Tag: The American Dream

Debate Round Two – Romney Wins with Truth & the Economy

G’Day!

First, hooray for Ryan in the Vice Presidential Debate! He withstood a frontal attack by the Democrats’ chosen “Pit Bull”, Joe Biden and Won! Biden inappropriately and disrespectfully interrupted, laughed, and expressed contempt while Ryan was discussing the serious issues facing America. Biden’s rude and comic behavior illustrated his and Obama’s disdain for the problems facing our country. Also, it is important to note that Biden misrepresented (or lied?) on major issues approximately five times in the course of the debate. (Remember, Vice President Biden is only a heartbeat from the Presidency – is he your choice as a backup?)

Congratulations to Romney for beating Obama again (& biased liberal moderator, Candy Crowley) in the second Presidential Debate with honesty, strength, new ideas, and an unbiased picture of the declining American economy. Equally important, Romney has new ideas and reiterated his 5-Part Plan to correct the Obama economic malaise – Energy Independence, Free Trade, a Balanced Budget, Improved Education, and Tax Reform to support Small Businesses. For his part, Obama merely offered a rehash of his failed policies of the last 3 ½ years, a belief that taxing the “rich” will solve the debt crisis and create wealth and prosperity, and repeated his “bumper sticker” slogans blaming everyone but himself. Obama says that the Republicans want to return us to the failed policies of past. Does he mean free market capitalism, personal freedom, and limited government? Or does he mean the failed policies of socialism, communism, and wealth redistribution, which have historically failed and are currently failing in Europe?

Romney also continues to win women voters with his focus on fairness, jobs, the economy, and bringing down the cost and improving choices in healthcare. Obama appears to believe that the important women’s healthcare issues are taxpayer funded abortions and birth control. If misinformation (deliberate lies?) and character assassination plus unsustainable deficits and potential national economic disaster are appealing to American voters, Obama will win in a landslide. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats have degenerated into employing the desperation tactics used by losers with no rational alternatives – they blame others for the problems; attack, ridicule, and misrepresent their opponents positions; attempt to change the subject; and accuse their opponents of lying! How low can they go? Fortunately, I have faith in the intelligence of the majority of Americans to think for themselves and see through the misinformation and character assassination techniques being used by Obama, the Democrats, and supported by the Liberal Media.

This election is a clear choice between individual freedoms, high growth free market capitalism, fiscally responsible limited government, and saving “The American Dream” vs. government-restricted personal and property rights, a slow growth government controlled economy, irresponsible and unsustainable growth in government, entitlements, and our National Debt, and destroying “The American Dream”. I sincerely believe that, if Obama and Biden are reelected, we are at best facing European style socialism and dependency, increasing taxes for ALL who pay them, and continued economic decline. At worse, we could face exploding National Debt and ultimately national financial collapse. Be aware and vote accordingly!

Think and remember that the freedoms, opportunities, and economic growth we have enjoyed for over 200 years were the result of hundreds of thousands of loyal and dedicated Americans who unselfishly fought and died in many wars to create and protect them. These brave men and women unselfishly served to protect our freedoms and to promote freedom and democracy not only at home but also throughout the world. Obama is deliberately or accidentally undermining and eroding these hard-won individual freedoms and our capitalist economy in order to bring centrally controlled wealth redistributed “fairness” through “Neo-socialism”. Under neo-socialism the government does not own businesses, it forces them through regulations and rules to conform to the wishes of appointed (not elected) central administrators. (Think of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE), Obamacare “Death Panels”, the Dodd-Frank “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” and “Financial Stability Oversight Council”, etc.).

As I have said before, the growth of Western Civilization and especially the United States was fuelled by the expansion of individual liberties, property rights, and a free market capitalist society. Our nation was established on the fundamental principle that government is the servant of the people, not that people are servants of government. It’s time to take back our country and return to the individual liberties, free markets, economic growth, and limited government we have long enjoyed. Vote in November!

The Old Guy PhD

Save America – Elect Romney & Ryan in November!

G’Day!

Romney and Ryan! Hooray! The Republicans have chosen intelligent, honest, dedicated, and responsible candidates for President and Vice President of our country. Unfortunately, Obama and Biden are currently still in office. They cannot be replaced fast enough for me. The longer Obama and the Democrats continue in power, the greater the decline of America. In my opinion, a vote for Obama and the Democrats is suicidal for our exceptional nation. I trust and believe that the American people are wise enough to see through the rhetoric of deception, division, and blame and recognize the true economic and social failures of Obama’s centrally planned socialism. In November we must vote Obama and enough Democrats out of office to save our country from financial collapse under a mountain of unsustainable debt, which in the next week will reach $16 Trillion or over $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. This is an increase of approximately 60% since Obama was elected and is absolutely intolerable!

