Wednesday – August 31, 2011
What do you want to hear?
Many of us just want to go through life living it and enjoying it. I have to admit that I am one of them.
Many of us come home at night only to turn off the news and put on the Food Channel. We do this to escape the reality of life and to leave our problems at the door step. I have to admit that I would like to do that most nights, but I don’t.
My search for the truth is one that never stops. I research the facts, I listen to the pundits and I listen to whichever Congressman or Senator that is interviewed. Like many, who do the same, I know that at the end of each interview I am a little more skeptical and a little more confused.
There is an appetite that is now brewing among many voters who just don’t want the spin anymore. They don’t want the partisan politics and they don’t want leaders to blame past administrations on their lack of performance.
As we enter the Labor Day holiday this year, we will also be observing the 10 year mark of 9/11. I will never use the word celebrate to describe the events of 9/11. There is nothing to celebrate. Except to honor the day and the holiday that will forever precede the 9/11 observance.
The administration has released a memo that wants this year’s observance of 9/11 not to be “just about us.” There is now a debate of how we as a nation should start to observe this date. Some of us want to feel the sorrow and some of us obviously want to move on. If we diminish the day and the observance then we diminish the true facts behind the attacks and start to ignore true horror that some men can create.
For those who want to move on turn on the Food Channel. For those who want to observe the day go ahead and do it your way. But don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t or maybe its time for you to move on.
Are you comfortable with the change that this White House wants to see when the date of 9/11 comes along on the calendar? Are you comfortable with the change that this White House has made in just about every aspect of our lives? Are you comfortable with being told that you must get along just to go along?
The truth is there is a reason why this White House is now trailing behind its own low numbers and there is a reason why this White House is losing in key battleground states like Florida, Ohio and Virginia. The truth is people in these states have already made the decision about what they want to hear.
When we don’t hear the words of loyalty to the flag or loyalty to the themes of American life, we lose. When we don’t hear the words of praise for those who protect, us we lose. When we don’t hear about how the attack of 9/11 was aimed at us, we lose.
The 9/11 observance and the observance of Pearl Harbor are two seminal events in our history that should never change in tone or in their impact on the nation. In both cases the nation went to war, in both case heroes rose from obscurity. We should embrace these days and embrace the ones that continue to fight for us. We should remember why these events occurred and find ways to prevent them from occurring again. Changing the tenor or the tone of how we observe the day will do nothing to prevent these events from happening again. Changing the tenor and the tone will in all likelihood encourage others to commit similar acts of horror.
When we ignore the things that bind us like patriotism, like a common day of remembrance and the solemn tone that some want us to change then we lose the identity that was frozen in time as the towers collapsed. We should never forget, no matter who wants us to or who says we should not make it “just about us.”
The President wants us to change our view of 9/11. One man who will never change his view, because he lived 9/11 everyday of his presidency was George Bush. He said two things that we should remember:
“Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.”
George W. Bush
“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”
George W. Bush
You tell me. What do you want to hear?
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Listen to your gut. It will tell you all you need to hear about a person, a candidate and even an enemy. Listen to your gut. Mine tells me to leave 9/11 alone for the sake of those who can’t.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
One man, one woman-one incident!
Tuesday – August 30, 2011
One man, one woman- one incident!
Yesterday, I wrote about the National Purpose. I brought into focus many events that took place on August 29 throughout our history and that had an affect on the nation’s National Purpose. From the known to the unknown, a man or a woman a boy or a girl, have all contributed to the National Purpose when called upon or when single events dictated their service.
The story of our National Purpose will never end. It might change in depth and meaning, but the diary of our history is destined to go on.
I was watching the National Geographic Channel production of George Bush’s interview about 9/11. I watched and I thought about my impressions and the visions I witnessed on that day. Like millions, I was mesmerized by the visions of the terror I saw.
That night, I wrote the President a letter. I am sure that some staffer read it and maybe the President did, too. However, I would not blame him if he didn’t. That is not important to today’s story, but the words I wrote are. I do not have a hard copy, because I sent it e-mail to the White House website, but the words I used reflected my thoughts about how some of us are placed at the doorsteps of history. I remember saying I don’t think you wanted this, but you are now making history – all I could say was God’s speed as you write a page in history.
As we approach the ten year mark of 9/11, I will remember the sights the sounds and the anguish of those that lost someone that day. I will also remember how the president reacted and acted in the following days to bring about what the National Purpose was on that day, that week that month and the subsequent years of the Bush Presidency.
True greatness should never be sought. It should be measured by how that greatness affected people and the common purpose of those that serve or those that volunteer selflessly in times of disaster and in time of need. This was brought into light, as the President visited the site of the fallen towers and addressed the nation and all those that were working to clear the site. He was able to find the words with bull horn in hand and an arm around a fireman who was just there at that moment to bring focus on the National Purpose.
Those sounds and sights are what some of us remember and what some choose to forget, because it wasn’t their guy standing on that heap of destruction getting all the attention.
As I watched the coverage of Hurricane Irene and heard the President and the left say you will have the money to rebuild. The right was following with spoken caution about where those funds would come from. The word is the Congress will deliver, but other budgets will have to suffer, as a consequence.
When I consider the ongoing cost of 9/11, the escalating cost of Hurricane Katrina and now Irene I cannot fault the people who demand that the government assists in the rebuilding of the hard hit areas with timely aid. President Bush said of 9/11, “this is how war will be fought in the 21st century.” While hurricanes hit land, FEMA is usually on the ground ready to give aid when its time. The aid is always at the discretion of Congress and always gets caught up in the politics that follow the funding requests.
We all have our opinions of how 9/11 occurred. We all have our opinions on how these super hurricanes come to be. Isn’t it time that we now have the same opinion on how the country pays for disasters when they occur? Shouldn’t it be part of the National Purpose to do so now?
In my opinion, there should be a super fund to provide the necessary money to fund the rebuilding after these disasters occur. This disaster relief fund should be proposed as other unnecessary budgets should be cut or eliminated. In addition, the principal of baseline budgeting should be eliminated and year to year fiscal budgeting be put in its place. The notion that we did it this way last year has to change. A super fund can be designed to keep the funds intact and to grow the funds from year to year. This super fund should be kept separate from any other governmental funding program. This super fund can provide the flexibility needed and it can be designed to take the politics out of rebuilding areas that are devastated by man or by nature.
When government takes on the role of giving aid it should do so in a responsible way, so that one man or one woman can provide the direction in giving aid when and where it’s needed the most. Congress can manage the money. They can make the budgetary recommendations from year to year and they can approve the money going in and going out. But Congress and the President and other politicians should not be allowed to play the politics when our National Purpose is to provide safety and to provide a quick path back to normalcy.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Shouldn’t we do as much as we can to promote the National Purpose with using the best possible methods and providing the best possible services? Sometimes all it takes is one man or one woman with a common purpose to do just that.
One man, one woman- one incident!
Yesterday, I wrote about the National Purpose. I brought into focus many events that took place on August 29 throughout our history and that had an affect on the nation’s National Purpose. From the known to the unknown, a man or a woman a boy or a girl, have all contributed to the National Purpose when called upon or when single events dictated their service.
The story of our National Purpose will never end. It might change in depth and meaning, but the diary of our history is destined to go on.
I was watching the National Geographic Channel production of George Bush’s interview about 9/11. I watched and I thought about my impressions and the visions I witnessed on that day. Like millions, I was mesmerized by the visions of the terror I saw.
That night, I wrote the President a letter. I am sure that some staffer read it and maybe the President did, too. However, I would not blame him if he didn’t. That is not important to today’s story, but the words I wrote are. I do not have a hard copy, because I sent it e-mail to the White House website, but the words I used reflected my thoughts about how some of us are placed at the doorsteps of history. I remember saying I don’t think you wanted this, but you are now making history – all I could say was God’s speed as you write a page in history.
As we approach the ten year mark of 9/11, I will remember the sights the sounds and the anguish of those that lost someone that day. I will also remember how the president reacted and acted in the following days to bring about what the National Purpose was on that day, that week that month and the subsequent years of the Bush Presidency.
True greatness should never be sought. It should be measured by how that greatness affected people and the common purpose of those that serve or those that volunteer selflessly in times of disaster and in time of need. This was brought into light, as the President visited the site of the fallen towers and addressed the nation and all those that were working to clear the site. He was able to find the words with bull horn in hand and an arm around a fireman who was just there at that moment to bring focus on the National Purpose.
Those sounds and sights are what some of us remember and what some choose to forget, because it wasn’t their guy standing on that heap of destruction getting all the attention.
As I watched the coverage of Hurricane Irene and heard the President and the left say you will have the money to rebuild. The right was following with spoken caution about where those funds would come from. The word is the Congress will deliver, but other budgets will have to suffer, as a consequence.
When I consider the ongoing cost of 9/11, the escalating cost of Hurricane Katrina and now Irene I cannot fault the people who demand that the government assists in the rebuilding of the hard hit areas with timely aid. President Bush said of 9/11, “this is how war will be fought in the 21st century.” While hurricanes hit land, FEMA is usually on the ground ready to give aid when its time. The aid is always at the discretion of Congress and always gets caught up in the politics that follow the funding requests.
We all have our opinions of how 9/11 occurred. We all have our opinions on how these super hurricanes come to be. Isn’t it time that we now have the same opinion on how the country pays for disasters when they occur? Shouldn’t it be part of the National Purpose to do so now?
In my opinion, there should be a super fund to provide the necessary money to fund the rebuilding after these disasters occur. This disaster relief fund should be proposed as other unnecessary budgets should be cut or eliminated. In addition, the principal of baseline budgeting should be eliminated and year to year fiscal budgeting be put in its place. The notion that we did it this way last year has to change. A super fund can be designed to keep the funds intact and to grow the funds from year to year. This super fund should be kept separate from any other governmental funding program. This super fund can provide the flexibility needed and it can be designed to take the politics out of rebuilding areas that are devastated by man or by nature.
When government takes on the role of giving aid it should do so in a responsible way, so that one man or one woman can provide the direction in giving aid when and where it’s needed the most. Congress can manage the money. They can make the budgetary recommendations from year to year and they can approve the money going in and going out. But Congress and the President and other politicians should not be allowed to play the politics when our National Purpose is to provide safety and to provide a quick path back to normalcy.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Shouldn’t we do as much as we can to promote the National Purpose with using the best possible methods and providing the best possible services? Sometimes all it takes is one man or one woman with a common purpose to do just that.
Monday, August 29, 2011
The National Purpose:
Monday - August 29, 2011
The National Purpose:
When I think of what The National Purpose means I conjure up visions of past history, the great feats of America and the accomplishments of great Americans that are known and greater Americans that are unknown who have all added to the greatness of a nation and the country’s National Purpose.
On today’s date, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe damage to the Gulf Coast killing 1,836 people who were, in the end, a part of the National Purpose in their own way. As a nation, we searched for the reason why, only to end up criticizing some and not blaming others when the National Purpose was questioned.
This weekend the country’s East Coast was ravaged by yet another Hurricane called Irene - that was downgraded into a tropical storm of immense size as it entered New York City. Lives were lost and property was damaged. Our leaders called for unity, as the National Purpose, this weekend in the wake of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 while the storm was gaining in strength.
We should not have to be reminded to search for our National Purpose in the wake of any disaster. Shouldn’t National Purpose be a part of our every day Common Purpose?
On today’s date, in 1982, George Brett got his 1,500 hit. This added to the National Purpose, as another accomplishment by another great American baseball player. This feat added to the simple landscape of what America is.
In 1968, on today’s date many unknown Democrats added to the National Purpose to change history as they nominated Hubert H. Humphrey as their presidential candidate. The convention was held in Chicago amid mass rioting and protesting all of which was a part of a changing National Purpose by unknown faces. Never the less, greatness rose to calm the day to only reaffirm the National Purpose.
On this date, in 1965, Astronauts Cooper and Conrad completed 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5 setting a record in space travel that would further define America’s National Purpose after President Kennedy put forth an initiative to conquer space itself by going to the moon. He wouldn’t live to see it but he knew his words defined the National Purpose for generations of explorers and adventurers with dreams to come. In 1991 on this date, his son John F. Kennedy Jr. won his first court case as a young lawyer. The Kennedy family rose from obscurity to become the family that would define the nation’s version of Camelot. They defined again what the National Purpose was.
In 1966, on today’s date the Beatles performed their last public concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The British Invasion created what the National Purpose was for millions of young admirers. Years later the National Purpose was recognized by the timeless tunes of a timeless era.
In war, our National Purpose is always questioned for the moral value, but in the end war is defined by the generals, the colonels, the majors, the sergeants and the privates who go in harms way to protect and define what our National Purpose is. On today’s date, in 1945, General MacArthur was named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan. He is known for his words that defined the National Purpose, “I shall return”, because he did. The National Purpose then was to defend the weak, by winning the war that brought our National Purpose to bear.
On today’s date, in 1862, the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) began. The Civil War was fought to define a National Purpose over States Rights and the freedom of millions. On today’s date, almost a century later, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed by Congress. This ended the question of how our National Purpose was limited to some Americans. On today’s date, in 1990, Saddam Hussein declared “America can't beat Iraq”. In the end, American soldiers beat back the forces that threatened our National Purpose.
In 1776, on today’s date the Americans withdrew from Manhattan to Westchester as our National Purpose was only beginning to be tested in ways that our enemies would only come to fear in future years. On August 29, 1786, Shays Rebellion in Springfield, Massachusetts began. Shays Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebels, led by Daniel Shays and known as the Shaysites (or Regulators), were mostly small farmers angered by crushing debt and taxes. Any failure to repay these debts often times resulted in imprisonment in a debtor’s prison or the claiming of property by the state. A Massachusetts militia was raised as a private army to defeat the Shaysites on February 3 of 1787. However, there was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to hold the Constitutional Convention, which began in May of 1787.
The United States may be unique, because it was formed as a voluntary association of States based on declared moral principles. These moral principles are known today as our National Purpose. Our National Purpose was also guaranteed in a Constitution that was new to the world.
