Stopping the Madness

This November, voters will deliver a referendum on Barack Obama and his policies. As every major news organization has reported, it doesn't look good for the Democrats. Given how destructive and coercive their policies are and have been, is this a surprise? I have been following the impending elections very closely, and I think Republicans will control both houses of Congress when the dust settles. While I'd like to post my reasons for the House, the sheer number of races makes it too cumbersome. So, let me give you my reasons why I think the Senate will switch parties come November.
First of all, as it currently stands, Democrats control 57 seats, Republicans 41, and there are two Independents--Joe Lieberman (CT) and Bernard Sanders (Vermont). Both of these senators caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving the Democrats a 59-41 majority. So, for the Republicans to take the Senate, they need a net of ten seats. Sounds like a tall order, doesn't it? Well, it may not be so far-fetched. First of all, let's look at open Republican seats that are in danger. The only state where an open Republican state is somewhat in danger is in Florida, where Charlie Crist has left the Republican party and is running as an independent. However, his Republican opponent, Mark Rubio, is running a good campaign, and in fact the latest poll shows him turning the tide and running up by five points. This poll may be an outlier, but I don't think so, especially since Rubio is using Harry Reid's Hispanic gaffe to his advantage.
The other open Republican seats appear safe. In Ohio, Rob Portman has consistently polled higher than his opponent, Lee Fisher, and the gap continues to widen in Portman's favor. In Kentucky, Rand Paul's RCP average is +6.5%, but recent polls put him up anywhere from 8-10 points. In New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte enjoys commanding poll leads over Paul Hodes, with her RCP average at +8%, and in North Carolina, Richard Burr is running away from Elaine Marshall. His current advantage stands at +7% and is growing.
Now let's look at open Democrat seats. We have Colorado, where Michael Bennett, appointed by Barack Obama, is trailing Ken Buck, a surprise winner in the Republican primary. This is a close race which will become more clear now that the primaries are over. Buck has enjoyed a lead over Bennett in hypothetical match ups--now the match up is real. Keep an eye on this one. In Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk maintains a 2.3% RCP average over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. This is within the margin of error of most polls, but it has been consistent, and the failure of Giannoulias' family bank seems to be hurting him, especially since he used the bank to tout his business acumen. (Oops!) This would be a great pickup for Republicans since it is Barack Obama's old seat. In Nevada, Harry Reid (below, right) is in a statistical tie with Sharron Angle, but that has come down from a double digit lead. Reid spent a lot of money running negative TV ads when Angle had none , but now that she has money in the bank and is running commercials of her own, she has stabilized the race and erased that lead. I feel that Reid's stand on immigration vs. Angle's will hurt him greatly in the general election.
In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak (D) has consistently trailed Pat Toomey, and it appears the gap is widening, as the latest poll puts Toomey up by 6%. In North Dakota, John Hoeven's poll numbers show an advantage anywhere from 43-54% in his bid to replace retiring Democrat Byron Dorgan. In Arkansas, John Boozman is cruising to victory over sitting Democrat senator Blanche Lincoln. He currently enjoys a 25% lead in the polls. In Delaware, Joe Biden's old seat will probably go to Republican Mike Castle over Chris Coons, as Castle is currently polling anywhere from 10-13% ahead.
There are two states where normally Democrats cruise to re-election, but not this year. In Wisconsin, Russ Feingold is locked in a race with Ron Johnson that is statistically a tie, but in which the momentum seems to be going Johnson's way, and in Washington State, Patti Murray is in a similarly close race with Mark Rossi. That brings up two states which, to me anyway, are wild cards. In California, Barbara (call me "Senator") Boxer (top left) is only up 4% in the RCP average against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, which is within the margin of error of most polls. More tellingly, Fiorina has narrowed the gap consistently over the last few months, despite a bruising primary season of her own. Boxer consistently polls under 50%, which is dangerous for an incumbent. Lastly, in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal leads Linda McMahon by an RCP average of 14%. However, using the Quinnipiac poll as an example, his lead was 33% in March, 25% in May, 20% in June, 17% in July, and currently stands at 10%. McMahon, who once was CEO of WWE and has shown she's not afraid of using her own millions, may be benefiting from Blumenthal's admitted embellishing of his military service. Also, the Republican primary season is now over, and McMahon is now the official candidate, which may help her further. I don't think Republicans will take this seat, but it's not out of the question.
So, here is how I think it will shake out. I think Republicans will take most or all of the currently rated toss ups, plus a couple of open Democrat seats which are definitely going Republican. Specifically, I see Republicans winning in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, North Dakota, Illinois, Nevada, Delaware, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Washington State. These are all open seats that Democrats currently hold, and it would result in a net 10 for the Republicans. Add to this mix the formerly crazy notion that Barbara Boxer could lose her seat to Carly Fiorina and that Linda McMahon might just be able to close the gap in Connecticut, and you see that the chances for a Republican takeover of the Senate is within reach. Wouldn't you just love to see Harry Reid go away?

