Can We Afford Obama?

Have you ever heard of the woman that goes to the store, writes a check and is told there is non sufficient funds to cover the check and she says "I can't be out of money. I still have some checks left." ?

Meet President Obama. Obama has spent $3.52 Trillion in his first year and his year isn't even completed yet. If we adjust that for inflation, he's spent $2.8 Trillion compared to President Bush's $1.8 Trillion and President Clinton's $1.6 Trillion.

Obama's budget has a deficit of $1.4 Trillion. That is just under $1 Trillion more than the previous high during the Bush administration.

But those are just dollars. There are other ways that I don't think we can afford Obama. For instance, National Security. Once again, Amnesty is out there. The American people rose up and shut it down two years ago when Bush, McCain and others proposed a pathway to citizenship for those that had come here illegally. Now, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is proposing the same thing all over again. Forgiving those that broker our laws and even rewarding them with citizenship.

Or can we afford to have Obama ponder General McChrystals request for 45,000 troops in Afghanistan. We've been waiting for over 90 days for him to decide. In the meantime, the troops morale has slipped. Deaths of our soldiers have taken a steep climb in recent months. Even Britain, one of our greatest allies is saying that Obama is wishy washy on the war with his indecision.

Now we have a President that is bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, the Emporer of Japan and the leader of China. There is a cartoon going around showing Obama bowing to the Burger King with an aide telling him that it's not necessary to bow to the Burger King.

The stimulus package was a complete failure. The promise that if the stimulus deal passed, we'd stop the 20,000 job losses each day hasn't happened. That unemployment would stop at 8% (now at 10.2%). Liberals like to say that had it not been for the stimulus the economy would be even worse off. I disbelieve that. I believe that the Free Market System would have boosted the economy more and that the stimulus deal only held back the markets from growing even further.

It's well known that you don't increase taxes in a recession. But that seems to have been lost on Obama. This new health care debacle not only raises taxes next year, but it raises taxes without the American people getting any benefit for their increased dollars sent in for four more years. It's like paying for a car that you can't pick up until it's paid for in four years.

Cash for Clunkers was also a failure. Yes, it helped boost the economy helping to cause a 2.8% growth in the 3rd quarter, but that's a tent that's gone up without a supporting pole. It won't last on that alone. The Cash for Clunkers cost the American taxpayer $24,000 per car.

As with Clinton, Obama ran as a centrist, but as quick as he was handed the keys to the White House, he began governing as a liberal. Or worse. A socialist.

This Thanksgiving, it might be wise for us to give thanks that Obama hasn't already completely destroyed the country. I hope we can give thanks for at least the same thing next year.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Another Election, Another Vote Count Screwup

What is it about people that work for the government and election commisions that they don't know how to count by ones? Have the government schools gotten so bad that counting from 1-10 is now a special skill? Let me see if I can help. To count to ten, it's 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Once you've got that nailed down, you only need count to ten again, but this time put a one (1) in front of the second count to ten. This is called the teens. Then do it again, to reach 30 and so on. It's really not difficult if you put down the gameboy, x-box and IPod.

What brought this is on is that the New York 23 race may not be over. Apparently, there was a misreporting of numbers and miscounts. The reason has something to do with the phones. You can read the information for yourself at http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

There are over 10,000 absentee ballots to count yet. Bill Owens lead dropped from over 5,000 votes to over 3,000 votes. Since the absentee ballots were sent in prior to Dede Scozzafava suspending her campaign, it's thought that the absentee ballots would go in favor of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative candidate.

Should the count from the absentee ballots overcome the deficit for Hoffman, Bill Owens would have to be removed. Speaker Pelosi swore in Owens before the election was certified to get a needed vote on the Health Care bill passed last Saturday. His vote for the Health Care bill was the opposite of what he'd campaigned on.

It's a slim chance for Hoffman to win, but with how these vote counts have gone in recent years, nothing would surprise me.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Terrorism! It's baaaaaccck.

We all knew it would happen. Terrorism has returned to our shores after an 8 year hiatus.

We were attacked in 1993 roughly a month after Bill Clinton took office with the bombing of the World Trade Center. There were a total of eight attacks during Clinton's eight years in office. More if you believe that Flight 800 was also a terrorist attack. Clinton treated it like a criminal act rather than an act of war.