The National Purpose is all around us. We don’t have to look for it and we don’t have to wait for disaster to rekindle it. All we have to do to see it is to walk down Main Street. We see it in our grocer’s face, as he practices commerce. We see it in the mailman’s face, as he works to deliver the mail in the rain, the sleet and the snow. We see it the fireman’s face and the policeman’s face, as they bravely deliver the public service. We see it as the old are tended to and the young are nurtured. We can celebrate the National Purpose by reading the names of those who were lost in war at our town’s memorials. We see the National Purpose as we maintain a set of morals that are based on a set of laws that bring civility and peace to our town squares. If you have any doubts, you can read about the National Purpose in our nation’s founding documents.
No matter how we are tested, be it by another man’s dangerous thoughts or be it the danger that nature sometimes delivers, our National Purpose should never be doubted, should never be politicized and can never be forgotten, because history is the diary of the National Purpose. Today, take that walk down Main Street and open your eyes. The National Purpose is right in front of you.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: America’s National Purpose will sometimes be questioned. Americans have that right, because it is a part of our set of morals to do so. The best part of the National Purpose gives us the morals to know when to question them and when to use them.
The National Purpose:
When I think of what The National Purpose means I conjure up visions of past history, the great feats of America and the accomplishments of great Americans that are known and greater Americans that are unknown who have all added to the greatness of a nation and the country’s National Purpose.
On today’s date, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe damage to the Gulf Coast killing 1,836 people who were, in the end, a part of the National Purpose in their own way. As a nation, we searched for the reason why, only to end up criticizing some and not blaming others when the National Purpose was questioned.
This weekend the country’s East Coast was ravaged by yet another Hurricane called Irene - that was downgraded into a tropical storm of immense size as it entered New York City. Lives were lost and property was damaged. Our leaders called for unity, as the National Purpose, this weekend in the wake of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 while the storm was gaining in strength.
We should not have to be reminded to search for our National Purpose in the wake of any disaster. Shouldn’t National Purpose be a part of our every day Common Purpose?
On today’s date, in 1982, George Brett got his 1,500 hit. This added to the National Purpose, as another accomplishment by another great American baseball player. This feat added to the simple landscape of what America is.
In 1968, on today’s date many unknown Democrats added to the National Purpose to change history as they nominated Hubert H. Humphrey as their presidential candidate. The convention was held in Chicago amid mass rioting and protesting all of which was a part of a changing National Purpose by unknown faces. Never the less, greatness rose to calm the day to only reaffirm the National Purpose.
On this date, in 1965, Astronauts Cooper and Conrad completed 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5 setting a record in space travel that would further define America’s National Purpose after President Kennedy put forth an initiative to conquer space itself by going to the moon. He wouldn’t live to see it but he knew his words defined the National Purpose for generations of explorers and adventurers with dreams to come. In 1991 on this date, his son John F. Kennedy Jr. won his first court case as a young lawyer. The Kennedy family rose from obscurity to become the family that would define the nation’s version of Camelot. They defined again what the National Purpose was.
In 1966, on today’s date the Beatles performed their last public concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The British Invasion created what the National Purpose was for millions of young admirers. Years later the National Purpose was recognized by the timeless tunes of a timeless era.
In war, our National Purpose is always questioned for the moral value, but in the end war is defined by the generals, the colonels, the majors, the sergeants and the privates who go in harms way to protect and define what our National Purpose is. On today’s date, in 1945, General MacArthur was named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan. He is known for his words that defined the National Purpose, “I shall return”, because he did. The National Purpose then was to defend the weak, by winning the war that brought our National Purpose to bear.
On today’s date, in 1862, the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) began. The Civil War was fought to define a National Purpose over States Rights and the freedom of millions. On today’s date, almost a century later, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed by Congress. This ended the question of how our National Purpose was limited to some Americans. On today’s date, in 1990, Saddam Hussein declared “America can't beat Iraq”. In the end, American soldiers beat back the forces that threatened our National Purpose.
In 1776, on today’s date the Americans withdrew from Manhattan to Westchester as our National Purpose was only beginning to be tested in ways that our enemies would only come to fear in future years. On August 29, 1786, Shays Rebellion in Springfield, Massachusetts began. Shays Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebels, led by Daniel Shays and known as the Shaysites (or Regulators), were mostly small farmers angered by crushing debt and taxes. Any failure to repay these debts often times resulted in imprisonment in a debtor’s prison or the claiming of property by the state. A Massachusetts militia was raised as a private army to defeat the Shaysites on February 3 of 1787. However, there was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to hold the Constitutional Convention, which began in May of 1787.
The United States may be unique, because it was formed as a voluntary association of States based on declared moral principles. These moral principles are known today as our National Purpose. Our National Purpose was also guaranteed in a Constitution that was new to the world.
The National Purpose is all around us. We don’t have to look for it and we don’t have to wait for disaster to rekindle it. All we have to do to see it is to walk down Main Street. We see it in our grocer’s face, as he practices commerce. We see it in the mailman’s face, as he works to deliver the mail in the rain, the sleet and the snow. We see it the fireman’s face and the policeman’s face, as they bravely deliver the public service. We see it as the old are tended to and the young are nurtured. We can celebrate the National Purpose by reading the names of those who were lost in war at our town’s memorials. We see the National Purpose as we maintain a set of morals that are based on a set of laws that bring civility and peace to our town squares. If you have any doubts, you can read about the National Purpose in our nation’s founding documents.
No matter how we are tested, be it by another man’s dangerous thoughts or be it the danger that nature sometimes delivers, our National Purpose should never be doubted, should never be politicized and can never be forgotten, because history is the diary of the National Purpose. Today, take that walk down Main Street and open your eyes. The National Purpose is right in front of you.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: America’s National Purpose will sometimes be questioned. Americans have that right, because it is a part of our set of morals to do so. The best part of the National Purpose gives us the morals to know when to question them and when to use them.
Friday, August 26, 2011
The cost of doing business!
Friday – August 26, 2011
The cost of doing business!
I know you all have heard the term, the “cost of doing business”. Some of you have probably used it. When I have, it usually has been said after great deliberation. However, some just say it, because they think they have nothing to lose, because things will work out in the end. Some who spend other people’s money might say it, because they are not paying the bills.
When the attitude of those who work in government say it’s the” cost of doing business”, then it becomes an issue, because it becomes our problem. This week, I have been talking about the cost of what happens when government through its agencies enacts regulations. I wrote about the seeds of freedom and about finding the common ground.
I started the week with discussing what the liberal plan is going forward. It is no surprise that the liberal plan is to demonize and practice the politics of personal destruction. Congresswoman (D – CA) Maxine Waters started it when she said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." These words are the worst kind of words that an elected official can use. I guess its okay when someone who isn’t an elected official uses them, but when they do, the real picture of what we should be looking at becomes clouded. This is also part of the plan.
The president is vacationing this week on Martha’s Vineyard. This is a special place, because it is a resort town on the East Coast. It’s actually an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Many in the town who live there year round depend on the seasonal tourist trade. This year hasn’t been so good. Main Street on the island now has empty store fronts and the towns folk have found themselves out of work and in some cases out of business.
I do not fault the President to take some family time. This is part of the President’s job, too. Sometimes going on vacation is just the “cost of doing business”. Many in business find a way to write off vacations and many in business use a place like the Martha’s Vineyards as a way of doing business.
This was the choice the President made when a budget of about 10 million dollars was created for the presidential vacation. My only comment is: Martha’s Vineyards is the home to many liberals. The Vineyards usually will welcome a fellow liberal, some did this week and some were cool towards their visitor. The real issue here is how could that10 million dollars have been better used? Could it have been used to pay down the National debt? Could it have been used to invest in education? Could it have been used to help the poor people on the island to open up the empty store fronts that were closed? Could it have been used to help prop up more social welfare? The answer to this and many more questions is yes!
The “cost of doing business” was on full display this week. The President had some downtime on the golf course, the president went shopping and the president worked. He visited the CEO of Comcast. He met with advisors to draft up another jobs bill and came up with another idea of how to save the housing industry, by encouraging yet more low interest government backed loans to homeowners who are still in trouble with their mortgages. The “cost of doing business” was put on display this week when Warren Buffet bought 5 billion dollars of Bank of Americas stock; 50,000 shares to be exact. The bank has been hard hit by its holdings of tainted mortgages. The problem with housing is that when these stock sales occur and the government artificially props up the housing market instead of letting it hit bottom by itself and rebound by itself the cost of doing business becomes far more expensive.
417,000 jobs were lost last week. The economy hit a dead spot in mid July and the unemployment rate is now stuck at 9%. Couple that with the governments own forecasts this week which indicated a new era for America. It seems that the New Era in America is headed for continued low growth and high unemployment for the foreseeable future. Last month the country experienced 1 % in economic growth. This is the result of when the government takes the attitude of this is the “cost of doing business”.
While the East Coast is bracing for Hurricane Irene the “cost of doing business” will go up, because the hurricane will be blamed for all the bad news next week. The high unemployment figures, a downed market and yet more bad economic news will be used by the President as another excuse. The “cost of doing business” will again be on display, because someone will ask who’s going to pay.
Every week I end the FORUM with a quote. Today, I have a series of quotes from Jefferson himself. These quotes all relate to what I have written this week. Take the time to consider the words and then ask yourself who is right and who is wrong. Why is Main Street hurting and what is the cause? Is the loss of freedom and liberty something that we should fight or is that loss of liberty and freedom is just the “cost of doing business”?
Take a walk down Main Street this weekend and ask yourself those questions. Then, consider these words.
Jefferson on the Constitution:
“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
Jefferson on the issue of today:
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”
Jefferson on Government:
“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”
Jefferson on Taxes”
“Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.”
Jefferson on the economy and debt:
“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”
Jefferson on the value of the industrious:
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
Jefferson on Liberty:
“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”
Jefferson on Democracy:
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Jefferson on Prosperity, or what the cost of doing business should be:
“The happiness and prosperity of our citizens is the only legitimate object of government.”
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Finding these quotes was an easy thing to do, but applying them to our everyday life is something entirely different. The true “cost of doing business” lies somewhere in the words that I am ending the week with and asking you to consider.
The cost of doing business!
I know you all have heard the term, the “cost of doing business”. Some of you have probably used it. When I have, it usually has been said after great deliberation. However, some just say it, because they think they have nothing to lose, because things will work out in the end. Some who spend other people’s money might say it, because they are not paying the bills.
When the attitude of those who work in government say it’s the” cost of doing business”, then it becomes an issue, because it becomes our problem. This week, I have been talking about the cost of what happens when government through its agencies enacts regulations. I wrote about the seeds of freedom and about finding the common ground.
I started the week with discussing what the liberal plan is going forward. It is no surprise that the liberal plan is to demonize and practice the politics of personal destruction. Congresswoman (D – CA) Maxine Waters started it when she said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." These words are the worst kind of words that an elected official can use. I guess its okay when someone who isn’t an elected official uses them, but when they do, the real picture of what we should be looking at becomes clouded. This is also part of the plan.
The president is vacationing this week on Martha’s Vineyard. This is a special place, because it is a resort town on the East Coast. It’s actually an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Many in the town who live there year round depend on the seasonal tourist trade. This year hasn’t been so good. Main Street on the island now has empty store fronts and the towns folk have found themselves out of work and in some cases out of business.
I do not fault the President to take some family time. This is part of the President’s job, too. Sometimes going on vacation is just the “cost of doing business”. Many in business find a way to write off vacations and many in business use a place like the Martha’s Vineyards as a way of doing business.
This was the choice the President made when a budget of about 10 million dollars was created for the presidential vacation. My only comment is: Martha’s Vineyards is the home to many liberals. The Vineyards usually will welcome a fellow liberal, some did this week and some were cool towards their visitor. The real issue here is how could that10 million dollars have been better used? Could it have been used to pay down the National debt? Could it have been used to invest in education? Could it have been used to help the poor people on the island to open up the empty store fronts that were closed? Could it have been used to help prop up more social welfare? The answer to this and many more questions is yes!
The “cost of doing business” was on full display this week. The President had some downtime on the golf course, the president went shopping and the president worked. He visited the CEO of Comcast. He met with advisors to draft up another jobs bill and came up with another idea of how to save the housing industry, by encouraging yet more low interest government backed loans to homeowners who are still in trouble with their mortgages. The “cost of doing business” was put on display this week when Warren Buffet bought 5 billion dollars of Bank of Americas stock; 50,000 shares to be exact. The bank has been hard hit by its holdings of tainted mortgages. The problem with housing is that when these stock sales occur and the government artificially props up the housing market instead of letting it hit bottom by itself and rebound by itself the cost of doing business becomes far more expensive.
417,000 jobs were lost last week. The economy hit a dead spot in mid July and the unemployment rate is now stuck at 9%. Couple that with the governments own forecasts this week which indicated a new era for America. It seems that the New Era in America is headed for continued low growth and high unemployment for the foreseeable future. Last month the country experienced 1 % in economic growth. This is the result of when the government takes the attitude of this is the “cost of doing business”.
While the East Coast is bracing for Hurricane Irene the “cost of doing business” will go up, because the hurricane will be blamed for all the bad news next week. The high unemployment figures, a downed market and yet more bad economic news will be used by the President as another excuse. The “cost of doing business” will again be on display, because someone will ask who’s going to pay.
Every week I end the FORUM with a quote. Today, I have a series of quotes from Jefferson himself. These quotes all relate to what I have written this week. Take the time to consider the words and then ask yourself who is right and who is wrong. Why is Main Street hurting and what is the cause? Is the loss of freedom and liberty something that we should fight or is that loss of liberty and freedom is just the “cost of doing business”?
Take a walk down Main Street this weekend and ask yourself those questions. Then, consider these words.
Jefferson on the Constitution:
“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
Jefferson on the issue of today:
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”
Jefferson on Government:
“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”
Jefferson on Taxes”
“Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.”
Jefferson on the economy and debt:
“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”
Jefferson on the value of the industrious:
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
Jefferson on Liberty:
“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”
Jefferson on Democracy:
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Jefferson on Prosperity, or what the cost of doing business should be:
“The happiness and prosperity of our citizens is the only legitimate object of government.”