Insanity is...

It was announced this past week that Christina Romer (left), President Obama's top economic advisor, is leaving her job. This is the same Christina Romer who, when Obama was selling us his snake oil "stimulus", promised that if it passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8% and it would have been 7% right now as of this writing. Oops! It actually went over 10%, and is now stuck at 9.5%. Most economists, as I've said before, believe that it is only that low because hundreds of thousands of people have given up looking for work and left the work force. We don't count those people as unemployed for some reason.
In a previous post I linked to a list showing how preposterous some of the "stimulus" spending really was. Collecting ants for study, replacing new sidewalks, and replacing windows in closed visitor centers were just a few of the wasted expenditures. The point is that the massive, almost $1 TRILLION boondoggle didn't target the money correctly. I pointed out that we could have just made up jobs and that we'd have been able to put 7.5 million people to work at $40,000 per year or longer with that money. I also pointed out how ludicrous that would have been--almost as ludicrous as what was passed. How should the "stimulus" have been spent? It should have gone to spur investment, and investment creates jobs. Imagine that! But of course Obama couldn't do that. The left wing would have howled that we were "cutting taxes for the wealthy". They don't want to cut taxes for those who create business and, therefore, jobs. They want to tax them and tax them and tax them some more. That is how Democrats claim they will pay for everything--by taxing the wealthy and making them pay "their fair share". Forget that the wealthy already pay a disproportionally high tax rate and that 49% of Americans pay no tax at all. Logic doesn't enter into Democrats' thinking.
So what do the Democrats want now? You guessed it! Another round of stimulus spending! Don't they get it? Don't they understand that they are bankrupting this country? Under Obama's budget blueprint, the deficit will be almost $20 TRILLION by the year 2020, at which time debt service (i.e. the interest on the deficit) will be the #1 expenditure in our budget. This is, of course, assuming we don't implode like Greece before then. However, chances of that happening grow every day. If that happens, this country will be ruined, millions more will be out of work and will have to turn to government handouts to survive. I believe that is what the Democrats want, and how they plan to control the population. But what I believe isn't relevant. The point is that they want more "stimulus" spending, when the first trillion dollars didn't work at all. I was in business for many years, and there is a saying in business that applies here too. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, by this definition, the Democratic party has become the party of the insane..
Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are the ones pushing this agenda. They have been in charge of the US purse strings since 2006. Will the American people continue to let them run things, hoping it will be different as well? If they do, then the American electorate is also trying the same thing and expecting different results. That would also make the American electorate, well...insane.

What a waste!! A better solution...

Now that the "stimulus" is starting to be accounted for, we are beginning to see just what a boondoggle this whole sham really was. The money--your tax money--has been spent on everything from replacing windows in closed buildings to collecting ants. That's right. It was a total waste, and very little of it was used to actually stimulate the economy. It's no wonder it didn't work. A group led by Senator Tom Coburn has been looking into this unbelievably huge waste of taxpayer funds and has compiled a very interesting list. Check out where your money has gone:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=e1e0624e-d02a-42d4-9dbb-f5b9f21b3572

I've said before that the money should have been spent on things like tax incentives to spur investment--the kinds of things that would have actually created jobs. However, in light of the fact that Democrats are now looking to spend more of your money on more "stimulus", I have a better idea. Let's just make up jobs! Do the math--$900 Billion dollars could put 7.5 MILLION people to work for three years at an average salary of $40000! Actually, since unemployment benefits wouldn't be needed, we could put them to work for longer! We'll task someone with making up job titles. For instance, maybe someone could count the number of commercials on TV (Commercial Counter), and someone else could see just how many potato chips come in each bag depending on brand (Director of Chip Accountability)! These people would spend money, thereby stimulating their local economies, and they would pay taxes as well, thereby bringing some of the money home so Congress can waste it too!
If this sounds ludicrous, that's because it is. This is why government should not get into the business of trying to create jobs--because the list you will access if you click the link above is what you get when you have hundreds of Democrats trying to micro-manage the economy. Let's get it right, cut taxes on capital gains and investment and get this country rolling again. Who cares how mosquitoes breed?