The team of Romney and Ryan are real Americans who personally share and support the opportunities and values inherent in “The American Dream”. They believe in the values expressed in “The Declaration of Independence” of equal opportunity for all to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They further believe in strong national defense, individual freedom, free market capitalism, sound fiscal and monetary policy, freedom of religion, and Constitutionally limited government. Unlike Obama, Romney actually has a business-friendly five point plan to correct our fiscal and debt crisis, create millions of new private-sector jobs, save Social Security & Medicare, and get America back on a path to prosperity. Fortune Magazine summarized the five key areas in the plan as follows: “(1) Aggressively promote domestic energy development, especially fossil fuels. (2) Expand the market for U.S. goods overseas by negotiating new trade agreements and standing up to China on intellectual-property and currency issues. (3) Improve workforce skills by transferring job-training programs to the states and going after teachers’ unions, which, he says, stand in the way of school choice and better instruction. (4) Attack the deficit through budget cuts, not tax increases. And (5), reshape the regulatory climate to “encourage and promote small business” rather than swamp it. That last item covers his most consistent and passionate campaign pledge, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act — “reshaping health care reform,” he says, “by replacing Obamacare with measures that will bring down the cost of health insurance rather than, as Obamacare does, increasing it.” This plan, combined with the Romney-Ryan Budget and a proposed “Cap” on Government Spending at 20% of GDP, is an excellent start.

On the other hand, Obama has America on a suicidal path to fiscal and economic failure with no serious plan to grow the economy, create private sector jobs, and reduce the national debt and deficit. Obama’s alternative is more of the same: more government spending, more government regulations, more government taxes, more government control, and less personal and business freedom. Obama doesn’t seem to care about our national security, the US Constitution, our allies abroad, personal liberty, private property rights, economic growth, free market capitalism, or traditional American values. Apparently, Obama cares more about wealth redistribution, bigger and bigger government, labor unions, and, most importantly, personal reelection. Unlike Obama, Romney and Ryan are telling us the truth about the economic crisis we face and have logical and reasonable plans to correct the Obama debacle over the next decade. Their plans are not radical but rational and should be supported by a majority of Americans who want our country to grow and prosper.

Obama is the antithesis of nearly everything I believe about America & virtually everything that has made America exceptional. The centrally controlled “trickle up poverty” collectivist policies of dependency & unsustainable entitlements by Obama and the Democrats are not working in America, are creating crisis and potential disaster in Europe, and have failed historically. Obama has had his opportunity and he has failed as a leader. Perhaps his failure was inevitable given his serious lack of qualifications when he was elected. It is time to replace him and Vice President Biden with a truly qualified and experienced leadership team.

The growth of Western Civilization and especially the United States was fuelled by the expansion of individual liberties, private property rights, and a free market capitalist society. Our nation was established on the basic principle that government is the servant of the people, not that the people are the servants of government. It’s time to take back our country and return to the individual liberties, free markets, economic growth, and limited government we have long enjoyed. The United States of America is the greatest, most prosperous, most unselfish, and most exceptional country in history. There is still an opportunity to save The American Dream but time is rapidly running out. Vote for the real American “Hope & Change” offered by Romney and Ryan in November.

The Old Guy PhD

Obammunism – What is “Fair”?

G’Day!

Everyone believes in “Fairness” but what is it? Is “Fairness” equal opportunity to succeed based on your own efforts and decisions, free of government intervention? Or, is “Fairness” government dictated equal sharing of the success of others independent of personal effort and decisions? Consider this, who determines “Fair Share”? Under Capitalism, “Fair Share” is objectively determined by the choices of free people in a free market. Under “Obammunism”, political bureaucrats subjectively and arbitrarily determine “Fair Share” and impose it on the people. Regarding tax alone, what is to protect you from the “Bureaucratic Elite” changing the wealth threshold from $1 million, to $250,000, to $100,000, to $75,000 or lower? If you support Obama’s policies, nothing can protect you from the Government arbitrarily changing “Fair Share” to adversely penalize more and more successful people. If you work hard and succeed in improving yourself and your family, what is to prevent the government from penalizing you for becoming “Rich”? Under Obama, “Fair Share” cannot be satisfied until everyone is economically equal. This is not “The American Dream”.