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Finding these quotes was an easy thing to do, but applying them to our everyday life is something entirely different. The true “cost of doing business” lies somewhere in the words that I am ending the week with and asking you to consider.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A vote of no confidence:
Thursday – August 25, 2011
A vote of no Confidence:
The President said, on July 3, 2008 that then President George Bush, “has a credit card from the bank of China, in the name of our children”, while he was complaining about the 4 trillion dollars that Bush had added to the National Debt during his entire 8 year presidency. He was campaigning against the spending and the waste then.
Fast forward 3 years and you will find that the President has added 4 trillion in his presidency so far in his first term. The CBO announced that there would be another trillion dollars added to the debt next year alone. So, let’s get this straight. President Bush added 4 trillion dollars in 8 years and this president has added 4 trillion dollars in just under his first three years and counting. This is an important scenario and one that should be highlighted whenever the economy is discussed. This is the reason the economy is not moving forward.
The CBO came out yesterday and announced that unemployment would be at a rate of 8.5 % for the next three years. This, coupled with the debt that keeps on soaring, is why many of the CEOs in the country are starting to give the President a vote of no confidence.
The Democrats were trying to make George Bush a one term President. They failed. Now the Democrats are complaining that the Republicans and the Tea Party are trying to make Obama a one term President. What’s the difference? There is no difference, it’s just the politics. But one thing does remain clear. The president campaigned on his theory of how economics works and he is now being proved wrong. This is why it is OK to give a vote of no confidence now.
The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schults, has asked other CEO’s of great American companies not to give campaign donations to anyone in elected office until the balance sheet is cleared. I give this a vote of confidence. This is the start of a movement that should be encouraged. People donate large amounts of money to politicians for two reasons: access and influence. If more people would do the same as Schults is asking for then the influence and access that is gained through political donations will come to a halt. Maybe then people will get the message that it’s not about partisanship, it should be about citizenship.
The vote of no confidence is being felt in every corner of the economy lately. The president is meeting with business leaders for suggestions on what to do. What the president should be doing is meeting with those of us who are self employed and who run small businesses on Main Street to get a perspective of why there is a no confidence vote.
Part of the vote of no confidence is due to government regulations that hamper business growth and jobs growth. The CBO just came out with a new figure regulations are now 10% of GDP. I hate to be so dry with the figures I used yesterday and today, but these figures tell a story and these figures are the reason why there is now a vote of no confidence.
The EPA is about to come out with new regulations that would have been put into law if the Congress passed the cap and trade legislation. The EPA is usurping Congress and their ability to vote down bad legislation. The EPA will now add these regulations that will cost American industry billions. This money will go up the smoke stacks instead of down the drain.
The CBO just announced that there will be a reduction of 10 billion dollars in regulations, while the EPA and other agencies will enact new regulations that total 9.5 billion dollars in new cost to business. Where is the savings, it’s just a wash. There are new regulations on the amount of dust that can be allowed in the air, there are new regulations on the height of fences on cattle farms. These type of regulations tie business up instead of freeing business up to expand and create jobs.
There are 6.2 million Americans that have been out of work for 6 months. 7.33 million Americans are collecting unemployment insurance. In 2011 the Obama administration has proposed 340 new regulations at the cost of 65 billion dollars to business. No wonder there is a vote of no confidence. A new poll says that only 26% of Americans now favor how the president is handling the economy. This number is the lowest it has ever been. 2.4 million Job’s have been lost since the president took office a new record of job losses in any presidency. And we are supposed to be patient while we are told that things will work out. This administration is the first in 100 years to have more academics than business people among the ranks of advisors and cabinet members. Maybe this is part of the problem and another reason to give a vote of no confidence.
With all these new figures we are still not looking at the regulations that will be added into the economy under Obama-care and the new Dodd - Frank banking regulations bill that hasn’t even taken affect yet. One question I have is why is it possible that Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are still able to write new legislation when it was their original legislation that caused all this economic uncertainty in the first place?
There will be at least 59 more months of 8.5% or more unemployment that the CBO report is now projecting. The CBO also said that an additional 3 trillion dollars will be added to the debt on top of the 4 trillion the president has already accumulated. On July 3rd of 2008, the president said the amount of debt that has been accumulated under Bush was “irresponsible and unpatriotic.” I will use these words to describe this administration now.
I will use these words as a way to describe the administrators that legislate through the offices they hold in the bureaucracies such as the EPA that make law through the regulations they enact. The Congress is the only body in the government that can make law. Our government was originally designed through the system of checks and balances to prevent the things that are happening today in these agencies. I proposed a plan last week that would audit every agency and the charters that put them in business originally. What I think we would find would be the root of how government grows and how our money has literally disappeared.
A vote of no confidence on the part of every American has to be taken now so that our entire government goes through the house cleaning process that is now needed. This is why we must vote in new Representatives that are wise and realize just how prosperity works and how to grow the prosperity that is needed to take the government back from the few that regulate and that stealthily has taken our freedoms away.
When government and the people who operate the government through administrative functions consolidate ideology and start to legislate we must be prepared to call them “irresponsible and unpatriotic” and we must be prepared to take a vote of no confidence.
Jefferson wrote to Gideon Granger in 1800: "I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth."
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Let’s stimulate the patriotic forces necessary to make a no confidence vote and rid the agency bureaucrat and the politicians from the offices they hold. This is the only way that will ensure that our government serves us and not the bureaucracies that now rule our lives.
A vote of no Confidence:
The President said, on July 3, 2008 that then President George Bush, “has a credit card from the bank of China, in the name of our children”, while he was complaining about the 4 trillion dollars that Bush had added to the National Debt during his entire 8 year presidency. He was campaigning against the spending and the waste then.
Fast forward 3 years and you will find that the President has added 4 trillion in his presidency so far in his first term. The CBO announced that there would be another trillion dollars added to the debt next year alone. So, let’s get this straight. President Bush added 4 trillion dollars in 8 years and this president has added 4 trillion dollars in just under his first three years and counting. This is an important scenario and one that should be highlighted whenever the economy is discussed. This is the reason the economy is not moving forward.
The CBO came out yesterday and announced that unemployment would be at a rate of 8.5 % for the next three years. This, coupled with the debt that keeps on soaring, is why many of the CEOs in the country are starting to give the President a vote of no confidence.
The Democrats were trying to make George Bush a one term President. They failed. Now the Democrats are complaining that the Republicans and the Tea Party are trying to make Obama a one term President. What’s the difference? There is no difference, it’s just the politics. But one thing does remain clear. The president campaigned on his theory of how economics works and he is now being proved wrong. This is why it is OK to give a vote of no confidence now.
The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schults, has asked other CEO’s of great American companies not to give campaign donations to anyone in elected office until the balance sheet is cleared. I give this a vote of confidence. This is the start of a movement that should be encouraged. People donate large amounts of money to politicians for two reasons: access and influence. If more people would do the same as Schults is asking for then the influence and access that is gained through political donations will come to a halt. Maybe then people will get the message that it’s not about partisanship, it should be about citizenship.
The vote of no confidence is being felt in every corner of the economy lately. The president is meeting with business leaders for suggestions on what to do. What the president should be doing is meeting with those of us who are self employed and who run small businesses on Main Street to get a perspective of why there is a no confidence vote.
Part of the vote of no confidence is due to government regulations that hamper business growth and jobs growth. The CBO just came out with a new figure regulations are now 10% of GDP. I hate to be so dry with the figures I used yesterday and today, but these figures tell a story and these figures are the reason why there is now a vote of no confidence.
The EPA is about to come out with new regulations that would have been put into law if the Congress passed the cap and trade legislation. The EPA is usurping Congress and their ability to vote down bad legislation. The EPA will now add these regulations that will cost American industry billions. This money will go up the smoke stacks instead of down the drain.
The CBO just announced that there will be a reduction of 10 billion dollars in regulations, while the EPA and other agencies will enact new regulations that total 9.5 billion dollars in new cost to business. Where is the savings, it’s just a wash. There are new regulations on the amount of dust that can be allowed in the air, there are new regulations on the height of fences on cattle farms. These type of regulations tie business up instead of freeing business up to expand and create jobs.
There are 6.2 million Americans that have been out of work for 6 months. 7.33 million Americans are collecting unemployment insurance. In 2011 the Obama administration has proposed 340 new regulations at the cost of 65 billion dollars to business. No wonder there is a vote of no confidence. A new poll says that only 26% of Americans now favor how the president is handling the economy. This number is the lowest it has ever been. 2.4 million Job’s have been lost since the president took office a new record of job losses in any presidency. And we are supposed to be patient while we are told that things will work out. This administration is the first in 100 years to have more academics than business people among the ranks of advisors and cabinet members. Maybe this is part of the problem and another reason to give a vote of no confidence.
With all these new figures we are still not looking at the regulations that will be added into the economy under Obama-care and the new Dodd - Frank banking regulations bill that hasn’t even taken affect yet. One question I have is why is it possible that Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are still able to write new legislation when it was their original legislation that caused all this economic uncertainty in the first place?
There will be at least 59 more months of 8.5% or more unemployment that the CBO report is now projecting. The CBO also said that an additional 3 trillion dollars will be added to the debt on top of the 4 trillion the president has already accumulated. On July 3rd of 2008, the president said the amount of debt that has been accumulated under Bush was “irresponsible and unpatriotic.” I will use these words to describe this administration now.
I will use these words as a way to describe the administrators that legislate through the offices they hold in the bureaucracies such as the EPA that make law through the regulations they enact. The Congress is the only body in the government that can make law. Our government was originally designed through the system of checks and balances to prevent the things that are happening today in these agencies. I proposed a plan last week that would audit every agency and the charters that put them in business originally. What I think we would find would be the root of how government grows and how our money has literally disappeared.
A vote of no confidence on the part of every American has to be taken now so that our entire government goes through the house cleaning process that is now needed. This is why we must vote in new Representatives that are wise and realize just how prosperity works and how to grow the prosperity that is needed to take the government back from the few that regulate and that stealthily has taken our freedoms away.
When government and the people who operate the government through administrative functions consolidate ideology and start to legislate we must be prepared to call them “irresponsible and unpatriotic” and we must be prepared to take a vote of no confidence.
Jefferson wrote to Gideon Granger in 1800: "I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth."
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Let’s stimulate the patriotic forces necessary to make a no confidence vote and rid the agency bureaucrat and the politicians from the offices they hold. This is the only way that will ensure that our government serves us and not the bureaucracies that now rule our lives.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Just what is Common Ground?
Wednesday – August 24, 2011
Just what is Common Ground?
It takes leadership to find the common ground and to find solutions.
The left seems to be rigid and the right seems to be the ones that always bend. But with the left it is never enough. The right might have the best solutions; they might have the fairest solutions. The right might even have as some polls show the solutions that most Americans agree with.
But with the left it is never enough, because they just can’t get over the idea that some people in life have a rougher time than others. They can’t get over the fact that some have more money than others. They can’t get over the fact that some would give their wealth to help some others that they want to help, instead of what the government says should be the ones to help. They can’t get over the fact that we have a system that rewards individual excellence.
When an administration believes that a system that rewards individual excellence is flawed, then an atmosphere is created that does not provide for the proper leadership to do the things that are required to find the common ground and negotiate for a common ground.
When leadership is absent, the ability to find common ground is also absent. The President is meeting with Warren Buffet, the billionaire, and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Co., to discuss what needs to be done on the job front. In other words, how can we create jobs in this economy? When a President of the United States continually meets with business leaders and gets the same answers, but packages those answers in combination with his theories and ideology, common ground still cannot be found. Warren Buffet is a one of the wealthiest men in the world. He believes that the super rich should pay more. So that advice will only bolster the President’s belief on who should pay more in taxes. The increase in revenue that will result from the rich paying more is miniscule and will only disappear into the entitlement abyss.
There is no doubt that a safety net must exist in this country. For instance, the safety net of Social Security was intended for short term relief when it was created. However, the left made it into the bureaucracy it is today so that tax dollars would fund the growing entitlement and every thing else under the sun. In time, like everything else the government manages, it grows into something it was never intended to be. Social Security is now a retirement benefit and/or a way of life. If the money that had been put into Social Security over time was untouched and still there, based on the original charter, it would be fully funded and it could handle the pay out to the baby boomers that are now entering the system daily. However, the government via the President and the Congress over time has raided the fund to the point that it will be broke by 2017. This is what government does. This is the model of the left. Healthcare will be no different, when it becomes a bureaucracy.
The model of job growth that the president will propose on September 5, will be just another government sponsored program with the rich paying their fair share. When the rich are required to pay their fair share it registers with those who want government aid and who want the government to provide for the masses. In other words the government is doing its job!
The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently came out with these statistics. In 1960, government spending was 27% of the nations GDP. Now the government spends 37% of our GDP. In 1980 the National Debt was 42% of the nations GDP. Now the National Debt is 100% of our GDP. The Tax Foundation recently published these statistics. In1986, 18% of the population paid negative or no tax. Today, 51% pay negative or no tax.
The solution is to view all entitlements as safety nets. The cost of these entitlements go up, because of fraud and because many who do not need the benefits collect them, because its law. Instead of asking the super rich to pay their fair share why not ask them to opt out of the entitlements altogether?
Many participants should be means tested and be given benefits based on their economic need and there income level at retirement. In other words if someone was fortunate to make millions during their careers their benefits might not be as much as those who were not as fortunate. We should not penalize someone if they want to work past the legal retirement age either. If they produce, they will be contributing to the economy.
Instead of another jobs plan that will cost more in tax payer dollars and do nothing to cure the spending and entitlement problem, we should be demanding that the government spend our money more wisely before they ask the rich or upper middle class to pay more in taxes. If we place wise, practical and experienced people in elected positions, then common ground can once again be attained over time.
The Politicians of today are nothing less than theoreticians. A wise experienced person would look at entitlements and see that the premise was good, but also see that the current programs really don’t help those that need it most today. A wise and experienced person would take an objective view of spending and realize that it can no longer be supported without reforms that would make entitlements a safety net instead of a way of life. In time, the entitlement crowd would become producers and tax payers, if they were given the means to wean themselves from government sponsored programs. In time, the entitlement crowd would come to see the benefits of being prosperous contributors.