Less than eight months after President Bush took office, we were attacked. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania due to some very brave passengers who saved either the White House or the Capitol, on September 11, 2001. Bush reactetd quickly and began the bombing of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. We were not attacked even once for the remainder of Bush's years. They tried, but Bush and Cheney were on top of it.

Now here we are, just over nine months into Obama's Presidency and we're attacked again. This time from within. What's even worse is that it's from within our own military. What will Obama do?

The prospects of him doing anything significant are not encouraging. It's been 90 days since General McChrystal told the President he needs 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. This is the war that Obama said was important. Yet, here we are 3 months after the request for troops was made and Obama still can't make up his mind about what to do.

The initial reports were that the shooter at Fort Hood, in Texas was shot and killed. This after he had killed and wounded over 40 people. Then we found out that he wasn't dead. The next reports were that he wanted out of his planned deployment to Afghanistan. He didn't want to go and fight. An odd position for a soldier to take. Of course nobody wants to go to war, but that's what the military is for when we're at war.

Then it started coming out that he was Muslim and was upset about being teased. He had been saying he was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So why did he stay in the military? If he's against the fighting, whether it's against countries in the middle east or any other country, if you can't go to fight for your country when told to go, why are you in the military? If you're so against killing and shooting others, why is the answer to shoot and kill 13 people on a military base? Why wound with a gun another 30 people?

It just doesn't fly that he was against war when he uses a gun to shoot his comrades and others on a military base. The choice he made gets him one of three things. Either he's killed by his own hand or by others during his killing spree, he's caught before he dies and then executed for his actions or he's caught and shipped off to a maximum security prison where nobody will hear from him again. A better option for him would have been to go AWOL or to resign.

He didn't like the wars prior to being ordered to the middle east but those that have spoken to him thought that these wars might come to an end with the election of Obama. When it became apparent that Obama was not going to pull out of Afghanistan anytime soon, he became more upset.

Now we find out that he's been in contact with a radical Imam with Al Queda for nearly a year. E-mails he was sending to Yemen have been intercepted. He was identified and the FBI apparently didn't take it seriously. What more will we learn?

Who knows, but with the information coming out, it's obvious that this was a terrorist attack. This man, who by all accounts was a poor pyshiatrist at best, killed and wounded over 40 people on a military base. This should not have happened. The intelligence community apparently dropped the ball. Those on the base didn't take his words seriously. How many people did he treat that came back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What's their condition?

More importantly, how will Obama handle this? Will he throw a couple of extra bombs at Afghanistan? Will he turn it over the courts? Now is Obama's chance to prove his worth. We'll now find out if his concern is the safety of America.

I keep remembering what Usama bin Laden said at the start of the war. He said that Americans don't have the stomach for war. This should be a wake up call to Obama. He should be giving McChrystal his 40,000 troops as requested and then after granting them ask the General, "is this enough or would you like more?"

I'm afraid we're about to find out what Obama is made of and that we won't like it. I'll be happy to see him as a one term President, but he still has three years left in that term. That's a lot of time to do alot of damage. Need proof? Look at the deficit. Look at the debt. Look at the taxes we're being saddled with.

What's annoying beyond that is this morning on a radio program, I heard people calling up blaming Bush for this attack. I heard another claim that children shooting up schools weren't terrorists and for the most part, they are white kids shooting up the schools so we shouldn't lable this guy a terrorist. This one really ticked me off because it was nothing more than a repeat of what Van Johnson said in speeches.

We've now got not just terrorists, but a racial divide as well. Now is the time for a leader to step up and put an end to it and label the terrorists for what they are. Terrorists. Unfortunately, the one that's been elected as a leader is not likely to do that.

Vice President Biden said early on to a group of supporters that Obama would be tested within the first year. The test has now been made. If he fails, and it appears it will since it's been four days and he's said little, we could be in for three more years of these attacks.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Did the Elections slap down Obama?

Was the Election of November 3, 2009 a repudiation of President Barack Hussein Obama? Yes and no. It is pretty much a standard occurance for off year elections to go against the party in power and against the President, who isn't on the ballot. Only twice has it not happened that way. Those two were Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush. However, there were some extenuating circumstances in this election held this year.

The New York 23 race: A Democrat, Owens was running against Skozahfava (I have no idea if the spelling is correct). They were joined by a third party. Hoffman from the Conservative Party. A Democrat had not held that seat since 1850's. So Owens was pretty much a token candidate placed by the Democrats. The Republican, Dede Skozahfava, was even more liberal than Owens who is considered a moderate Democrat. A month ago, people started finding out about Doug Hoffman. Across the country we learned that the Republican was nominated by a group of eleven in the party in upstate New York, which is the district represented by this seat. The people didn't choose Skozahfava, a group of eleven chose her in one of the old classic smoke filled rooms. There was no primary in New York.