Boy It's FUN To Be President!

President Obama was elected almost two years ago. He has been in office for 19 months. He has a lot on his agenda--wars in Afghanistan, where American deaths are sky-rocketing, and in Iraq, where we're trying to disengage while averting disaster. He also has an ongoing recession which, we've been told ad nauseum, is the "worst since the Great Depression." I won't go into what Ronald Reagan inherited--21% prime rate, stagnation, etc., but that is definitely fodder for another post.
On Obama's watch, we also had the catastrophic Deep Horizon oil spill, a disaster he didn't focus on for almost eight weeks, and then only because his poll numbers were plummeting. We've had soldiers captured and held by the enemy--one for almost a year now. We've had unemployment go up from an average under George Bush of 5.2% to over 10%. (It is down to about 9.5% now, mainly, according to most economists, due to the fact that many people have stopped looking for work.) This despite the fact that we were promised that if the huge, almost $1 trillion "stimulus" passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8%. Many experts believe when those people are taken into account, as well as those who have taken minimum wage jobs just to get a paycheck, the real unemployment rate is close to 20%! Home foreclosures are happening in record numbers, banks are failing by the hundreds, homelessness is on the rise, several states are on the verge of bankruptcy, there is an economic crisis unfolding in Europe as several nations fall under their crushing debt burdens (a fate which awaits this great country if we don't get our fiscal house in order), and, on the security front, we've had several attacks and attempted attacks on our own soil by terrorists, China has tested anti-satellite weapons and perpetrated several hacking attacks to test our defenses. There are many more problems we need to address as a nation, and a president is supposed to be the executive who organizes all the responses. That's why he has a cabinet and literally hundreds of thousands of federal employees at his beck and call--to handle problems, to organize solutions, and to make life better for the American people.
With all these problems, I have a problem with what's been going on. President Obama, since his inauguration, has played in excess of 40 rounds of golf, over 8 just since the oil rig disaster.
Each time, of course, the president is taken there either by helicopter or in a multi-car motorcade--all at taxpayer expense. (George Bush played 24 rounds in eight years and was accused by the left wing press of being out of touch with the American people. Of course, Obama gets a pass). He has taken countless vacations (at least three since Deepwater alone). He has urged people to vacation in the Gulf, then taken his family to exclusive Bar Harbor, Maine for their vacation. He has vacationed in Hawaii in a house costing $35,000 per week. His wife is on the way to Spain shortly, where she has reserved 30 rooms at a 5-star hotel to house her entourage. He has had numerous parties at the White House, including a recent feting with Paul McCartney and a Tony awards show. In short, the man who purports to be Everyman truly seems to want to vacation and dine everywhere but where the common man goes. When Obama first became president, remember how he told the people how wonderful the cheeseburgers were on Air Force One? Remember how he flew on Air Force One to New York for a dinner date with Michelle at a posh restaurant? Can you count how many times he's gone out to restaurants in the DC area where the price of one dinner is equivalent to many people's salary for a week? All of this is funded by taxpayers--the same taxpayers who are losing their jobs by the millions; the same taxpayers whose taxes are about to skyrocket with the expiration of the tax cuts put through by George Bush.
The point is that this president seems more intent on partying his way through his presidency than being serious about it. Perhaps that is due to the fact that he is still very young (he turns only 49 on August 4th), and his reckless days of partying and cocaine consumption aren't that far behind him. (Hey, he admitted this in his own book!) His administration isn't much better.
I mean, water gun fights between the Chief of Staff and the Vice-President? Please! At any rate, watching this man govern makes me wish I could be elected, because boy, it sure looks fun to be the president!

Back to Bush?