The means are a simple thing called a job and a career. The means are a simple thing called a pro growth economy that encourages investment in business and in people. In time, if 100% of the people who worked paid their fair share we could have the safety net as it was originally intended by some wise people who were once office holders and who had the compassion to provide a short term benefit to the people by a limited government.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: You see common ground can be achieved, if we follow the original plan. This also includes the original plan of those who created the Constitution so that common ground could be achieved.
Just what is Common Ground?
It takes leadership to find the common ground and to find solutions.
The left seems to be rigid and the right seems to be the ones that always bend. But with the left it is never enough. The right might have the best solutions; they might have the fairest solutions. The right might even have as some polls show the solutions that most Americans agree with.
But with the left it is never enough, because they just can’t get over the idea that some people in life have a rougher time than others. They can’t get over the fact that some have more money than others. They can’t get over the fact that some would give their wealth to help some others that they want to help, instead of what the government says should be the ones to help. They can’t get over the fact that we have a system that rewards individual excellence.
When an administration believes that a system that rewards individual excellence is flawed, then an atmosphere is created that does not provide for the proper leadership to do the things that are required to find the common ground and negotiate for a common ground.
When leadership is absent, the ability to find common ground is also absent. The President is meeting with Warren Buffet, the billionaire, and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Co., to discuss what needs to be done on the job front. In other words, how can we create jobs in this economy? When a President of the United States continually meets with business leaders and gets the same answers, but packages those answers in combination with his theories and ideology, common ground still cannot be found. Warren Buffet is a one of the wealthiest men in the world. He believes that the super rich should pay more. So that advice will only bolster the President’s belief on who should pay more in taxes. The increase in revenue that will result from the rich paying more is miniscule and will only disappear into the entitlement abyss.
There is no doubt that a safety net must exist in this country. For instance, the safety net of Social Security was intended for short term relief when it was created. However, the left made it into the bureaucracy it is today so that tax dollars would fund the growing entitlement and every thing else under the sun. In time, like everything else the government manages, it grows into something it was never intended to be. Social Security is now a retirement benefit and/or a way of life. If the money that had been put into Social Security over time was untouched and still there, based on the original charter, it would be fully funded and it could handle the pay out to the baby boomers that are now entering the system daily. However, the government via the President and the Congress over time has raided the fund to the point that it will be broke by 2017. This is what government does. This is the model of the left. Healthcare will be no different, when it becomes a bureaucracy.
The model of job growth that the president will propose on September 5, will be just another government sponsored program with the rich paying their fair share. When the rich are required to pay their fair share it registers with those who want government aid and who want the government to provide for the masses. In other words the government is doing its job!
The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently came out with these statistics. In 1960, government spending was 27% of the nations GDP. Now the government spends 37% of our GDP. In 1980 the National Debt was 42% of the nations GDP. Now the National Debt is 100% of our GDP. The Tax Foundation recently published these statistics. In1986, 18% of the population paid negative or no tax. Today, 51% pay negative or no tax.
The solution is to view all entitlements as safety nets. The cost of these entitlements go up, because of fraud and because many who do not need the benefits collect them, because its law. Instead of asking the super rich to pay their fair share why not ask them to opt out of the entitlements altogether?
Many participants should be means tested and be given benefits based on their economic need and there income level at retirement. In other words if someone was fortunate to make millions during their careers their benefits might not be as much as those who were not as fortunate. We should not penalize someone if they want to work past the legal retirement age either. If they produce, they will be contributing to the economy.
Instead of another jobs plan that will cost more in tax payer dollars and do nothing to cure the spending and entitlement problem, we should be demanding that the government spend our money more wisely before they ask the rich or upper middle class to pay more in taxes. If we place wise, practical and experienced people in elected positions, then common ground can once again be attained over time.
The Politicians of today are nothing less than theoreticians. A wise experienced person would look at entitlements and see that the premise was good, but also see that the current programs really don’t help those that need it most today. A wise and experienced person would take an objective view of spending and realize that it can no longer be supported without reforms that would make entitlements a safety net instead of a way of life. In time, the entitlement crowd would become producers and tax payers, if they were given the means to wean themselves from government sponsored programs. In time, the entitlement crowd would come to see the benefits of being prosperous contributors.
The means are a simple thing called a job and a career. The means are a simple thing called a pro growth economy that encourages investment in business and in people. In time, if 100% of the people who worked paid their fair share we could have the safety net as it was originally intended by some wise people who were once office holders and who had the compassion to provide a short term benefit to the people by a limited government.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: You see common ground can be achieved, if we follow the original plan. This also includes the original plan of those who created the Constitution so that common ground could be achieved.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The open rebellion!
Tuesday – August 23, 2011
The open rebellion!
On today’s date, in 1775, King George III proclaimed the colonies to be in open rebellion.
This was the preverbal slap in the face to the American colonies and to all Americans who had gotten behind the Olive Branch Petition that was sent to the King as a petition for peace. The petition assured the King that the Americans would remain loyal subjects and had no desire for independence, as long as their grievances were satisfactorily addressed. The Americans were represented by Richard Penn and Arthur Lee who had presented the petition to the Secretary of State for the American Colonies, Lord Dartmouth. It was two days later that King George issued his most famous proclamation. This is one of the last actions that persuaded many wavering American colonists that the King was actively seeking to destroy their God – given rights, which ultimately led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence that was presented to the King the next year.
As I read about the Olive Branch petition and have related in past months important pieces of the history behind the Declaration, it dawned on me that we are still fighting for Independence and our God-given rights today.
It dawned on me that our government is calling for support from all sides to demonize the Tea Party and anybody who seems to be an extremist for the side of liberty. Yesterday, I wrote about Maxine Waters who said of the Tea Party, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." Who was she addressing? For the most part, she was addressing some Americans who seem to think that their God- given rights entitle them to be the recipients of the redistributive policies that Ms. Waters supports.
Just as the early patriots were considered extremists, the patriots today should be proud and should be vocal in what they believe. Members of Congress, like Maxine, have been around far too long. I am sure that their intentions were noble when they first got into the game, but their intentions now are far from noble. The old style politician like Maxine does not and cannot represent the concerns of the majority of Americans who now understand just what is at stake.
Representatives who continue to call the modern day patriots extremists and who intimate that they are in open rebellion are no worse than the proclamation that King George issued 236 years ago.
The debate today is about ideas. The King’s ideas were far different than that of the patriots who wanted peace, through satisfaction of their grievances. The Tea Party members, the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, everyone who wants to reign in the government footprint and to reduce government spending, are communicating their ideas. Their ideas are not so far from the ideas that the early colonists asked King George to listen to and to act upon.
To differentiate the tax and spend group from the reduce tax and reduce spending group you must look at who the groups are represented by and what promises have been made.
You must also realize that many of the promises that have been made have not been delivered by representatives like Maxine Waters. Her quest has been to fight against those who have the wealth. Her quest has been to take the wealth from that group and give the wealth to the group she represents. The dirty little secret is Maxine has acquired wealth, as a result of the power she has been able to build over the years. Her supporters will never admit that, because their goal is to rob from the future to pay those in the present and pretend Maxine’s wealth does not exist.
It’s not a sophisticated idea to take wealth and redistribute it. However, it is sophisticated to use government for the services government should provide, and let private industry and private sponsorship develop the answers to the needs of the local community. The thoughts of the patriots were sophisticated because they knew the value of what limited government could provide. They knew that with limited government wealth could be generated and wealth would be passed down because of the independence they had.
Today the groups that believe they are entitled to the wealth of the nation don’t know what independence means, because some in government have prevented the idea of independence to take root. When this happens the essential values of America have been purposely lost for political value and political expediency.
You have heard the term “the seeds of freedom”. We cannot grow those seeds while subsidizing the liberty and independence that if let alone would grow freedom by itself. I believe that this was the true meaning behind the open rebellion that the patriots fortunately were accused of.
Today it’s okay to be accused of the same things that those who wrote the Olive Branch petition were accused of. If history repeats itself, representatives like Maxine Waters will in the end be defeated like King George III was. When this happens independence will give the light to the seeds of freedom. The quest for freedom spawned the tree of liberty that we knew would never die.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: I am pleased to think that I am in open rebellion, I speak what I think and I believe in what the early patriots fought for. To me that is a badge and a label to be proud of.
The open rebellion!
On today’s date, in 1775, King George III proclaimed the colonies to be in open rebellion.
This was the preverbal slap in the face to the American colonies and to all Americans who had gotten behind the Olive Branch Petition that was sent to the King as a petition for peace. The petition assured the King that the Americans would remain loyal subjects and had no desire for independence, as long as their grievances were satisfactorily addressed. The Americans were represented by Richard Penn and Arthur Lee who had presented the petition to the Secretary of State for the American Colonies, Lord Dartmouth. It was two days later that King George issued his most famous proclamation. This is one of the last actions that persuaded many wavering American colonists that the King was actively seeking to destroy their God – given rights, which ultimately led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence that was presented to the King the next year.
As I read about the Olive Branch petition and have related in past months important pieces of the history behind the Declaration, it dawned on me that we are still fighting for Independence and our God-given rights today.
It dawned on me that our government is calling for support from all sides to demonize the Tea Party and anybody who seems to be an extremist for the side of liberty. Yesterday, I wrote about Maxine Waters who said of the Tea Party, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." Who was she addressing? For the most part, she was addressing some Americans who seem to think that their God- given rights entitle them to be the recipients of the redistributive policies that Ms. Waters supports.
Just as the early patriots were considered extremists, the patriots today should be proud and should be vocal in what they believe. Members of Congress, like Maxine, have been around far too long. I am sure that their intentions were noble when they first got into the game, but their intentions now are far from noble. The old style politician like Maxine does not and cannot represent the concerns of the majority of Americans who now understand just what is at stake.
Representatives who continue to call the modern day patriots extremists and who intimate that they are in open rebellion are no worse than the proclamation that King George issued 236 years ago.
The debate today is about ideas. The King’s ideas were far different than that of the patriots who wanted peace, through satisfaction of their grievances. The Tea Party members, the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, everyone who wants to reign in the government footprint and to reduce government spending, are communicating their ideas. Their ideas are not so far from the ideas that the early colonists asked King George to listen to and to act upon.
To differentiate the tax and spend group from the reduce tax and reduce spending group you must look at who the groups are represented by and what promises have been made.
You must also realize that many of the promises that have been made have not been delivered by representatives like Maxine Waters. Her quest has been to fight against those who have the wealth. Her quest has been to take the wealth from that group and give the wealth to the group she represents. The dirty little secret is Maxine has acquired wealth, as a result of the power she has been able to build over the years. Her supporters will never admit that, because their goal is to rob from the future to pay those in the present and pretend Maxine’s wealth does not exist.
It’s not a sophisticated idea to take wealth and redistribute it. However, it is sophisticated to use government for the services government should provide, and let private industry and private sponsorship develop the answers to the needs of the local community. The thoughts of the patriots were sophisticated because they knew the value of what limited government could provide. They knew that with limited government wealth could be generated and wealth would be passed down because of the independence they had.
Today the groups that believe they are entitled to the wealth of the nation don’t know what independence means, because some in government have prevented the idea of independence to take root. When this happens the essential values of America have been purposely lost for political value and political expediency.
You have heard the term “the seeds of freedom”. We cannot grow those seeds while subsidizing the liberty and independence that if let alone would grow freedom by itself. I believe that this was the true meaning behind the open rebellion that the patriots fortunately were accused of.
Today it’s okay to be accused of the same things that those who wrote the Olive Branch petition were accused of. If history repeats itself, representatives like Maxine Waters will in the end be defeated like King George III was. When this happens independence will give the light to the seeds of freedom. The quest for freedom spawned the tree of liberty that we knew would never die.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: I am pleased to think that I am in open rebellion, I speak what I think and I believe in what the early patriots fought for. To me that is a badge and a label to be proud of.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Plan!
Monday - August 22, 2011
The Plan!
There is a plan to solve the economic problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the political problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the immigration problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the unemployment problems of the country.
The plan is to blame the Tea Party. It’s an easy plan, because there is no single person to blame, except for a group of people who want to reduce the size of government and to reduce the size of the Federal Deficit. The current plan is what they object to. The current plan going forward is to keep borrowing for the increased spending habits of the Federal Government.
All the Democratic talking points are to now blame the Tea Party for the countries ills. The Democrats are saying that the Tea Party held the budget process hostage while the debate of the debt ceiling took center stage three weeks ago. Honestly can 1/8 of 1/3 of the government hold the budget process hostage in the 8 months they have served? They can’t, but the new talking points register with many voters, because the voter wants to be able to blame the other guy as being the problem.
Over the weekend Congress Woman Maxine Waters (D) California said: "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." The crowd, reportedly "more than 2,000 people," cheered her statement. The Congress Woman went on to say “I am not afraid of the big bad wolf.” Her comments were made at a rally in Englewood California in front of members of SEIU union members. The Congresswoman is under investigation for allegedly violating House rules by improperly intervening with federal officials on behalf of a local bank, One United Bank that her husband owned stock in and once sat on the board of directors. It’s not clear yet what would be contained in a Statement of Alleged Violations if the investigative subcommittee determines she acted improperly. Apart from the ethics violations investigation, I contend that her votes over the past 18 years have contributed to the debt and budget problems we have today.
The plan that the Tea Party rejects will not cure the country, the plan Maxine Water’s supports will only divide the country further and put the country further into the hole.
Whether you slice it or dice it, the Tea Party has not caused the economic problems that we have today. The problems we face today are a result of policies that have occurred over the course of the last 80 years. These economic problems are now the cause for uncertainty in just about every aspect of every American’s lives. It affects the discussion on taxes, it affects the discussion over immigration and it affects how unemployment is addressed going forward in the country.
Look back in history and find out for yourself when government started to grow and for what purpose. Find out when the federal budget started to grow exponentially. In the course of 80 years the American people have displayed needs, but have not paid attention to how those needs were being addressed. We have blamed and we have listened to what we wanted to listen to. We have let it happen to ourselves with the people we elect and how we view the performance of the people we elect. We have put self interest over the country’s needs.
