.  26 permits were issued last week.  517 new wells were drilled last year, and 553 wells were completed in 2008 with a success rate of 98%.   Huge.

So, what’s going on in North Dakota?  Read more of it Here.  and Here.

The U.S. Geological Survey called it…

 

They’ve found one of the biggest oil deposits of all time right here in our own backyard, and there’s even speculation that there’s enough crude in the Bakken area to get the US totally out of relying on Middle Eastern oil imports.

Eh.  Go get it boys.  Drill baby Drill.

Oh, but not so fast say the politicians.   And where is the main stream media, the ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN digging into this discovery of oil independence?   Why are they not broadcasting this stuff to the average Joe, fearful of the price of gas going through the roof because of the billions of oil floating in the Gulf.  Why aren’t the politicians grabbing the microphone and telling the people “don’t worry, we’ve got the oil independence situation all wrapped up with the new finds in the Bakken/Williston North Dakota area.”

They should be telling us that we Americans can have our oil and at the same time allow the alternative energy field to develop their products for consumer use.  We’re also talking job creation as pipelines need to be built to route the oil to the refineries, and since ND has just one refinery, more need to be built to refine those billions of barrels, and then truck it out of state to the consumer.  Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.  Oil, Oil, Oil.  Independence.

Why are the politicians not delivering this message?

Not their language.  Change is what they want.  Politicians want the end of fossil fuels.

That just does not make sense, does it?  Why do they do that to us?   Environmental wackos are in charge.  This is free market stuff and our current politicians think free market capitalism can’t be trusted to deliver the goods,  but of course government (the bigger the better) can be trusted to deliver the goods.  Wind farms must be subsidized by the government (taxpayers).  Solar panels subsidized by the government (taxpayers).   Hey.  Listen up you elected idiots.  If wind farms are the thing of the future, then let them prove it . . . . . on their dime, not ours.   If solar panels are the thing for every household in the future, let them prove it viable . . . on their dime, not one cent subsidized by our stupid economically illiterate politicians.    Go back a few years when wireless telephony made it’s introduction to the market.   Was it subsidized?   Go back even further when thousands of women lost their jobs as operators when automatic routing techniques hit the telephone industry.  Was the new technology subsidized?  Were the laid off operators promised unemployment benefits to last years until . . . ?

Drill, baby Drill.

It’s probably a laudable goal to reduce the fuel consumption for trucks, as has been done for cars.  Obama signed an executive order today ordering trucks to halve their fuel consumption. 

"I believe it’s possible in 20 years for our vehicles to use one-half the fuel and produce one-half the pollution that they do today," said the president, although he admits the nation will have to do a lot more to meet that goal

One year after ordering new fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, Obama today signed an executive order to improve gas mileage for trucks. It’s the first time the nation’s biggest gas guzzlers will have their appetite for fuel curbed and environmentalists say it’s a big deal.  Read more . . .

When the president of these states can write out an order, sign the thing in front of witnesses and cameras making it an official referenda for the entire country to submit to and obey, don’t you think it’s a bit scary of the possibilities?  How does he get away with this?  Are the journalists covering these things blinded, too enthralled by his “leadership” to ask any questions?   Is anyone asking where does he get this authority?   Executive order were once upon a time thought of as a directive to make a certain day a certain celebration. 

Come on reason it out, think about it folks.  It’s scary, especially with a statist (someone who thinks that people are sheep to be herded by the government) in control.

An executive order could be made for just about anything that this one person could imagine, and the rest of us earthlings would have to fall in line, skip and hop to get it done or risk the penalty of law enforcement.  The truck manufacturers will be required to do so now.   Smaller trucks.  Smaller loads means many more trucks on the road to deliver our goods  More congestion.  Ok, cut the emissions of each truck in half, but increase the number of trucks by 2 or 3 or 4 and total emissions go up. 

 

Why do we need a congress for anymore when an executive order will do the same as the House and Senate debating and then agreeing on a 2000 page bill.  Those 535 highly paid pandered people could be sent home to be enforcers-in-chief at the local level.  

Gad, what times these are. 

OK, you know, this is getting to be a real bore.  Everyday, the American people get to hear what the great one (Obama) thinks about everything and anything. 

Now, he’s really, really upset about the oil spill in the gulf.  As if BP is not upset.  The great one is sick and tired of the blame game.  BP is pointing the finger at the inherent risks involved in this kind of operation, and He, the chief is pointing the finger back at BP because HE don’t like the finger pointing. 

"For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill. It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore."

You see Obama pointing the finger back at previous administrations.   Nope, on his watch these things are not supposed to happen, and when they do it’s the fault of the other guy.  He’s got to make sure all Americans understand this.  The mighty one could not have let this happen.  This spill will now put a damper on HIS energy plan to allow companies to explore for oil off the east coast etc.   Explore, but no drilling, that’s too dangerous.