Doug Hoffman joined the Conservative party. A new third party begun as a response to the Republicans who, as we know, started spending as much as Democrats always have that cost them the House and Senate in 2006. Hoffman was unknown until a month before the election.

Hoffman received the endorsement of Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, and others. On the weekend prior to the election, Skozahfava saw the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race. She then threw her support to the Democrat, Owens. Owens eked out a victory from Hoffman. Owens appeared on the ballot twice. Skozahfava was on the ballot twice. She received 5% of the vote. Hoffman appeared on the ballot once.

Next year, this seat is again up for election. I believe Hoffman will run again next year and I believe he'll beat Owens in the election next November.

The New York election can't be attributed to Obama based on all of that information above.

New Jersey is a different story. John Corzine the Democrat incumbent Governor lost to Chris Christie the Republican. Obama appeared at 5 events for Corzine. New Jersey is a decidedly liberal state. They have the highest property taxes in the nation. Corzine has made a bad situation worse in New Jersey. He spent a tremendous amount of money. 3-1 over Christie. Yet Christie beat Corzine. This can be attributed to the poor governing by Corzine as well as the policies of the Obama administration.

Virginia is an impressive state. Both in it's appearance and its' attitudes. Bob McDonnell the Republican against Creigh Deeds the Democrat. I believe this is also a combination of the natural off year elections as well as a repudiation of Obama. The reason for that is the size of the blow out by McDonnell over Deeds. Had McDonnell won by 5 or 6 points, it would be normal, but a 19 point embarrassment must include the Obama factor especially since northern Virginia, a Democrat area, went so strongly for McDonnell.

In Michigan we had our own little election that was a blowout for the Republicans. In the 19th destrict, which is southern middle Michigan there was a special election created when the Senator from that district, Mark Schauer, won the U.S. House seat for the area.

This election had it's own little soap opera to go with it. The seat was vacated after the November 2008 election. Governor Jennifer Granholm decided to leave the seat vacant by not holding a special election sooner and allowing it to remain vacant for nearly a full year. The people of that area were not represented in the State Senate during that time. Mike Nofs (R), a former Representative in the State House ran against Martin Griffin (D), former Mayor of Jackson, Michigan.

In the past year, the former Senator, Schauer, who vacated the seat, was the only one that claimed to have read the stimulus bill back in February when everyone on the planet knew that nobody had read it. He was also given the largest fine for campaign finance violations in state history. In August when the Town Hall meetings were being held and making news, Schauer refused to subject himself to that and didn't hold any open town hall meetings on taxes and health care.

Michigan is already saddled with the distinction of having been in a one state recession for over five years while the rest of the country didn't fall into a recession until a year ago as well as having the highest unemployment rate in the nation for forty months. In addition, the Democrats, led by Governor Granholm raised taxes two years ago and said that we'd not have to raise taxes again, have been trying to raise taxes again this year, and failed to get their budget deal done by the September 30 deadline and passed a continuing resolution for another month where they have fought between deep cuts in spending and raising taxes. The Republicans have prevailed thus far and taxes were not raised, although they likely will be soon.

Noffs beat Griffin by double digits in the special election. This was a combination of tax and spend Granholm, Obama's spending money and the activities of Mark Schauer.

Lastly, there was also and underlying message to Republicans. The message seems to be that the Republicans have an edge due to the Democrats tax and spend, not to mention printing money like it was printing newspapers, but that edge comes with a jaundiced eye. Republicans are trusted more than Democrats, but not by much.

This is a center right country. Conservatives number in the 40% range where liberals are in the 20% range. But Republicans are being watched by people and if they turn out to be Democrat lite, they too are in danger of losing the seats they hold.

So was this election a repudiation of Obama? Yes, but not the entire reasoning behind the results of yesterdays election. Virginia could make the case that it was as Republicans swept the board there.

The fun now begins. Will the Democrats see the writing on the wall and still try to push through this takeover of the health care in this country? Will they still push to get this through and cause tax increases on every person breaking Obama's promise of not one dime of more taxes if you make less than $250,000? I guess the real question would be, are the Democrats that arrogant?

You're welcome to comment.

Brett