We have allowed presidents to overrule the policies of Congress. We have allowed Congress and past administrations to create new laws that are, in many cases, unconstitutional and that don’t follow the blue print of what the forefathers set in motion. This is a result of pandering and yielding to special interests that work against the common good. Every time a right or a policy is diluted from its original intent certain freedoms are affected. Freedoms are violated for political correctness. Political correctness has diluted the national spirit of retaining what are time honored traditions and time tested correct paths.
The voices of those who want to bring back the correct paths as a way to solve the issues of today are now being demonized by an administration who wants to keep the current problems the issues going forward. The plan is to demonize and not to offer real solutions. Just listen to the talking points. If real solutions were offered, support would become the norm of the day. The norm of the day now is to say a plan is on the way. The plan will pit one party against the other and then force the Republicans via the Tea Party to reject the plan and be blamed for obstructionism. Some say this is politics. Some say this is one party not agreeing with the other; and then some say look at the blue print, follow the Constitution follow the path that the forefathers wanted.
I am asking one question; what is so bad about a single group of people that do not have an organizing body to want a semblance brought back to governing, who want true reforms made that will actually protect those Americans who cannot protect themselves and bring back the greatness of our nation through tax reform, immigration reform and budget reform? What is wrong with a group of people who do not want government to grow and who do not want to face a debt that cannot be paid back? What is wrong with a group of people who think that going back to the roots of the founding will actually put us on a track to progressing ahead in the 21 century? What is wrong with a group of people who want change and who do not want to hear the rhetoric of another plan that will be presented after Labor Day?
The nation’s first priority is to tackle the deficit. This week will bring continued swings in the financial markets around the world. It will reflect uncertainty in the over throw of Muammar Gaddafi 40 year reign of terror in Libya. A political vacuum will occur, because there is not a plan to contain Libya in now what will be the Arab Fall.
Europe is close to a recession and the United States is following quickly. The blame should not be put on the backs of those who want to cure it through a conservative fiscal approach of reduced spending and reduced government growth, with a strong, even-handed foreign policy. The blame should not be put onto a group of people who had nothing to do with causing the uncertainty that exists in every financial sector, not only in this country, but now in every political sector of the world. To blame is only a way to defer who is really at fault.
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
“The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.”
“Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”
This could be part of a plan going forward. Does this make sense? Will this plan take care of those that don’t think they can take care of themselves? Does this plan do for posterity, as it would do for those who are living today? Does this plan create uncertainty? Can any part of this plan be criticized for not doing enough? Can these words possibly be a part of a plan that can bring a semblance to a country and the world?
I would love to take credit for these words, but these are not my words, these are the words of Thomas Jefferson. These were his thoughts. If you have a problem with a group of people who want to recognize these words, don’t blame them, blame Jefferson. If you have a problem with these words, maybe its time you analyze how you came to the position of denying the credibility of these words.
Maybe the credibility of those who blame the other guy should now be examined.
The current plan going forward has not worked out so well, we all know it and the rest of the world now knows it. When Americans can finally determine that the Tea Party and Jefferson are not the threat and the fault of today’s current problems we, as a country, will then be able to blame the ones who are really at fault. The ones who constantly blame the other guy will never blame Jefferson directly, because to do so would be un-American. Now that you know what Jefferson thought and what the Tea Party represents, how can you or anyone say that they are to blame for the current problems we have in the country today?
Don’t blame me for being truthful; maybe that is what differentiates me from the other guy!
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: The plan is there, it’s been there all the time. It doesn’t take a Harvard grad who says he knows about constitutional law to say he’s got a plan. Remember what your wise Uncle told you: the one who always blames is the one who is at fault.
The Plan!
There is a plan to solve the economic problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the political problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the immigration problems in the country. There is a plan to solve the unemployment problems of the country.
The plan is to blame the Tea Party. It’s an easy plan, because there is no single person to blame, except for a group of people who want to reduce the size of government and to reduce the size of the Federal Deficit. The current plan is what they object to. The current plan going forward is to keep borrowing for the increased spending habits of the Federal Government.
All the Democratic talking points are to now blame the Tea Party for the countries ills. The Democrats are saying that the Tea Party held the budget process hostage while the debate of the debt ceiling took center stage three weeks ago. Honestly can 1/8 of 1/3 of the government hold the budget process hostage in the 8 months they have served? They can’t, but the new talking points register with many voters, because the voter wants to be able to blame the other guy as being the problem.
Over the weekend Congress Woman Maxine Waters (D) California said: "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." The crowd, reportedly "more than 2,000 people," cheered her statement. The Congress Woman went on to say “I am not afraid of the big bad wolf.” Her comments were made at a rally in Englewood California in front of members of SEIU union members. The Congresswoman is under investigation for allegedly violating House rules by improperly intervening with federal officials on behalf of a local bank, One United Bank that her husband owned stock in and once sat on the board of directors. It’s not clear yet what would be contained in a Statement of Alleged Violations if the investigative subcommittee determines she acted improperly. Apart from the ethics violations investigation, I contend that her votes over the past 18 years have contributed to the debt and budget problems we have today.
The plan that the Tea Party rejects will not cure the country, the plan Maxine Water’s supports will only divide the country further and put the country further into the hole.
Whether you slice it or dice it, the Tea Party has not caused the economic problems that we have today. The problems we face today are a result of policies that have occurred over the course of the last 80 years. These economic problems are now the cause for uncertainty in just about every aspect of every American’s lives. It affects the discussion on taxes, it affects the discussion over immigration and it affects how unemployment is addressed going forward in the country.
Look back in history and find out for yourself when government started to grow and for what purpose. Find out when the federal budget started to grow exponentially. In the course of 80 years the American people have displayed needs, but have not paid attention to how those needs were being addressed. We have blamed and we have listened to what we wanted to listen to. We have let it happen to ourselves with the people we elect and how we view the performance of the people we elect. We have put self interest over the country’s needs.
We have allowed presidents to overrule the policies of Congress. We have allowed Congress and past administrations to create new laws that are, in many cases, unconstitutional and that don’t follow the blue print of what the forefathers set in motion. This is a result of pandering and yielding to special interests that work against the common good. Every time a right or a policy is diluted from its original intent certain freedoms are affected. Freedoms are violated for political correctness. Political correctness has diluted the national spirit of retaining what are time honored traditions and time tested correct paths.
The voices of those who want to bring back the correct paths as a way to solve the issues of today are now being demonized by an administration who wants to keep the current problems the issues going forward. The plan is to demonize and not to offer real solutions. Just listen to the talking points. If real solutions were offered, support would become the norm of the day. The norm of the day now is to say a plan is on the way. The plan will pit one party against the other and then force the Republicans via the Tea Party to reject the plan and be blamed for obstructionism. Some say this is politics. Some say this is one party not agreeing with the other; and then some say look at the blue print, follow the Constitution follow the path that the forefathers wanted.
I am asking one question; what is so bad about a single group of people that do not have an organizing body to want a semblance brought back to governing, who want true reforms made that will actually protect those Americans who cannot protect themselves and bring back the greatness of our nation through tax reform, immigration reform and budget reform? What is wrong with a group of people who do not want government to grow and who do not want to face a debt that cannot be paid back? What is wrong with a group of people who think that going back to the roots of the founding will actually put us on a track to progressing ahead in the 21 century? What is wrong with a group of people who want change and who do not want to hear the rhetoric of another plan that will be presented after Labor Day?
The nation’s first priority is to tackle the deficit. This week will bring continued swings in the financial markets around the world. It will reflect uncertainty in the over throw of Muammar Gaddafi 40 year reign of terror in Libya. A political vacuum will occur, because there is not a plan to contain Libya in now what will be the Arab Fall.
Europe is close to a recession and the United States is following quickly. The blame should not be put on the backs of those who want to cure it through a conservative fiscal approach of reduced spending and reduced government growth, with a strong, even-handed foreign policy. The blame should not be put onto a group of people who had nothing to do with causing the uncertainty that exists in every financial sector, not only in this country, but now in every political sector of the world. To blame is only a way to defer who is really at fault.
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
“The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.”
“Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”
This could be part of a plan going forward. Does this make sense? Will this plan take care of those that don’t think they can take care of themselves? Does this plan do for posterity, as it would do for those who are living today? Does this plan create uncertainty? Can any part of this plan be criticized for not doing enough? Can these words possibly be a part of a plan that can bring a semblance to a country and the world?
I would love to take credit for these words, but these are not my words, these are the words of Thomas Jefferson. These were his thoughts. If you have a problem with a group of people who want to recognize these words, don’t blame them, blame Jefferson. If you have a problem with these words, maybe its time you analyze how you came to the position of denying the credibility of these words.
Maybe the credibility of those who blame the other guy should now be examined.
The current plan going forward has not worked out so well, we all know it and the rest of the world now knows it. When Americans can finally determine that the Tea Party and Jefferson are not the threat and the fault of today’s current problems we, as a country, will then be able to blame the ones who are really at fault. The ones who constantly blame the other guy will never blame Jefferson directly, because to do so would be un-American. Now that you know what Jefferson thought and what the Tea Party represents, how can you or anyone say that they are to blame for the current problems we have in the country today?
Don’t blame me for being truthful; maybe that is what differentiates me from the other guy!
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: The plan is there, it’s been there all the time. It doesn’t take a Harvard grad who says he knows about constitutional law to say he’s got a plan. Remember what your wise Uncle told you: the one who always blames is the one who is at fault.
Friday, August 19, 2011
It's all in the title, Main Street!
Friday-August 19, 2011
It’s all in the title, Main Street!
This week, I have started to define “what I would do” instead of complaining about what others do. A very good friend of mine asked me that question and it has stuck with me and it has motivated me. Sometimes friends have that effect!
In days gone by, when our country was governed under a constitutionally limited government, it must have provided a true sense of National Security in that the citizens of the newly formed United States of America had security in the National purpose. Its time has come to consider just what the National purpose of the country will be going forward, while keeping in mind what our founding principles are. You will notice that I didn’t say what the founding principles were. I believe the founding principals are still alive today, some of us have just forgotten about them.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to Samuel Smith in 1788: "We are now vibrating between too much and too little government and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle."
The full impact of bringing back a sense of national purpose is to appeal to the higher sense of the voter. The final impact of bringing that pendulum back to the middle will be to make an argument that appeals to the hearts and the souls of each American. The appeal will have to raise the conscience level and will have to appeal to each voter’s sense of purpose. Jefferson wrote in his Rights of British America in 1774: "The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest."
It is time to wake the public up from their long hibernation of relying on entitlements, relying on big government to do the smallest things that most in this country are capable of doing themselves. It is time to create the sense of community that has walked off of America’s Main Street. That process of thought, that has escaped some of us, created the most dynamic of economies, it built the highest buildings and it has created the highest standard of living in the history of the world. People from other countries stop and marvel at it and that is what motivates them to come to this country to partake in its freedoms, the liberty that is ours and the independence, that when practiced, will create the sense of community that we miss today. It is time to wake up the nation, one community at a time.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Stephens Smith in 1787: “Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty. “ Jefferson also said: “We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.”
Some Americans are lethargic, because some have lost the confidence in their government from ever doing the right thing again. I come across many people who tell me one man cannot make a difference any longer. I say to them that they are just plain wrong. I tell them about what Jefferson wrote to C.W.F. Dumas in 1787: "To inform the minds of the people, and to follow their will, is the chief duty of those placed at their head”.
This was the thought of men at the time of our founding, this is part of the founding principles that I believe people still want to see, but more importantly still want to believe. But they can’t, because this is not what is practiced in Washington, in our City Halls and our State Houses. This is what I believe is appealing to the higher sense, this is what I believe will appeal to the hearts and souls when demonstrated. This is what must be on display to bring back the trust and to bring back laws that are designed for the benefit of the community and the benefit of America’s Main Streets.
The Main Street of America took another hit yesterday. The threat of recession is in the air, new claims for unemployment hit 408,000 people, home sales are down to an eight year low, and the market is in full swing because of world wide financial fears.
A little known title to many is The Philly Fed index (Philadelphia Federal Index) is at a negative 30 (-30) today. This is a regional federal-reserve-bank index measuring changes in business growth. The index is constructed from a survey of participants who voluntarily answer questions regarding the direction of change in their overall business activities. The survey is a measure of regional manufacturing growth. When the index is above 0 it indicates factory-sector growth, and when below 0 indicates contraction. This index is published by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank on the third Thursday of the month at 10 am EST. It is considered to be a good gauge of general business conditions. This little known titles report is what is sparking the fears of another recession.
When Jefferson spoke about honesty, the political pendulum, lethargy and the importance of informing the minds of people, he was speaking about leadership and the importance of other leaders to recognize when leadership is absent. He said to Edward Rutledge in 1796: “I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses nor pursue measures by which they may profit by their measures.” As Wall Street trades, Main Street feels the pressure. As the President uses his title to enact laws that will cost Americans, yet unborn, in ways we cannot fathom, all economic indexes are in the negative range. As some in Congress complain that the President is using his title for campaign purposes, while on official business, America did not grow this week.
The leaders of America fell short this week on the promise of the liberty that creates free markets and the freedom that should not bind us with laws that restrict via the regulations that the many faceless titles in Washington creates. Those titles with those unfamiliar faces stifled the independence that Jefferson spoke about when he said: "I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821
Today, I hope that the history of Jefferson’s words made sense. I hope that the title of today’s FORUM struck a thread in your conscience. I will be doing more of this, as I move along Main Street in the coming months. Our Constitution was created to benefit the people of Main Street and it was written to protect the people of Main Street. Jefferson wrote: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Main Street is where you can get the pulse of America today. The pulse on Main Street is a bit slow, but you can strengthen it by relating to people by appealing to their higher senses. Its not about having skin in the game, it’s all about how to save the people on Main Street from all the faceless titles in Washington that think they know the people on Main Street.
It’s all in the title, Main Street!
This week, I have started to define “what I would do” instead of complaining about what others do. A very good friend of mine asked me that question and it has stuck with me and it has motivated me. Sometimes friends have that effect!