Folks, everything in this world of ours, no matter where you live, no matter how much money you have, no matter who you work for, no matter what your genetic make up is has some danger to it.  It’s called risk.  It’s called life on planet earth.

Here in the plain state of Oklahoma, we had a few tornadoes touch down this week causing considerable damage and some lives taken.  Nashville has seen the floods of a century devastate the city.  Who do we blame for these mistakes of nature, after all nature is supposed to be gentle on us all.  Nature is supposed to treat us all fairly.  Right?  Wells are not supposed to explode.  Clouds are not supposed to get together with winds and swirl around so fast. 

So now the Obama kind will see the need to shut down the evil oil companies from drilling off shore.  Too dangerous for the environment, our pristine sandy beaches, the fish and turtles, shrimp and seagulls too, not forgetting the people working on these rigs.  The government thinks it’s just too dangerous, too many risks involved.  So shut it all down.  Send BP back to London.  But we need energy to run our things.  Spend billions on windmills.  Buy the oil we got to have to build the windmills and the vehicles of the bureaucrats from overseas and have it shipped here in those huge tankers that can break apart in the Mississippi river.  Sure thing, that makes lots of sense. 

Yep, you can say the feds made the first mistake by allowing BP to drill in the gulf. 

 

November is coming and Constitutionalism may be returning big time.

When you see insects eating away on a rose shrub, what do you do?  When your precious tomato plant is being devoured by insects, what do you do?

All gardeners know that a jar of insecticide must be kept handy to use against the varmints that suck the life out of your beautiful rose or tomato bush.  You’ve got to get those invaders once they start showing themselves.  They can be hand picked and stomped on.  But you won’t get them all, nor will you even see them all.  Better yet is a preventative program that puts up a shield of protection against the enemies; like a pre-mixed solution saturating the ground the plants send their roots into.  But once that’s been accomplished, a continual inspection of your roses and tomatoes for those insects that are still able to get through all of your previous techniques, is needed so that all your hard work will not be spoiled.  

It’s work to bring a tomato plant to harvest.  It diligent work to tend the roses so their beauty will manifest itself.  

Our congress and the federal agencies are full of insects who are sucking the life out of America and they need to be removed.   They can be hand picked and removed, but if that don’t work to revive America the Great, probably then the entire body will need to be sprayed. 

It’s a common practice to spray rose bushes every two weeks, so think of congress as needing to be made insect free every two years.

 

If you’re against using an insecticidal spray because of purest environmental reasons, then you’d better just forget about taking a salt shaker out to the garden, picking a nice juicy ripe home grown tomato, biting into it and savoring each chew, or enjoying the splendor, the aroma and beauty of a bush full of magnificent roses.  Ride your bike to the store and buy the tasteless canned tomatoes lacking the natural nutrients of a fresh vegetable.  Get a villa or a high rise apartment, stay out of the way, stay home and leave the ground work of building America to the millions of us who are willing, able and with diligence select and elect politicians who will hold the constitution of ours in high esteem with a return to federalism.

A Madison Wisconsin city bus driver is on the payroll  for over $159,000 yearly, which is more than the mayor makes.  In fact, there are over 7  making over $100,000 driving the city transportation buses.   How and Why?  Simple answer: union contract.

It’s dangerous work.

In the past, drivers have defended the pay, saying they earn it by working long hours that can create hardships on families. Also, the job requires navigating an oversized vehicle through city streets and dealing with sometimes uncivil riders and other challenges, they have said. 

Madison Metro driver highest paid city employee

Put the government and unions together and you’ve got the budget of the federal government, along with the state and city budgets going through the roof.  The state of California is at a budget tipping point. 

 

And then, just average people like the rest of us wonder why our taxes are so dam high and climbing along with the costs of everything increasing daily.

Obama is promising to create jobs.  Jobs in civil service.  Jobs in the green industry which is highly subsidized by the feds.   In fact, the green industry cannot make it on their own merits, as that technology has yet to be proven cost effective to the average person.   The feds don’t care about that, it’s time to ram the changes down the throats of average people.   Think light bulbs.

The budget is out for 2011.  $3,830,000,000,000 is all the feds plan to spend next year.  So what’s the big deal?  The projected deficit would only be 10.6% of our total domestic product.  For the average American making $50,000, it means going into debt of $5,300.  That’s easily managed, right?   So, what’s wrong with the feds operating under the same rules?

Well, it’s year after year after year of adding to that debt.  13 years ago, in 1998, was the last time the federal government spent less than it coerced out of us peons.

The national debt figure is now over $12.3 trillion and climbing fast.  What would your financial picture look like after 13 years of adding 10% to your debt each year. 