A few years ago, when Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was reading an article about it and there was a link which you could use to email her well wishes. At the time, my wife had already been fighting the disease for a few years, so I knew what this woman was facing and, overcome by compassion, I sent her an email wishing her well. Imagine my surprise when that email immediately landed me on the DCCC email list--I wouldn't have thought Democrats would stoop so low as to use cancer as a tool to increase their sales penetration, but they did, so now I receive the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) emails on a regular basis. At first I was upset and tried emailing back and asking them to take me off the list, but I never got a response. However, after a while I started reading the emails, and I was shocked at some of the hatred and vitriol spewing forth. I mean, after all, this is the official campaign arm for congressional Democrats, not Daily Kos or something.
Anyway, so I'm reading today's DCCC posting, and the headline is, "@Stake: Back to Bush." I got to thinking whether or not this is a smart strategy on the Democrats' part, so I started comparing Bush to Obama. After all, this country, this economy, this deficit, this security situation, it's all Obama's now. He was elected almost two years ago. He owns it. So, let me share with you some comparisons between the two:
For George W. Bush's entire eight years in office, the average unemployment rate was 5.2%. This includes inheriting a recession from Bill Clinton (although did you ever hear him complain about his inheritance as much as Obama has complained about his?), and it includes the aftermath of 9/11. Obama also inherited a recession, but while Bush's tax cuts spurred the economy and got it going, Obama's huge explosion of deficit spending and government intrusion has not done anything to speak of, unless you believe their malarkey about "jobs saved". What a neat, convenient statistic to invent! Obama's average unemployment rate for his entire presidency so far is 9.2%! The numbers get even more stark the more you look.
While President Bush was excoriated by Obama on the campaign trail for running a then-record $450 billion dollar deficit, Obama's first budget contained a deficit of approximately $1.4 TRILLION!! For those who don't know, a trillion is a thousand billions. (A billion is a thousand millions). Now, he has argued that he had to spend these huge sums on a "stimulus" because of Bush, but his budget blueprint calls for deficits in excess of $1 trillion until at least 2020, at which time the total federal deficit will be in excess of $18 trillion dollars! At that point, the number one cost in our budget will be interest on the debt. When Bush left office, the federal deficit stood at $5.8 trillion. If Obama's deficits are because of Bush, why do they run at roughly the same levels for a decade? Do we need a stimulus each year for the next ten years?
After 9/11, which was planned for years, the policies Bush implemented kept this country safe and free of terror attacks. Choosing where to fight the battle (Iraq) was brilliant, because if you choose the battlefield, you are one step up on the opponent. The terrorists all flocked to Iraq, where we killed them by the dump-truck load. Afghanistan was much more hostile territory, so keeping up the hunt for bin Laden there and destroying the Taliban were the objectives. The major battle in the Western civilization vs. Muslim extremists war was Iraq, and all the terrorists said so too. Making them fight over there kept them away from here. Obama has reversed all these policies. He is pulling out of Iraq and intensifying the fight in Afghanistan. He hasn't read many history books, or even talked to many people from the former Soviet Union. Putin could tell him this was a bad idea. Now we're mired in a Vietnam-type war in mountainous, murderous terrain, and our casualties are skyrocketing. Not only that, but we have had a terrorist mass shooting at Fort Hood, and the young Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit only failed because his bomb didn't ignite properly. Because of Obama's policies, in other words, the terrorists are bringing the fight here.
There are many more comparisons between these two presidents, and the longer Obama is in office, the more Bush's approval ratings go up. I've recounted many of the lies told by this administration, and I remember people accusing Bush of lying all the time. What did he lie about? Certainly not WMD's. Every major intelligence organization on the planet believed Saddam Hussein had them, and he probably did. He probably sent them to Syria or buried them in the desert, but the truth is that even if he didn't have them, Bush didn't lie--he was wrong. What else did Bush lie about? Nothing that I know of. Obama doesn't seem to be able to tell the truth about anything--watch his no new taxes pledge go up in smoke after his "deficit commission" issues its recommendations--a deficit commission formed by him to fix a problem caused by his policies. No wonder government's getting bigger!
Here are a few more differences: Bush throws out the first pitch at a baseball game and looks like a former player. Obama doesn't look nearly as athletic. Did you see his pitch? Bush talked in an optimistic manner about what we were going to do and what we could achieve. All Obama talks about is what a horrible hand he's been dealt. While some foreign leaders might not have liked Bush, they respected him. He was a president who commanded respect, and with whom other nations didn't want to screw around. Obama started his presidency apologizing to Muslims first (his first interview was to Al Jazeera), and then the rest of the world. He's bowed at the waist to everyone from the emperor of Japan to the king of Saudi Arabia. It just isn't becoming for a president.
So you decide. Think long and hard. Lose the hyperbolic rhetoric of the Bush years and remember them for what they really were. Years of growth, of economic expansion, and of security. Years during which this country was respected. Compare that with the Obama record so far. My advice to Democrats? Don't frame the election as an Obama vs. Bush decision. That may make the losses you're going to suffer in November much worse.