In days gone by, when our country was governed under a constitutionally limited government, it must have provided a true sense of National Security in that the citizens of the newly formed United States of America had security in the National purpose. Its time has come to consider just what the National purpose of the country will be going forward, while keeping in mind what our founding principles are. You will notice that I didn’t say what the founding principles were. I believe the founding principals are still alive today, some of us have just forgotten about them.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to Samuel Smith in 1788: "We are now vibrating between too much and too little government and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle."
The full impact of bringing back a sense of national purpose is to appeal to the higher sense of the voter. The final impact of bringing that pendulum back to the middle will be to make an argument that appeals to the hearts and the souls of each American. The appeal will have to raise the conscience level and will have to appeal to each voter’s sense of purpose. Jefferson wrote in his Rights of British America in 1774: "The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest."
It is time to wake the public up from their long hibernation of relying on entitlements, relying on big government to do the smallest things that most in this country are capable of doing themselves. It is time to create the sense of community that has walked off of America’s Main Street. That process of thought, that has escaped some of us, created the most dynamic of economies, it built the highest buildings and it has created the highest standard of living in the history of the world. People from other countries stop and marvel at it and that is what motivates them to come to this country to partake in its freedoms, the liberty that is ours and the independence, that when practiced, will create the sense of community that we miss today. It is time to wake up the nation, one community at a time.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Stephens Smith in 1787: “Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty. “ Jefferson also said: “We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.”
Some Americans are lethargic, because some have lost the confidence in their government from ever doing the right thing again. I come across many people who tell me one man cannot make a difference any longer. I say to them that they are just plain wrong. I tell them about what Jefferson wrote to C.W.F. Dumas in 1787: "To inform the minds of the people, and to follow their will, is the chief duty of those placed at their head”.
This was the thought of men at the time of our founding, this is part of the founding principles that I believe people still want to see, but more importantly still want to believe. But they can’t, because this is not what is practiced in Washington, in our City Halls and our State Houses. This is what I believe is appealing to the higher sense, this is what I believe will appeal to the hearts and souls when demonstrated. This is what must be on display to bring back the trust and to bring back laws that are designed for the benefit of the community and the benefit of America’s Main Streets.
The Main Street of America took another hit yesterday. The threat of recession is in the air, new claims for unemployment hit 408,000 people, home sales are down to an eight year low, and the market is in full swing because of world wide financial fears.
A little known title to many is The Philly Fed index (Philadelphia Federal Index) is at a negative 30 (-30) today. This is a regional federal-reserve-bank index measuring changes in business growth. The index is constructed from a survey of participants who voluntarily answer questions regarding the direction of change in their overall business activities. The survey is a measure of regional manufacturing growth. When the index is above 0 it indicates factory-sector growth, and when below 0 indicates contraction. This index is published by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank on the third Thursday of the month at 10 am EST. It is considered to be a good gauge of general business conditions. This little known titles report is what is sparking the fears of another recession.
When Jefferson spoke about honesty, the political pendulum, lethargy and the importance of informing the minds of people, he was speaking about leadership and the importance of other leaders to recognize when leadership is absent. He said to Edward Rutledge in 1796: “I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses nor pursue measures by which they may profit by their measures.” As Wall Street trades, Main Street feels the pressure. As the President uses his title to enact laws that will cost Americans, yet unborn, in ways we cannot fathom, all economic indexes are in the negative range. As some in Congress complain that the President is using his title for campaign purposes, while on official business, America did not grow this week.
The leaders of America fell short this week on the promise of the liberty that creates free markets and the freedom that should not bind us with laws that restrict via the regulations that the many faceless titles in Washington creates. Those titles with those unfamiliar faces stifled the independence that Jefferson spoke about when he said: "I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821
Today, I hope that the history of Jefferson’s words made sense. I hope that the title of today’s FORUM struck a thread in your conscience. I will be doing more of this, as I move along Main Street in the coming months. Our Constitution was created to benefit the people of Main Street and it was written to protect the people of Main Street. Jefferson wrote: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: Main Street is where you can get the pulse of America today. The pulse on Main Street is a bit slow, but you can strengthen it by relating to people by appealing to their higher senses. Its not about having skin in the game, it’s all about how to save the people on Main Street from all the faceless titles in Washington that think they know the people on Main Street.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The full impact!
Thursday-August 18, 2011
The full impact!
The latest court ruling that says Obama-care is un-Constitutional might just be the one that triggers the public option. Last week’s court decision, in a 2-to-1 verdict in the 11th Circuit court in Atlanta, sets up a dramatic, seemingly inevitable election-year showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court over the legality of Obama’s signature legislative initiative.
Yesterday, I spoke about budgets and entitlements and their cost.
The President’s signature piece of legislation has not even been implemented and we know it will cost an additional 50 billion dollars right out of the box, because the assumptions that were made were the wrong assumptions to begin with. A baseline was established to determine the amount of Americans that would be covered under Obama-care. The assumption was based on the present number of Americans who now have healthcare Insurance. That number didn’t take into account the additions that would be made to the number in each household, because of the new law that makes it legal for 25 year olds sharing of their parent’s healthcare policy. The old cutoff was 21 years of age. This drastically affected the first assumption of cost by about 50 billion dollars. This is another example of how government doesn’t get anything right. This is another example of what happens when your sole purpose is to cater to a few for their votes so that you will keep your elected office. In this case, its cost to the tax payer is 50 billion dollars.
Healthcare expert and former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said the “ruling effectively puts the brakes on cash-strapped states’ implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many more states now will slow down or entirely halt their current efforts to create state insurance exchanges,” said McCaughey, who hailed the decision as, “a very important day for all Americans who care about individual liberty, and a very important day for those who are concerned about the economic growth urgently needed by this nation.”McCaughey predicted states won’t spend scare resources preparing to implement a law that appears very vulnerable to being thrown out as unconstitutional.
So far, federal judges in Florida and Virginia have ruled against the act, while judges in Michigan and Virginia upheld it. Judges appointed by Democrats have consistently upheld the law, while Republican judges generally ruled against it. But Friday, one Republican judicial appointee and one Democratic judicial appointee concurred that the individual mandate is un-Constitutional.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has been leading a separate legal challenge to Obama-care in the Old Dominion, issued a statement congratulating the 26 state attorney generals who successfully brought the Constitutional challenge to the 11th Circuit Court. "The court determined that the power to force one citizen to purchase a good or service from another is outside the established outer limits of both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause,” Cuccinelli stated.
“The court also ruled that, although the president and Congress want to now call the penalty a tax to make it pass Constitutional muster, the penalty cannot be sustained under the federal government's taxing authority because the penalty is clearly not a tax,” he said.
However, the little known Section titled 1334 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act pages 97 thru 100 states that the president has authority through an executive order to have the office of personal management enact that part of the law, which would be the public option. The single payer option would make it possible for the government to compete with private insurance companies with a mandated lower cost structure. This move would put the insurance industry out of business. The result of this would still allow the government to enforce Obama-care with all its un-Constitutional mandates, enforced by an executive order. The difference would be that government would be allowed to enforce the single payer option or the public option. Like most liberals, instead of abiding by the courts decision, it would be done by fiscal FIAT. When Nancy Pelosi said, “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it”, she was not lying.
What needs to be done now is to have a bill in Congress move through the legislative process that would block all funding for the public option or dreaded single payer option. This approach would kill funding and force the Senate to go along with the block and let the courts figure it out.
The full impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not even known. But the way the president has set it up, with it becoming law in 2012 after the election, is to have no political liability, because he would not be up for re-election. The president really believes that this type of legislation cures all the ills of government and a society that doesn’t care for the indigent. The other side of this story is that taxes would significantly go up because someone has to pay for Obama-care.
The Presidents signature piece of legislation does nothing to encourage Tort reform. It will do nothing to prevent fraud and abuse, because it is the government administering the funds. Remember, it’s already 50 billion in the hole and it hasn’t even started!
The full impact of any government program always results in three things; loss of liberty, loss of freedom and loss in independence. The first thing to solve the healthcare debate in this country hasn’t been done. There has to be Tort reform, an effort to make healthcare competitive through market forces, insurance reform, big drug reform and fraud and abuse reform. These are the elements that will reduce cost, bring better service and keep what is best working for Americans and that is the delivery system.
Now, on to the economy. The full impact of this administration’s assumptions on stimulus is just beginning to be felt. Some of us have warned you about what happens when you assume. I was one of them. Former Obama economic advisor Jared Bernstein said on August 13, 2011; “At the time, we simply didn’t have good information. We now know, with revised data, in that very quarter when we made that wrong projection the economy contracted at a rate of almost 9%. The statistics were way off at the time its also the case that the forecast that we gave back then was the consensus forecast of the economic community it wasn’t that we were wrong everyone was wrong.” He is speaking about the stimulus packages and the presidents push for spending all that money. Assumptions were made and again; they were the wrong assumptions.
What you are witnessing is the administration coming up with a new job plan and deficit reduction plan on September 5th to counteract the old plan, which was designed to counteract the plan that counteracted the original plan, which was drafted with the wrong assumptions. The administration doesn’t have to pay back the money for the mistakes that were made, because the tax payer now has been forced to pick up that tab! I hate to say I told you, but I did.
In these two cases assumptions were made and the assumptions were the wrong assumptions. I will never understand why people, smart people and intelligent people, depend on the government to make the right assumptions. I will never understand why citizens will relinquish their freedoms, their liberties and their independence over the thought that government can do it better.
I had a conversation with a pharmacist who related a story about a well known local elected official. This local official came into the drug store to pick up the prescription that was ordered for him. This elected official did not have his government healthcare card for payment of the prescription, so the pharmacist said he’d take cash. The elected official said that his aide carried his card, so they tried to call the aide for the group number and other information. The aide could not be reached and to the elected official’s disgust he was forced to pay cash after the pharmacist said that he could not give him the prescription without payment.
The elected official could not understand that he had to pay for it himself, much like most of us do on a daily basis.
Some might say ok, what’s the point and some might already know what the point is. The point to this story is that this particular elected official felt entitled. He felt that he should have gotten the prescription given to him, because of who he was. You see, public officials always play by different rules, because they feel that the rules we are forced to live with don’t apply to them. The entitlement society also feels that the rules we, as tax payers, live by don’t apply to them at all. You get rid of the entitlement and then everybody will play by the same rules, what’s so wrong with that?
I know who this politician is and it is now time for him to leave the office he has held for decades. It has been his votes over the course of decades that have promoted an entitlement way of life and it has been his votes that continually support the bad liberal legislation that has come out of Washington. It has been his assumptions that have been at the center of his bad decisions to support the bad assumptions that were made at the top of his liberal party.
Until we decide to make our leaders accountable for their bad decisions, which are always based on bad assumptions, we will continually be stuck with the tab and the erosion of you know, our liberty, our freedom and our independence.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: These three stories are based on fact. These three stories go to the heart of the problem we have in this country today. They are: Bad assumptions, bad legislation and people who have voted for these two things continually for years. The full impact is what we are seeing today. Don’t think that a new set of assumptions will make for better legislation especially on September5. The track record just is not there. Don’t think that with this group your liberty, freedom and independence will grow - it won’t, and that’s the full impact.
The full impact!
The latest court ruling that says Obama-care is un-Constitutional might just be the one that triggers the public option. Last week’s court decision, in a 2-to-1 verdict in the 11th Circuit court in Atlanta, sets up a dramatic, seemingly inevitable election-year showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court over the legality of Obama’s signature legislative initiative.
Yesterday, I spoke about budgets and entitlements and their cost.
The President’s signature piece of legislation has not even been implemented and we know it will cost an additional 50 billion dollars right out of the box, because the assumptions that were made were the wrong assumptions to begin with. A baseline was established to determine the amount of Americans that would be covered under Obama-care. The assumption was based on the present number of Americans who now have healthcare Insurance. That number didn’t take into account the additions that would be made to the number in each household, because of the new law that makes it legal for 25 year olds sharing of their parent’s healthcare policy. The old cutoff was 21 years of age. This drastically affected the first assumption of cost by about 50 billion dollars. This is another example of how government doesn’t get anything right. This is another example of what happens when your sole purpose is to cater to a few for their votes so that you will keep your elected office. In this case, its cost to the tax payer is 50 billion dollars.
Healthcare expert and former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said the “ruling effectively puts the brakes on cash-strapped states’ implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many more states now will slow down or entirely halt their current efforts to create state insurance exchanges,” said McCaughey, who hailed the decision as, “a very important day for all Americans who care about individual liberty, and a very important day for those who are concerned about the economic growth urgently needed by this nation.”McCaughey predicted states won’t spend scare resources preparing to implement a law that appears very vulnerable to being thrown out as unconstitutional.
So far, federal judges in Florida and Virginia have ruled against the act, while judges in Michigan and Virginia upheld it. Judges appointed by Democrats have consistently upheld the law, while Republican judges generally ruled against it. But Friday, one Republican judicial appointee and one Democratic judicial appointee concurred that the individual mandate is un-Constitutional.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has been leading a separate legal challenge to Obama-care in the Old Dominion, issued a statement congratulating the 26 state attorney generals who successfully brought the Constitutional challenge to the 11th Circuit Court. "The court determined that the power to force one citizen to purchase a good or service from another is outside the established outer limits of both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause,” Cuccinelli stated.
“The court also ruled that, although the president and Congress want to now call the penalty a tax to make it pass Constitutional muster, the penalty cannot be sustained under the federal government's taxing authority because the penalty is clearly not a tax,” he said.
However, the little known Section titled 1334 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act pages 97 thru 100 states that the president has authority through an executive order to have the office of personal management enact that part of the law, which would be the public option. The single payer option would make it possible for the government to compete with private insurance companies with a mandated lower cost structure. This move would put the insurance industry out of business. The result of this would still allow the government to enforce Obama-care with all its un-Constitutional mandates, enforced by an executive order. The difference would be that government would be allowed to enforce the single payer option or the public option. Like most liberals, instead of abiding by the courts decision, it would be done by fiscal FIAT. When Nancy Pelosi said, “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it”, she was not lying.