So now your daily operational debt has accumulated to $68,900.  Your yearly income is still $50,000.  Now you’re hurting.  How are you going to pay it off?  How will you get it under control?  The debt holders are knocking on your door.  Now, you find it difficult to just keep up with the payments on the interest.  What are you going to do?  You’ve got 2 options: control spending or get more income.  You go get a second or third job to increase your income level.  And considering the seriousness of that debt, you had better do both to avoid bankruptcy.  You had better stop all that extra spending and live within your means.

But then you go out and buy a flat screen TV and add another $2500 to your debt. 

Have you lost your mind?

What does our federal government do? 

Ditto.  The same thing.  Crazy.  

They say the spending more part is needed to keep the operation up and running.  They need to spend it to protect the rest of us.  They will spend it to . . . well . . . keep all the federal agencies operating for our own good, for our collective good, doing things like planning to build walls on the borders, planning again to build walls on the border, start to build walls on the border, but then they get side wacked by a separate federal agency (the environmentalist) and the planning starts over again and all the originally allocated money is spent on the additional planning to satisfy the desires of the second federal agency.

They’ve got to pay those 2.15 million federal workers (the most ever) to keep track of all that we the people do, and don’t do.  We the people can get out of hand now and then, and the feds need to watch us carefully, and that can cause them headaches, more paperwork, more regulations, more mandates and intrusions, more people to do those things necessary to keep up with those things.

But wait, there could be more the feds could do.

Magically, they can snap their fingers, and out comes some additional money that wasn’t there before.  It’s called a printing press.  And then they can hire additional federal workers, make more rules and hire additional workers to enforce those new rules upon the rest of us.

Are they out of their minds?  What are they thinking? 

Oh, it’s really not their money they are spending, is it?

 

It’s time for a brand new class of federal bureaucrats and politicians coming out of the working class people.  No lawyers need to apply.  No professors need to apply.  No investment bankers need to apply.  We need farmers, bricklayers, plumbers, store keepers, truck drivers, doctors and dentists, entrepreneurs, green berets, Navy seals, hunters and fishermen, moms and dads who have kept budgets.  Did I say no lawyers?

The global cooling is continuing and the south east has been hit with snow and ice. Here in this northeastern Oklahoma town we got 6 1/2 inches of snow over night on top of the previous days rain which became ice before the snow came.  Western NC got 10” of the white stuff.  Nashville is plowing out and the mid Atlantic is getting their share, as Richmond got a foot and DC is in for it also.

So now, the people with the plows are out making some extra cash.  Kids in the neighborhoods are shoveling driveways for some extra cash. The transportation departments are using up their supplies of salt on the bridges, expressways and the main roads utilizing overtime schedules to get it all done.  The power companies are working around the clock fixing the poles and lines that broke, leaving thousands in the dark.  That’s overtime pay for those guys.

Just think of the extra cash that will be made by the auto repair shops as people wreck their cars on the frozen streets.  Fire departments are busy rescuing people and the police are . . .well. . . not concentrating on seat belt violators.

It’s job growth.

Mother nature was at work helping us out of the recession, as that extra cash is going to be spent at the stores and restaurants.  Even the IRS will get their fair share.  This is a good thing, right?  I try to find something positive about these storms that hit and cause all of this inconvenience.  But then people die because of the storms also, and that’s unfortunate.

Back in the late 70’s, I lived in Grand Rapids, MI. and one week-end we got 20” of the stuff.  Unfortunately I had to drive in from Kalamazoo during the bulk of it.   It became a white out on 131 while I could only see the red tail lights of the vehicle ahead of me.  If he went in the ditch, I would have followed him.  No cell-phone to keep in contact with home.  Stupid?  It could have ended up that way.   But cautiously, I made it.  But that’s the thing about human nature, we all do stupid (unwise) things at times, where some make it and some don’t. 

In an economic sense, it is a positive thing for the economy.  Right?  Shovels are sold. Sleds and slides are bought for fun . Extra food is stashed away.  We’ve been stimulated with shovel ready jobs.

Frigid weather is all over the map.  This could be the worst in 25 years as Iowa is at 30 below normal.   Vermont saw the biggest snow fall ever with 33”.  The UK is seeing snow go zone with 16 inches of the white stuff.  Miami is cold and the orange groves are threatened.  "It’ll be like the great winters of the ’60s and ’70s," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist and Expert Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.   On the compassionate front, homeless are seeking shelters, the elderly are burning books to keep warm, and some poor folks died in a home blaze in Detroit, where the power had been cut off.  They were using space heaters.  Even here in the Tulsa area, we are expecting single digit temps for the next 3 days.

 

What’s going on here?   Why?

Can’t the weather scientists do anything about this?   Do we need to gas up our SUV’s and let the things idle for hours so that more carbon dioxide rises to warm the earth?   Get the cows out of the barns. 

Can’t the central planners plan ahead to get us all ready for these things?  

 

This has got to be embarrassing for those climatologists, the Gores, the UN IPCC scientists.