The video is worth watching if you want to catch Barack Obama in his biggest lie this week:
Drunk with power, bursting with hubris, and overcome by the irresistible lure of controlling mind-boggling amounts of money, the President, both Presidential candidates, 74 Senators, and 263 Representatives have pulled off the biggest money grab in our nation’s history. This largest single shakedown of American taxpayers is merely the latest sucker punch in a long line of citizen abuses. Spending money has become an obsession for America’s politicians. They talk about spending billions as casually as hockey moms discuss whether to stop at Starbucks. Test scores lagging in public schools? Spend more money. Economy slowing down? Spend more money. Whatever the situation, politicians in Washington and most state capitals can be counted on to spend, spend, and spend some more.
Buried in the middle of the bailout bill, in section 122 to be exact, is a provision to increase the national debt ceiling to $11,315,000,000,000. In 1999 our national debt was just about half that, $5,656,270,901,615 to be exact, according to The Privateer website. When Ronald Reagan took office, the national red ink totaled less than $1,000,000,000,000. But an orgy of spending has pushed America to the brink of financial ruin, and the fix proposed by politicians of both parties is: spend more money! That’s all they know how to do. Better, that’s all they care to do.
That we are borrowing more than $2,000,000,000 a day just to pay our federal bills doesn’t faze the big spenders in Washington. We’re out of money? No problem, we’ll just borrow more. Contemporary political leaders talk and act as if there is no limit to the amount they can borrow and spend. And why not? It’s not their money, but ours, and we have played the fool for so long, returning the same profligate spenders to Washington and state capitals often for decades at a time, they think we’ll never say “enough!” Perhaps they’re right.
The spendthrifts in Sacramento are just as bad as the Washington crowd, the only difference being California’s extortionists operate in a smaller ocean of red ink. Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that Governor Schwarzenegger “warned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson [yesterday] that the state might need an emergency loan of as much as $7 billion from the federal government within weeks.” California has run up record deficits in recent years, last year amassing something close to $14 billion in debt. Anyone in Sacramento think of cutting spending, living within the state’s means, or balancing the budget? Of course not, and why should they? The mantra is: borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend, and taxpayers just go along with it. Oh, you’ll read the occasional irate letter to the editor, and a few Republicans have given lip service to reducing California’s out-of-control spending, but nothing ever changes. The beat just goes on. The politicians vote for more borrowing, and then they spend. It’s become a way of life.
The $700 billion just allocated to the control of one man, the selfsame Secretary Paulson mentioned above, will not be the end of it. Within the bill itself is some $110 billion of pork, inserted to buy the votes of Representatives gagging on the monstrously unfair, unprecedented fleecing of American taxpayers. But don’t think the $810 billion will be the end of it either. Both presidential candidates have big ideas they are sure will make America better. And guess what? All the plans involve spending additional amounts of our money. McCain’s new spending proposals amount to a paltry few hundred billion. Obama is clearly the more serious of the two, intending to spend upwards of $1 trillion to make things right, not just in America but around the world.
The time has come — indeed, it is far past due — for a modern-day Boston Tea Party. Nothing short of a taxpayer revolution will rein in Washington’s fat cats. Regardless of which party is in the White House or in control of Congress, deficit spending has reached critically high levels that will bankrupt the country if left unchecked. It’s time, therefore, for a showdown, and killing the bailout bill is as good a place to start as any. Here’s the plan.
Now that the bailout bill is law, Americans should stop paying taxes. If and when the bill is rescinded, we’ll start paying taxes again, without any penalties or interest tacked on. Risky? Sure, and some of us may pay a big price, but wrap your mind around this:
“SIGNING THE DECLARATION of Independence was a dangerous act. To call the king of England a tyrant—especially in such a public and eloquent way—was high treason, punishable by death. Although the signers of the Declaration of Independence had different reasons for doing so, were very different individuals, and had radically different political points of view, the executioner’s rope could be equally effective for one and all. John Hancock was bold. He signed his name first and large. ‘There,’ he said; ‘King George should be able to read that without his spectacles.’ When Benjamin Franklin signed, he was expected to say something witty, pithy, and to the point; he was, after all, the greatest aphorist of his day. Franklin did not disappoint. ‘We must all hang together,’ he said, ‘or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.’”
If enough Americans said “enough” — a few million such patriots would be more than the government could deal with — we would soon again establish just who has the power in this nation. Our elected representatives are not responsive to “the people” and haven’t been for a long time. 74% of Americans screamed opposition to the bailout, but the wheels of corrupt power keep turning. The passage of the legislation should not have come as a surprise. The politicians are serving themselves, their interests, and their friends. Therefore, we have but two choices. One, let the government slowly but surely spend us into financial oblivion. Or two, wrest control from the greedy, self-serving squanderers and reestablish a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
We have the power to do this. It remains to be seen if we have the courage to get the job done. Power to the people! Stop paying taxes ASAP.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Campaign 2008, Current Affairs, Economics, Ethics, Government Blunders, Video