What needs to be done now is to have a bill in Congress move through the legislative process that would block all funding for the public option or dreaded single payer option. This approach would kill funding and force the Senate to go along with the block and let the courts figure it out.
The full impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not even known. But the way the president has set it up, with it becoming law in 2012 after the election, is to have no political liability, because he would not be up for re-election. The president really believes that this type of legislation cures all the ills of government and a society that doesn’t care for the indigent. The other side of this story is that taxes would significantly go up because someone has to pay for Obama-care.
The Presidents signature piece of legislation does nothing to encourage Tort reform. It will do nothing to prevent fraud and abuse, because it is the government administering the funds. Remember, it’s already 50 billion in the hole and it hasn’t even started!
The full impact of any government program always results in three things; loss of liberty, loss of freedom and loss in independence. The first thing to solve the healthcare debate in this country hasn’t been done. There has to be Tort reform, an effort to make healthcare competitive through market forces, insurance reform, big drug reform and fraud and abuse reform. These are the elements that will reduce cost, bring better service and keep what is best working for Americans and that is the delivery system.
Now, on to the economy. The full impact of this administration’s assumptions on stimulus is just beginning to be felt. Some of us have warned you about what happens when you assume. I was one of them. Former Obama economic advisor Jared Bernstein said on August 13, 2011; “At the time, we simply didn’t have good information. We now know, with revised data, in that very quarter when we made that wrong projection the economy contracted at a rate of almost 9%. The statistics were way off at the time its also the case that the forecast that we gave back then was the consensus forecast of the economic community it wasn’t that we were wrong everyone was wrong.” He is speaking about the stimulus packages and the presidents push for spending all that money. Assumptions were made and again; they were the wrong assumptions.
What you are witnessing is the administration coming up with a new job plan and deficit reduction plan on September 5th to counteract the old plan, which was designed to counteract the plan that counteracted the original plan, which was drafted with the wrong assumptions. The administration doesn’t have to pay back the money for the mistakes that were made, because the tax payer now has been forced to pick up that tab! I hate to say I told you, but I did.
In these two cases assumptions were made and the assumptions were the wrong assumptions. I will never understand why people, smart people and intelligent people, depend on the government to make the right assumptions. I will never understand why citizens will relinquish their freedoms, their liberties and their independence over the thought that government can do it better.
I had a conversation with a pharmacist who related a story about a well known local elected official. This local official came into the drug store to pick up the prescription that was ordered for him. This elected official did not have his government healthcare card for payment of the prescription, so the pharmacist said he’d take cash. The elected official said that his aide carried his card, so they tried to call the aide for the group number and other information. The aide could not be reached and to the elected official’s disgust he was forced to pay cash after the pharmacist said that he could not give him the prescription without payment.
The elected official could not understand that he had to pay for it himself, much like most of us do on a daily basis.
Some might say ok, what’s the point and some might already know what the point is. The point to this story is that this particular elected official felt entitled. He felt that he should have gotten the prescription given to him, because of who he was. You see, public officials always play by different rules, because they feel that the rules we are forced to live with don’t apply to them. The entitlement society also feels that the rules we, as tax payers, live by don’t apply to them at all. You get rid of the entitlement and then everybody will play by the same rules, what’s so wrong with that?
I know who this politician is and it is now time for him to leave the office he has held for decades. It has been his votes over the course of decades that have promoted an entitlement way of life and it has been his votes that continually support the bad liberal legislation that has come out of Washington. It has been his assumptions that have been at the center of his bad decisions to support the bad assumptions that were made at the top of his liberal party.
Until we decide to make our leaders accountable for their bad decisions, which are always based on bad assumptions, we will continually be stuck with the tab and the erosion of you know, our liberty, our freedom and our independence.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: These three stories are based on fact. These three stories go to the heart of the problem we have in this country today. They are: Bad assumptions, bad legislation and people who have voted for these two things continually for years. The full impact is what we are seeing today. Don’t think that a new set of assumptions will make for better legislation especially on September5. The track record just is not there. Don’t think that with this group your liberty, freedom and independence will grow - it won’t, and that’s the full impact.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
It's time has come:
Wednesday-August 17, 2011
It’s time has come:
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the National Debt. I tried to convey just how much money the government spends in a 24 hour period. Go to http://usdebtclock.org and watch the dollars pile up in the time that it takes you to read the FORUM this morning.
Yesterday, I wrote about my thoughts on tax reform. I quoted a little bit of Kennedy and then gave my two cents about what to do. I hope I made some sense about how the cents are collected.
Today, it’s time to consider how the government spends the cents that it collects because there is very little sense in the process.
Nobody, not even the head of the Federal Government, can give you an accurate accounting of what is spent on a daily, weekly and yearly basis by the Federal Government. The President has his own personal budget that some estimate to be as low as 5 million dollars and as high as 50 million. Why the President needs this kind of money is beyond me. This only opens the door to further secret dealings that most of us abhor anyway.
There are other secret budgets. These are known as Black Budgets that we have no information about and that we gladly give 1 trillion dollars annually to support. Some of these costs are needed, like the Secret Service budget that I believe is never disclosed. We have an intelligence apparatus to operate, because the bad guys make us spend our money to defend our way of life. The military takes a big chunk and that’s fine, because the government must constitutionally provide for the “common defense.” Some activities might challenge the Constitution, but that’s another discussion for another day. These budgets are needed and there could be some waste, however these budgets don’t necessarily cause a budget deficit. I believe there is a cost benefit associated with our National Security.
Our Federal Government operates on the basis of baseline budgeting. For instance, if the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) says it needs 100 billion dollars at the start of its charter to operate with, it will get that 100 billion dollars every year, plus what it says it needs in addition to that figure. In other words, the EPA is guaranteed the same baseline, plus. This only becomes a problem when there is no accountability to the public or to its original charter. Base line budgeting is for dummies, because it doesn’t take any sense of finance to create a budget going out for lets say five years, because all you need to do is add 20% to last years budget plus another 5% because you can. I agree that this is a simplified description of what occurs in the budgeting process, but it is also an accurate one.
This process becomes a problem when there is layer upon layer of agency and other agency sponsored programs that basically do the same thing. If every agency or any arm of the Federal Government adds extra money beyond what they need just because they can, no wonder the country is broke. No wonder that the debt clock keeps ticking and the number grows by the billions with in hours.
Yesterday, I related many quotes that were attributed to President Kennedy in his fight to reform the tax code. In 1962, the tax code was complicated, but it was nothing like it is today. It’s not only taxes, but it is the cost of government that drives up our taxes. In Kennedy’s day, we were talking about billions. Today we are talking in terms of trillions, over 14 and on the way to 19 trillion to be exact and counting.
No matter what government does, no matter how noble the intention is a new program always starts small and grows. The amount of money it takes to run a program just keeps getting bigger and bigger. With government there is never retreat there is always advancement, even if it is unwarranted.
So, where am I going with this? I gave a few examples of how budgeting works and I gave a brief perspective on cost and how that cost grows because it is allowed to because of no accountability. This is the problem with the bureaucrats and the bureaucracies they reign over. The bureaucrat always manages to increase their responsibility not only in scope, but in how they spend your money.
I will be working to advance a budget reform plan in the coming months, but today my goal is to make you aware of what the problem is.
I will be working on a proposal on how to audit the entire government’s function through a targeted financial review and through an organization audit of each agencies charter. This would be similar to what a company does when it acquires another company, it’s called due diligence. We will soon find that each agency has moved so far from there original charter that we just might find that some agencies aren’t needed any more. Along with each agency there are duplicate agencies that support duplicate functions. All these functions take personal and take money to run and to operate them. If we don’t have enough revenue this government for some silly reason thinks that we must fuel the cost of duplicated efforts because that’s what we did last year and the year before and the year before that. This is what needs to change.
If government managers really managed then they would find ways to improve the service and improve their respective bottom line. But government doesn’t hire managers they hire bureaucrats out of college and train them on how to spend tax payer money instead of making tax payer money work for the tax payer. This is the difference between the private and public sector.
In the private sector, if you don’t manage the company’s funds properly, within the law, you will get fired and possibly sent to jail. However, in the public sector if you don’t make waves, manage to spend the money so you can get more next year, you are then considered a fine government employee. There is oversight but there is no oversight in the process of allocation. You see with government there is no accountability because the money will always be there. When government spends it can only do it in three ways, it taxes or it takes it, and in the extreme it prints more of it when it needs to, it then sells the debt to get cash to fuel the sick behavior.
It’s the behavior of the beast that must be cured. When we have the cost of entitlements rise each year because of the scope and dynamics of the participants and the increasing government sponsored programs because of the politically manufactured needs of the participants it is no wonder that the debt clock keeps ticking as each dollar is spent. If a sensible tax structure was created that would pay for these entitlements and if reforms were made to cut fraud and abuse and if true budgets were sought and maintained then we could start to have a continued process of review, through audits and through recommendations that either cut budgets or that cuts out the redundancy and waist that we know exists.
At the end of this process we just might find out that our national defense would become a common defense on the war against the unnecessary growth of government and the cost to support that unnecessary cost. It takes political will and it takes a strong soul. These are the kind of people that we should attract to run for office because it will take a new type of politician to do the peoples work going forward.
Just yesterday, the European Union called for each Euro Region country to have a balanced budget and to monitor closely the expenditures and management of there bureaucracies. If Europe can do this we should be able to do it better here. This is the attitude we need to cultivate. However, when a government fights any form of accountability to its tax payer then a balanced budget amendment will never get passed. Again it’s the behavior of the beast that we must change.
As I said a few weeks ago, there will be another budget battle in Congress in September. This is the time when the budget appropriations are made to run the government and all of the governmental agencies. Congress is the only arm of government that can allocate tax dollars for this process. The president said yesterday he will have a budget plan and job plan in September, he said: “get it done.” I can guarantee that the new budget will come down exactly the way I referenced in today’s FORUM, because that’s the way we did it last year. I will also guarantee that there will be no Balanced Budget talk either.
Some in Congress agree that necessary reforms are needed and a balanced budget is part of the solution. Until political will can be achieved across the board nothing will be done to improve the sick behavior of this budget process. There will be cuts but not in the way that will cure the behavior and the current deficit structure.
Remember these words: “If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.”
-George Washington
This is sounding more and more like the breed of politician that is needed today. Those words were spoken for the first time when the course was set for the countries well being. It is not Washington’s fault that they have not been listened to. We know his words to be truthful, because we knew he could never tell a lie. His words are as truthful today as they were when he spoke them for the first time as President. These words have been forgotten by many, but are now being remembered by few today. I am proud to be one of them!
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: It’s time has come to audit, to review and to do away with useless programs and useless agencies. We can replace what needs to be replaced so the needs of today and tomorrow can be met through the principals of our founding history.
Now, go check the debt clock again.
It’s time has come:
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the National Debt. I tried to convey just how much money the government spends in a 24 hour period. Go to http://usdebtclock.org and watch the dollars pile up in the time that it takes you to read the FORUM this morning.
Yesterday, I wrote about my thoughts on tax reform. I quoted a little bit of Kennedy and then gave my two cents about what to do. I hope I made some sense about how the cents are collected.
Today, it’s time to consider how the government spends the cents that it collects because there is very little sense in the process.
Nobody, not even the head of the Federal Government, can give you an accurate accounting of what is spent on a daily, weekly and yearly basis by the Federal Government. The President has his own personal budget that some estimate to be as low as 5 million dollars and as high as 50 million. Why the President needs this kind of money is beyond me. This only opens the door to further secret dealings that most of us abhor anyway.
There are other secret budgets. These are known as Black Budgets that we have no information about and that we gladly give 1 trillion dollars annually to support. Some of these costs are needed, like the Secret Service budget that I believe is never disclosed. We have an intelligence apparatus to operate, because the bad guys make us spend our money to defend our way of life. The military takes a big chunk and that’s fine, because the government must constitutionally provide for the “common defense.” Some activities might challenge the Constitution, but that’s another discussion for another day. These budgets are needed and there could be some waste, however these budgets don’t necessarily cause a budget deficit. I believe there is a cost benefit associated with our National Security.
Our Federal Government operates on the basis of baseline budgeting. For instance, if the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) says it needs 100 billion dollars at the start of its charter to operate with, it will get that 100 billion dollars every year, plus what it says it needs in addition to that figure. In other words, the EPA is guaranteed the same baseline, plus. This only becomes a problem when there is no accountability to the public or to its original charter. Base line budgeting is for dummies, because it doesn’t take any sense of finance to create a budget going out for lets say five years, because all you need to do is add 20% to last years budget plus another 5% because you can. I agree that this is a simplified description of what occurs in the budgeting process, but it is also an accurate one.
This process becomes a problem when there is layer upon layer of agency and other agency sponsored programs that basically do the same thing. If every agency or any arm of the Federal Government adds extra money beyond what they need just because they can, no wonder the country is broke. No wonder that the debt clock keeps ticking and the number grows by the billions with in hours.
Yesterday, I related many quotes that were attributed to President Kennedy in his fight to reform the tax code. In 1962, the tax code was complicated, but it was nothing like it is today. It’s not only taxes, but it is the cost of government that drives up our taxes. In Kennedy’s day, we were talking about billions. Today we are talking in terms of trillions, over 14 and on the way to 19 trillion to be exact and counting.
No matter what government does, no matter how noble the intention is a new program always starts small and grows. The amount of money it takes to run a program just keeps getting bigger and bigger. With government there is never retreat there is always advancement, even if it is unwarranted.
So, where am I going with this? I gave a few examples of how budgeting works and I gave a brief perspective on cost and how that cost grows because it is allowed to because of no accountability. This is the problem with the bureaucrats and the bureaucracies they reign over. The bureaucrat always manages to increase their responsibility not only in scope, but in how they spend your money.
I will be working to advance a budget reform plan in the coming months, but today my goal is to make you aware of what the problem is.
I will be working on a proposal on how to audit the entire government’s function through a targeted financial review and through an organization audit of each agencies charter. This would be similar to what a company does when it acquires another company, it’s called due diligence. We will soon find that each agency has moved so far from there original charter that we just might find that some agencies aren’t needed any more. Along with each agency there are duplicate agencies that support duplicate functions. All these functions take personal and take money to run and to operate them. If we don’t have enough revenue this government for some silly reason thinks that we must fuel the cost of duplicated efforts because that’s what we did last year and the year before and the year before that. This is what needs to change.
