I will not vote for ANYONE who helped raise taxes.
I will not vote for ANYONE that has supported ObamaCare.
I will not vote for ANYONE who has voted away my liberties.
I will not vote for ANYONE that doesn’t support Free Trade.
A case for free trade
From a Heritage Foundation research paper by Brian Riedl.
Although farm policies serve no legitimate purpose, they have profoundly negative effects on taxpayers, consumers, and small farmers, including:
- Higher prices.James Bovard once wrote, “For almost every farm program, there is another equal but opposite farm program or provision.” Commodity subsidies encourage overproduction and therefore lower prices. The Conservation Reserve Program encourages underproduction and thereby raises prices. Tariffs raise import prices. Export subsidies lower export prices. Price supports triple the price of sugar and raise the price of milk. Calculating the net effect of these contradictory programs, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that U.S. farm policy raises food prices enough to cost consumers an extra $12 billion annually-in effect, an average annual food tax of $104 per household.
- High taxes. As the farm economy booms, Congress is expanding farm subsidies. After averaging less than $14 billion per year during the 1990s, annual farm subsidies have topped $25 billion in the current decade since passage of the 2002 farm bill, the most expensive farm bill in American history. All federal spending must eventually be funded by taxes. Thus, these subsidies cost the average household $216 in annual taxes in addition to $104 in higher food prices.
- No added rural economic growth. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City concluded that farm subsidies do not promote rural economic growth. Between 1992 and 2002, the vast majority of the 783 “farm dependent” counties experienced job growth below the national average. In fact, more of these counties suffered outright job losses than experienced job growth exceeding the national average. While critics can argue that growth would have been worse without subsidies, these policies are clearly not creating new growth centers. Farm subsidies are likely funding farm consolidations, which in turn are reducing employment on farms and in related industries.
- Small farmers driven out of business. Small family farmers are generally not eligible for significant levels of farm subsidies. Furthermore, subsidies to large commercial farms harm small farmers by (1) reducing crop prices and, therefore, farmer incomes; (2) raising the prices of farmland, thereby preventing family farmers from expanding; and (3) subsidizing agribusiness buyouts of family farms. Small farmers receive virtually none of the subsidies, but they must endure the market distortions and financial pain caused by these policies.
- Less trade.Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has stated that “the increase in trade since World War II has boosted U.S. annual incomes on the order of $10,000 per household” and that “removing all remaining barriers to trade would raise U.S. incomes anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000 per household.” Yet massive tariffs and import restrictions raise food prices and make the American economy less productive. Bringing free trade to agriculture would also make free-trade agreements in other industries much more likely.
Conclusion
If Congress takes the path of least resistance and extends current farm policies for another five years, it will have surrendered an enormous opportunity for reform. Most debates over federal programs force lawmakers to balance a program’s social benefits with the costs of financing it, but current U.S. farm policies serve no legitimate purpose. They burden American families with higher taxes and higher food prices. They harm small farmers by excluding them from subsidies, raising land prices, and financing farm consolidation. They increase trade barriers that reduce incomes in America and in lesser-developed countries. They are falsely promoted as saving the family farm and protecting the food supply. In reality, they are America’s largest corporate welfare program.
Endowed by their Creator
Not so fast Mr President!
President Obama speaking to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on September 15, 2010. In the closing remarks of his speech, Obama recites part of the Declaration of Independence, and leaves out “by their Creator.”
Let’s attempt to get it right, and not rewrite history.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Counter Move
He had been lying silently in his position for over three hours now, waiting for the right opportunity. After verifying the range at eight hundred and twenty five meters for the fourth time Alan was confident he would have no problem neutralizing the target. He had engaged targets at greater distance and under much more stressful situations before. The silenced 308 Winchester 700 rested on the backpack that had been carried the two miles to the nest. Alan saw the target approaching from the East, the 12 mile per hour breeze was manageable since it was coming out of the North West. His heart rate barely increased as he peered through the high powered scope. Alan had trained his mind to master his body and emotions. He had this one opportunity only. He saw the shot in his mind’s eye. The round would impact two inches below and one inch behind the unsuspecting targets left ear. After a steady exhale, Alan squeezed the trigger, the 150 Grain round exited the heavy barrel at 2,860 feet per second and tore through the brain stem with more than 2,700 foot pounds of energy, the target collapsed under his own weight without knowing his life had just been taken. As Alan inhaled he instinctively chambered another round although he knew he would not need it, the massive elk would not be getting up. Just before the OH-6A Cayuse light observation Helicopter broke over the hilltop, Alan’s secure satellite phone came to life. Alan knew the hunt was over… or perhaps the hunt had just begun.
The cost… of
* Obama’s stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War — more than $100 billion (15%) more.
* Just the first two years of Obama’s stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
* Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
* Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
* Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
* The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
* During Bush’s Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)
Ubuntu?
I have been farting around with Ubuntu, a linex based operating system.
It sure breaths new life into a tired computer!
A free operating system! And I have got to tell you this, “Look out Windows!”
Currently I am running a dual boot system (Windows 7 & Ubuntu) and I couldn’t be more pleased.
Installing applications is as easy as adding a plug-in to your browser!
Give it a try. Go to the Ubuntu web site and check it out. UBUNTU
From the website:
Free apps, safe and fast web browsing, a dedicated music store and much more. Ubuntu brings the very best technologies straight to your desktop.
You will feel better soon…
Ahhh, the good times keep coming!
Is there a doctor in the house?
So, things are going pretty good huh?
Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people.
Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under the program, or redistributing funds between state pools.
But they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility.
Stay healthy… your life depends on it.
We STILL can’t spend our way out of debt!
Last year I described what I believe the problem with bailouts was. Simply that you can not spend money you don’t have to pay down on a debt (dahh, that creates a debt).
Well, as predicted the Ponzi scheme didn’t work and… inflation is coming. Inflation and more taxes (and health care.. but that is another topic).
Anyway, here is the problem:
o The government is spending to much of our money.
And the solution is:
o Stop spending Use the Fed to manipulate the value of a dollar and also raise taxes on every working American
And when that doesn’t work (because we will loose jobs) we will hear how legalizing 20 million criminals will solve all our financial woes.
The bleeding continues….
You be the Judge
From Newsmax TV