To our Founding Fathers “Fairness” is our personal “Entitlement” to national security, individual freedom, and free market capitalism with limited fiscally-sound government based on equality of opportunities and private property rights. To President Obama and the Democrats it is “Obammunism”, which is based on the government’s “Entitlement” to regulate and control the American people and businesses to accomplish subjectively determined income and wealth equality. “Obammunism” is achieved through higher taxes, bigger government, forced income and wealth redistribution, expanded welfare dependency, and unfunded entitlements to an unnecessary and undeserved portion of the population. It further requires excessive environmental restrictions on the use of private property, regulations and controls over selected industries, and use of taxpayer funds in the arbitrary selection of industrial “winners & losers”. So far Obama’s big government approach to economic equality has resulted in slow economic growth, a net loss of approximately 4 million jobs, and an energy policy that has killed jobs and leaves American security more dependent on imports of foreign oil. “Obammunism” has also resulted in a 60% increase in our National Debt (from ~$10 trillion to ~$16 trillion) and a huge fiscally unsustainable federal deficit that has exceeded $1.3 trillion in every year of Obama’s Presidency. Erskine Bowles of the Bowles-Simpson Debt Reduction Commission stated earlier this month on the subject of our National Debt, “It is like a cancer. Over time it will destroy the country from within.” Alan Simpson simply referred to it as, “Madness”.

The founders of our great country also believed in equality, the equality of opportunity implemented through personal freedoms, private property rights, and free markets. They believed in minimal government and established a Constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights to guarantee and protect the individual liberties of all citizens from the oppressive policies of the foreign governments from which our ancestors fled in search of a better life. Is it moral or ethical or “Fair” for the government in a land of equal opportunity to engage in wealth redistribution from those who worked hard, made good decisions, and earned their success to those who did not? While nearly everyone believes and supports a reasonable social safety net for the truly needy, the trends since the Great Depression have increasingly been to increase welfare and entitlements far beyond reasonableness and absolutely beyond sustainability.

So what do I believe is “Fair”? What “Entitlements” should we expect from our government? First and foremost, I believe that we are entitled to a President who actually believes and supports the oath of office he declared at his inauguration, which is: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I believe that we are entitled to a limited government that is business friendly and supports and protects our individual freedoms, free markets, private property rights, sound fiscal & monetary policy, economic growth, and the security and defense of our great nation.

I believe that we are entitled to a limited federal government that regulates and enforces only those activities that cannot be controlled by citizens through either individual freedom of choice under free market capitalism or by State and local governments.

I believe that, except for essential government services, we are entitled to keep what we earn and that wealth redistribution for the goal of economic equality, excessive welfare, and unsustainable entitlements is “Unfair”, unethical, and destructive to economic growth. I further believe that tax reform is essential. (See “Fiscal & Debt Crises – Tax Reform Essential!”)

I believe that, as the Founding Fathers intended, we are entitled to a government that protects our right to use our private property as we wish as long as it does not endanger or encroach on the value of our neighbor’s property AND that we should have the right to use our private property free of unnecessary environmental control and regulation by administrators.

Finally, I believe we are entitled to a President that supports and protects the rights of ALL American citizens and does not promote policies intended to enhance reelection prospects by dividing the country by income, gender, ethnicity, religion, political party, sexual orientation, or race.

Under Obama, our exceptional nation is on the precipice of a fiscal catastrophe and terminal decline in the world. It is not yet too late to correct the Obama’s neo-socialist trend for more taxes, more spending, bigger government, slower economic growth, and eventual collapse under a mountain of unsustainable debt. Throughout history, no nation has been able to sustain excessive spending by taxing, borrowing or “printing money” as a way out of fiscal insanity. All have failed. It is time for America to wake up and realize where this “Amateur” President is taking our country. Study the issues and vote accordingly in November.

The Old Guy PhD

Is “The American Dream” Dying?

G’Day!

Yes, the traditional “American Dream” is probably dying if the divisive socialist and antibusiness policies of President Obama, the Democrats, and the Unions continue to be supported by our government. Already much damage is being done by the passage of Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulations Act (including the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and the Durbin Amendment), the EPA, the NLRB, and now full force “Class Warfare” by the President to divide the country in an apparent attempt to be reelected. Martin Luther King Jr’s memorial opens this week and his famous “I have a Dream!” speech was about national unity and equality of opportunity not class divisions and wealth redistribution. If we want to preserve our freedoms, our opportunities, and our exceptionalism as a nation, these destructive attacks on our economy, attempts to divide the American people, and collectivist “nanny-state” policies must be stopped and reversed. We must protect and preserve “The American Dream” for future generations and ourselves.