More Lies and Deception

An earlier post listed many of the lies told by this president and this administration, and it also remarked that these lies are told with no regard for what truths might already be out there on YouTube or some other forum, which shows just how stupid this president thinks the people of America are. I ran out of space with that post, so I'm continuing with the "lie listings" in this post. So, here are a few more whoppers told by Mr. Obama:

Lie--"I will be a force to bring the nation together."
Truth--In truth, this is one of the most partisan presidents ever. He consistently refers to Republicans as "them" and, in today's Washington Post is quoted as saying, "Republicans talking about deficits is like an arsonist talking about fire safety." A good sound bite, but is there really a comparison? Obama excoriated George Bush for running a $450B deficit, but his budget blueprint shows deficits well in excess of $1T for at least a decade. The real point, however, is that Obama has absolutely no bipartisan bones in his body. It's his way or the highway. Thankfully, it looks like it's the Democrats who will be taking to the highway come fall.

Lie--"We're doing everything we can to stop the leak."
Truth--The truth is that Obama has played golf at least 8 times since the leak began, and he's taken three vacations since April! He has also had several parties at the White House, including hosting Paul McCartney and, tonight, there will be a show for the Tony awards. In my opinion he doesn't want the leak stopped until it totally destroys the lifestyles of those in the Gulf--then he can put them on the dole and control them better. After all, they don't really like Barack Obama down there. A recent poll shows the people think Bush did a much better job on Katrina than Obama is doing on the oil spill.

Lie--"If you like your current health insurance policy, you can keep it."
Truth--Now that they are starting to write the regulations, we're seeing how much of a lie this actually was. They have put stringent rules on all the grandfathered policies, making it almost impossible that they won't become subject to review and control by the administration. For instance, I don't know the exact numbers, but if your copay rises by 5%, then your policy loses its grandfathered status and comes under control of the bureaucracy. The government itself now estimates that up to 80% of private plans will eventually go away and the people in those plans will be forced into the government insurance program.

Lie--"The individual mandate is NOT a tax!"
Truth--This was another lie told over and over and over again when the sales schtick for health care was at a fever pitch. Now the administration is battling lawsuits over the mandate, for where in the Constitution does it say the government can force anyone to pay for a private service? Their tack in court, however, is that the mandate IS a tax, and therefore the government has the authority to impose it and collect it. He was supposedly a Harvard law professor (wonder if this is true?), so he should have known this up front.

Lie--"I don't want to control the automobile business."
Truth--The fact is that the control of the business was used to great Democrat advantage. On top of that, he installed a car "czar", answerable to nobody, who calls the shots on who gets paid what. The unions were given a huge stake in Chrysler and GM, and the Chrysler dealerships which were closed were done so in a very partisan manner--a recent study shows that almost 100% of the closed dealerships had given money to Republican candidates. This is the kind of thing done by Stalin. Thank you Ford for not taking the money and keeping at least one part of the industry free. Question: if he doesn't want control of the auto industry, why not sell the shares, take the loss or gain, and get the hell out?

OOOPS! I've run out of space again. As I said before, I could literally write for hours about all the lies told by this administration and this president. However, then nobody would read it! So, yes, there will be a future post continuing this train of thought....

More Solutions for Today's Problems

I've written about solutions for energy and immigration in earlier blogs, as well as the need to legalize marijuana and what that would do in many areas, from lowering incarceration rates to creating a new tax base. Today I want to just list a few of the major problems facing this country and what I think should be done about them. We must realize that many of these things and their consequences are intertwined.