If government managers really managed then they would find ways to improve the service and improve their respective bottom line. But government doesn’t hire managers they hire bureaucrats out of college and train them on how to spend tax payer money instead of making tax payer money work for the tax payer. This is the difference between the private and public sector.
In the private sector, if you don’t manage the company’s funds properly, within the law, you will get fired and possibly sent to jail. However, in the public sector if you don’t make waves, manage to spend the money so you can get more next year, you are then considered a fine government employee. There is oversight but there is no oversight in the process of allocation. You see with government there is no accountability because the money will always be there. When government spends it can only do it in three ways, it taxes or it takes it, and in the extreme it prints more of it when it needs to, it then sells the debt to get cash to fuel the sick behavior.
It’s the behavior of the beast that must be cured. When we have the cost of entitlements rise each year because of the scope and dynamics of the participants and the increasing government sponsored programs because of the politically manufactured needs of the participants it is no wonder that the debt clock keeps ticking as each dollar is spent. If a sensible tax structure was created that would pay for these entitlements and if reforms were made to cut fraud and abuse and if true budgets were sought and maintained then we could start to have a continued process of review, through audits and through recommendations that either cut budgets or that cuts out the redundancy and waist that we know exists.
At the end of this process we just might find out that our national defense would become a common defense on the war against the unnecessary growth of government and the cost to support that unnecessary cost. It takes political will and it takes a strong soul. These are the kind of people that we should attract to run for office because it will take a new type of politician to do the peoples work going forward.
Just yesterday, the European Union called for each Euro Region country to have a balanced budget and to monitor closely the expenditures and management of there bureaucracies. If Europe can do this we should be able to do it better here. This is the attitude we need to cultivate. However, when a government fights any form of accountability to its tax payer then a balanced budget amendment will never get passed. Again it’s the behavior of the beast that we must change.
As I said a few weeks ago, there will be another budget battle in Congress in September. This is the time when the budget appropriations are made to run the government and all of the governmental agencies. Congress is the only arm of government that can allocate tax dollars for this process. The president said yesterday he will have a budget plan and job plan in September, he said: “get it done.” I can guarantee that the new budget will come down exactly the way I referenced in today’s FORUM, because that’s the way we did it last year. I will also guarantee that there will be no Balanced Budget talk either.
Some in Congress agree that necessary reforms are needed and a balanced budget is part of the solution. Until political will can be achieved across the board nothing will be done to improve the sick behavior of this budget process. There will be cuts but not in the way that will cure the behavior and the current deficit structure.
Remember these words: “If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.”
-George Washington
This is sounding more and more like the breed of politician that is needed today. Those words were spoken for the first time when the course was set for the countries well being. It is not Washington’s fault that they have not been listened to. We know his words to be truthful, because we knew he could never tell a lie. His words are as truthful today as they were when he spoke them for the first time as President. These words have been forgotten by many, but are now being remembered by few today. I am proud to be one of them!
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: It’s time has come to audit, to review and to do away with useless programs and useless agencies. We can replace what needs to be replaced so the needs of today and tomorrow can be met through the principals of our founding history.
Now, go check the debt clock again.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Days gone by:
Monday – August 15, 2011
Days gone by:
It used to be that a President’s words were met with certain action. It used to be that a President’s words were words that were met with a plan. It used to be that the president would lead a Congress and a Senate. It used to be that the President, the Congress and the Senate would work hand in hand to improve the condition of the country and to insure and inspire each and every one of its citizens that the country would grow and that the country would prosper. These are the guarantees that our posterity are depending on.
Those were the days that have now gone by. As we witnessed the straw poll in Iowa this weekend and we analyze the results, we cannot begin to think that the results are finalized and that the front runners will be the front runners in the next go around. I am not going to predict who I think will win. I am not going to predict what the front runner is going to say or is going to do next. But what I will do is begin to lay out a plan of where I believe the country should go and how we can get it there.
What I will begin to do today is to remind you of what I wrote on July 8, 2011. This will start to frame the platform that is necessary for any candidate to consider and the one that we should be considering when we vote for a new President, Senator, or even a Congressman. We should also take these thoughts and bring them down to a local level. When we vote for a Governor or a new Mayor or even a City Council member, we must start to analyze their positions, as they compare to what our forefathers conveyed in our founding documents.
Someone who I consider to be a close friend and who I also consider to be a great friend asked me this question last night, “what would I do”, if I had a chance to make a difference. I might add one more thing; Barbara is also a smart friend. The question was asked because of a discussion that I will put into context over the next few weeks. Today’s FORUM is a reprint of what I wrote on July 8, 2011. I am reprinting this article in hope that it will start to define an answer to the basic question of “what would I do.” I hope that this article will begin to answer the basic question that was asked of me by a friend!
________
July 8, 2011
The first view!
On today’s date, in 1776, John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
Upon finalizing the text of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 Congress issued the Declaration in several forms. It was initially published as a printed broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The most famous version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Although the wording of the Declaration was approved on July 4, the date of its signing has been disputed. Most historians have concluded that it was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4, as is commonly believed.
The sources and interpretation of the Declaration has been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. Having served its original purpose in announcing independence, the text of the Declaration was initially ignored after the American Revolution. However, its stature grew over the years, particularly the second sentence, which brings human rights into the political structure of the colonies.
“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.”
This sentence has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language" and "the most potent and consequential words in American history". The passage has often been used to promote the rights of marginalized people, and came to represent a moral standard for which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy, and argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.
It is fitting that in July we talk about independence and it is essential that we understand the reasons why our independence was sought.
This week, I have tried to bring into focus some of the facts and a few of the political considerations that our forefathers were aware of and used to their benefit in developing the concept of independence from Great Britain. Jefferson who has been credited for the draft and the final wording was in fact in love with the idea of a separate nation under its own rule. He along with many of the original signers made it abundantly clear that with independence would come the question of self rule and that the governed have the final say over their government.
Jefferson wrote: “Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British Empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.”
—Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775
By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations between the colonies and the mother country had been deteriorating since the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The war had plunged the British government deep into debt, and so Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. Parliament believed that these acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep the colonies in the British Empire.
Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire. Because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. The orthodox British view, dating from the “Glorious Revolution of 1688”, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire and so, by definition, anything Parliament did was constitutional.
In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government—not even Parliament—could violate. After the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth by 1774 American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the empire only through their allegiance to the Crown.
Now that you have the first view of how our Declaration of Independence came to be, we must start to ask the same questions that Jefferson, Adams and Wilson were asking. The questions today are the same as they were then. It is over jurisdiction; the rights of separate state legislatures, our fundamental founding principles and “among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The answers to the essential questions we have today should be viewed through the prism of history and what the historical facts tell us. The first view of our independence was through “certain unalienable” rights and not through what politicians believe our rights should be.
If I were fortunate enough to be representing the people today, I would be looking to find the answers through the prism of what Jefferson and Adams view was. I would be testing legislation through the Constitutional litmus rather than the entitlement litmus that runs Washington today. I would be looking at tax and spending issues through the prism of wealth generation and not through the prism of shared responsibility and spreading of the wealth. I would be looking to create equal opportunity and not making an attempt to equalize the results of equal opportunity.
If I were fortunate enough to represent the people, I would not make a career out of it, but rather to create the view of what was seen through the creation of these words: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
In order to grow a more perfect union, our posterity must be given the chance to experience the promotion of general welfare, not through entitlements but through free enterprise, free markets and the freedom that our way of life brings if unaltered and if kept alone. Those who believe in liberty and who were taught to respect the law and who through moral standards create the wealth are the ones that will create an environment for our posterity to do the same. This is what I believe was the first view that our forefathers saw.
I end each week with a quote: “If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.”
-George Washington
The first view is the correct view, because it is unhampered and it is so inspiring. But then again, this is just my opinion.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: The prism in which I speak of can be viewed for the first time if you view the original context of what independence, liberty and freedom was designed to give. Government could never provide it because the view of the forefathers put the responsibility into the hands of the governed. We must view the principals of what Jefferson put into words and what Lincoln saw.
_____
My dear friend Barbara, I hope that I have begun to answer your question of what I would do if I were fortunate enough to represent the people. And to the rest of the readers, I hope that I am fortifying what you already know about me.
Through this month of August I will state in clear terms what I would do in many areas of what the daily debate brings to us all.
This is an important month, there is a fair amount of history and there will be a fair amount of opinion, this I will guarantee!
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: A prediction is always based on conjecture. Fact, however, is based on history and future fact is a result of how we view the past history of “days gone by.”
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Quite the field:
Friday – August 12, 2011
Quite a field:
Yes, I watched, I listened, I learned and I saw the great potential of possible Republican Presidential Candidates on the FOX debates. Some of the questions were meant to bring emotion and some were meant to bring out the character of the person.
All choices are on Romney, with Bachman in second, Gingrich third and don’t count out Paul yet. However, there will be two more candidates that will pop up that were not at the debate Thursday night. Ultimately, we will have four candidates to choose from. The winner of Saturday’s Iowa straw poll will either surprise us or confirm what many of us already believe.
One thing is for sure, each one of the candidates we saw on Thursday night’s debate are far more qualified than the present occupant of the White House. We must remember that qualifications matter in the election of 2012. We must also remember that the House will be in play and that the Senate will also be the focus of the election.
I am concerned about one thing that could tilt the presidential election by a factor of two or three percentage points. It is the movie that is now being filmed about the raid that got Osama Bin Laden. Obama will do everything in his power to make it about him. What we cannot forget is that when Obama got Osama it was due to the Bush era policies that were in place that gave the White House the intelligence that proved to be deadly for Osama.
It never ceases to amaze me that it only takes a few people to formulate an opinion as fact when they see a movie. It only takes a few points to turn an election, especially when a movie will favor one side and distort the truth to give credit where credit is not due. I am not saying the president should not get the credit for killing Osama. But what I am saying is that it takes many more pieces of the puzzle that were in play far before Obama got into office so that we could get the kill. That little fact has been forgotten.
I would venture to say that the Bush administration would not condone such a movie or take an active part in the making of the movie, as this White House is doing, by giving intelligence briefings to the producers and writers of this movie. That is the difference between the two administrations and the two men.
This movie will make a few more of the liberal elite richer, but it will not make the economic engine work that will make it possible for every American to become prosperous. A movie cannot make or create our liberty, freedom and independence. It can not create prosperity for all. Instead, it will create prosperity for a few in Hollywood, because they are the ones that create the myth that movies are made of.
I just hope that America does not buy into this scheme and that America pays close attention to the other factors that are far more important to the debate of the day and the context of what the debates centered on Thursday night. One thing for sure, the Iowa straw poll will tell us all something.
Yes, it is quite the field. It will be an interesting election and it will also bring out some that feel a duty to run. These are the people that we should be making a movie about, because it will be these people who will bring the changes that are so desperately needed in government and in our towns and cities. These unknown candidates will be the hero’s because they are the ones who are telling the truth.
George Washington said: "The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: As we look at the field of contenders don’t forget what the name American means. It won’t be told in a movie. It won’t be told in a debate. It will only be told and understood when the vote is cast for reasons of liberty, freedom and independence. The field of politician’s love to promise everything, but they have recently failed to provide the liberty, freedom and independence that make Americans, Americans.
Quite a field:
Yes, I watched, I listened, I learned and I saw the great potential of possible Republican Presidential Candidates on the FOX debates. Some of the questions were meant to bring emotion and some were meant to bring out the character of the person.
All choices are on Romney, with Bachman in second, Gingrich third and don’t count out Paul yet. However, there will be two more candidates that will pop up that were not at the debate Thursday night. Ultimately, we will have four candidates to choose from. The winner of Saturday’s Iowa straw poll will either surprise us or confirm what many of us already believe.
One thing is for sure, each one of the candidates we saw on Thursday night’s debate are far more qualified than the present occupant of the White House. We must remember that qualifications matter in the election of 2012. We must also remember that the House will be in play and that the Senate will also be the focus of the election.
I am concerned about one thing that could tilt the presidential election by a factor of two or three percentage points. It is the movie that is now being filmed about the raid that got Osama Bin Laden. Obama will do everything in his power to make it about him. What we cannot forget is that when Obama got Osama it was due to the Bush era policies that were in place that gave the White House the intelligence that proved to be deadly for Osama.
It never ceases to amaze me that it only takes a few people to formulate an opinion as fact when they see a movie. It only takes a few points to turn an election, especially when a movie will favor one side and distort the truth to give credit where credit is not due. I am not saying the president should not get the credit for killing Osama. But what I am saying is that it takes many more pieces of the puzzle that were in play far before Obama got into office so that we could get the kill. That little fact has been forgotten.
I would venture to say that the Bush administration would not condone such a movie or take an active part in the making of the movie, as this White House is doing, by giving intelligence briefings to the producers and writers of this movie. That is the difference between the two administrations and the two men.
This movie will make a few more of the liberal elite richer, but it will not make the economic engine work that will make it possible for every American to become prosperous. A movie cannot make or create our liberty, freedom and independence. It can not create prosperity for all. Instead, it will create prosperity for a few in Hollywood, because they are the ones that create the myth that movies are made of.
I just hope that America does not buy into this scheme and that America pays close attention to the other factors that are far more important to the debate of the day and the context of what the debates centered on Thursday night. One thing for sure, the Iowa straw poll will tell us all something.
Yes, it is quite the field. It will be an interesting election and it will also bring out some that feel a duty to run. These are the people that we should be making a movie about, because it will be these people who will bring the changes that are so desperately needed in government and in our towns and cities. These unknown candidates will be the hero’s because they are the ones who are telling the truth.
George Washington said: "The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives
A footnote: As we look at the field of contenders don’t forget what the name American means. It won’t be told in a movie. It won’t be told in a debate. It will only be told and understood when the vote is cast for reasons of liberty, freedom and independence. The field of politician’s love to promise everything, but they have recently failed to provide the liberty, freedom and independence that make Americans, Americans.
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