Our traditional view of “The American Dream” is based on the principles our Founding Fathers and Patriots risked and gave their lives to secure for our country and our future. These values were documented in The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights. Primarily these values are: guaranteed individual freedoms (especially from government), equal opportunities for all Americans, decentralized governance BY THE PEOPLE, free market capitalism based on private property ownership, and a specifically limited-power federal government. These fundamental principles have provided all Americans the opportunity to choose our careers, succeed (or fail) based on our own decisions, and retain the fruits of our labor reasonably free from oppressive regulations, unnecessary controls, and excessive taxation. These freedoms and privileges essentially stood for over a century from our nation’s founding until the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 authorizing direct federal taxation. Since the authorization of direct federal taxation these basic rights have been inexorably eroded as the size, scope, controls, and restrictions by government over our lives and our economic opportunities has expanded. It is time to get government off our backs and return to our traditional vision of success embodied in “The American Dream”.

The socialist and antibusiness agenda supported by President Obama and his allies is accelerating the destruction of this dream. Obama’s alternative is a collectivist society of mandated wealth sharing, unsustainable federal spending, high taxation, limited individual and business freedoms, and highly centralized governance. Obama appears to want a federal government with virtually unlimited power to regulate, control and dictate our lives, our property, and our businesses, including the transfer of wealth from those who have created jobs and earned it to those who have not. Just look at the current “Occupy Wall Street” mobs that have picked up Obama’s message and essentially want to destroy the capitalism that made our country great. Socialism doesn’t work as the former Soviet Union and most European countries, especially Greece, have learned. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”. Is this the vision of America’s future that you support?

So how has the growth of “progressive” or socialist policies influenced “The American Dream” over the last century? Federal income taxes have “progressed” from a maximum rate of 7% in 1913 to a current rate of 35%. Obama and the Democrats are proposing to raise this rate to 40%. (Note: this rate does NOT include the approximate 15% in federal “payroll taxes” additionally paid by employees and employers or State and Local taxes.) Federal government spending has “progressed” from 3% of our national economy in 1913, to a current level of 25% under President Obama (an increase in the size of government by 5% in just two and one-half years by Obama). The number of federal government agencies, bureaus, departments, and employees has exploded since 1913 under both Republicans and Democrats. This was especially true under President Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, President Johnson’s “Great Society”, President Bush’s “Prescription Drug” legislation, and now President Obama’s “Healthcare” and “Financial Regulations”.

The Obama Administration alone has more than doubled the ANNUAL Federal Deficit, increased the National Debt by approximately 40%, increased the cost, uncertainty, and complexity of healthcare, and passed sweeping and largely unnecessary regulation over our essential financial industry. Obama’s healthcare plan alone creates an estimated 159 new agencies and the Dodd-Frank Act requires an estimated 387 new regulations across 20 agencies. The EPA under Lisa Jackson wants to implement and administer new business and job killing environmental regulations that are projected to cost tens of thousands of jobs and increase our energy costs. Essential domestic fossil fuel exploration and development in America has been virtually shut down. (Note: Opening our domestic energy resources could create hundreds of thousands of good American jobs and improve national energy security.) Among other pro-union activities, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is attempting to stop final implementation of Boeing’s new “Dreamliner” factory in South Carolina. The Department of Justice (DOJ) under Eric Holder is disrupting our legal system, suing States for trying to enforce immigration laws, and interfering with mergers that would improve the competitiveness of American Business. Obama’s failed economic policies have stifled business and job creation, stagnated our economy, and significantly expanded the size and spending of our government. These policies are radically advancing an unsustainable European-style centrally planned socialist welfare state for our country and eroding our individual and economic freedoms. Are these “progressive” social policies enhancing our lives or your vision of “The American Dream”?

If we don’t stop this madness and get the government off our backs and our businesses, “The American Dream” of opportunity and success will continue to die and may be destroyed. A nation cannot be successful by confiscating wealth from those who create it and redistributing it to those who do not. Leftwing collectivist policies do not work. These are not the foundation of freedoms and opportunities upon which our country was created and which made America great. It’s time to take back our country and restore “The American Dream”. Let’s get to work!

The Old Guy PhD