1. Job creation: First of all, it is lunacy to think that government can efficiently create jobs. For a decent paying job it takes, say, $40,000 of the taxpayers' money. How much comes back? In the form of tax revenue, I would say that $10,000 is a generous estimate, especially if the person owns a home and itemizes. There are other trickle down amounts, such as the fact that the local businesses will do better because this taxpayer also presumably shops. But the point is that this is an inefficient way to create jobs. Instead of spending all the taxpayers' money in this way, it should be in the form of tax cuts and business incentives. First of all, tax cuts usually are a direct stimulus, since "found" money usually gets spent. By business incentives, I mean a lowering of the capital gains tax, a reduction in the suffocating control of the government, and a lowering of health care costs. If businesses aren't afraid to invest, then jobs will be created. It's been proven over and over. And these are jobs that aren't paid for directly by the taxpayer.

2. Health care: Start by scrapping Obamacare and its $1 TRILLION+ price tag. Then, work on what the problems actually are. Bring down doctors costs for one. I would create a national school for doctors which was free for those who might qualify, with the caveat that, after graduation, they would work for a minimum of six years for essentially low pay, much as the folks who graduate from the service academies give up six years of their lives. We would use these inexpensive doctors to staff huge clinics which would treat the poor. Let's face it. Just saying to everyone, "You have to buy health insurance" doesn't cut it. There are always going to be people who can't afford to pay for the insurance. These are the people who are falling through the safety net. They are the ones who need our help. They come in all colors, genders, and ages. Once we set these clinics up, we can start sending the people choking our emergency rooms there, treat those who need it, and eventually get to the point of offering preventive care.
There are other ways to bring down costs, some of which are being killed by high-powered lobbyists. Tort reform is one way, for instance. The lawyers don't like this one, but we've got to limit liability for doctors. This would lower medical malpractice insurance costs drastically, which would then enable doctors to lower what they charge.
We also need to get all the medical records computerized so we can check for people who are scamming the system. I know this isn't just individuals. Several times I've found the facilities my wife and I have used trying to bill us more than once. It's always explained away as an honest mistake, but what about the people who aren't watching? President Obama sold Obamacare by promising to pay for a lot of it with "500 billion dollars worth of waste and fraud." This is one of the few things I agree with him about--that there is a huge amount of waste and fraud. The difference is that I think we actually ought to do something about it. Nothing is being done right now.
There are many other things associated with this that we need to do, such as lowering crime rates and getting people off dependencies as much as we can. Due to lack of space, I'll tackle this later. Just as an example, though, imagine how much we'd save if we could get even a small percentage of the people on Skid Row off of drugs or alcohol. There are "Skid Rows" all throughout this country. See this short slide show and think about the effect of cleaning up these places and getting these people sober, or at least some of them: http://hub.witness.org/en/node/5335

3. The size of government: This one is simple, and it affects everything else. Government is too big, period. The Obama budget blueprint through 2020 shows us running deficits in excess of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS each year! This is crazy. We need to immediately cut the government budget by 20% across the board, and immediately impose a hiring freeze. We can then reduce a lot more over the years by attrition. The point is we HAVE to reduce the size of government. A lot of people are under the impression that the deficit has something to do with our economy or with our business relations with other countries such as China. Our deficit has nothing to do with any of that. It is how much comes in versus how much is spent. The bottom line is that government spends too much money. Let's face it--we all know that government wastes money and my proposed 20% reduction will be on everything from Congressional and staff salaries, to weapon systems R & D to, yes, Medicare and Medicaid. Part of this reduction will come with my health care recommendations listed above.
We also need to get rid of certain government agencies outright. The Department of Education, for example, has been a disaster. Despite spending more and more money centralizing control of the nation's education, ever since the inception of this department (created by Jimmy Carter), America's educational results have been slowly sliding. When things don't work, you change them! Let's change this! The same goes for other agencies--why, for instance, do we even need a Commerce Department?
(Department of Education building)

4. BUY AMERICAN. We were once the greatest creditor nation on Earth. We are now the greatest debtor nation. Yet we are trying to hold onto a lifestyle we enjoyed when we were flush. It doesn't work that way, and the bill has to come due sooner or later. I vote for sooner. However, we can also turn the whole problem around by doing one simple thing. Buy American made products. No, don't have the government mandate that you do. Let's just start a movement to buy it only if it's made here. However, you have to think about this. For instance, the Honda I drive is built in Ohio with 90% American made parts, including the engine and drive train. This is, in my opinion, an American made product. I don't care if it doesn't say "Ford" or "GM" or "Chrysler" on it. If we bought American made products, more people would work, prices for American made goods would come down, and we would start running a trade surplus for a change. Also, new industries would be re-created, such as the American television manufacturing industry.