Showing posts with label national debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national debt. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The President Stole My Birthday and Other Tragic Tales of the Obama Years

My Bi-weekly column, "All In Perspective," published in the Georgetown Advocate, Hill Country News, and Jarrell Star-Ledger.


 
Birthdays are a ‘big deal’ in my family.  When I was a kid, children’s birthdays were celebrated with not one, but two parties:  one for friends, one for family.  And although we never had the money for extravagant gifts, even adult birthdays included large family gatherings with lots of laughter and love.  So even though lately I’m not so enthused about that whole aging thing, I’ve always looked forward to my birthday. 

That is until the President stole my birthday.

You see, Barack Obama and I were both born on August 4.  And yes, I can produce my birth certificate. My friends on both sides of the aisle (no really, some of my best friends are Liberals,) find this extraordinarily funny, and for the last four years on my birthday the talk is all about whatever lavish Birthday Bash Obama will have this year.

Of course I’m really not so narcissistic that I can’t share my birthday; after all there’s a lot of other folks born on August 4th.  No, what’s really got me down is that while the President is charging $38,000 a person to blow out his birthday candles with the first family and George Clooney, America is in serious trouble.
 
For starters, while the White House is madly spinning the latest jobs report, the ‘official’ unemployment rate has risen to 8.3%.  The President claims he created 163,000 new jobs last month, but another 195,000 jobs were lost, and the labor participation rate has now fallen to an alarming 63.7%.  When we include individuals who have given up on finding a job, the unemployment rate rises to 15%.  Not much to celebrate there.

Despite the high unemployment rates and dismal GDP growth, under the President’s direction government spending continues to skyrocket and the national debt has now reached $15.9 trillion.  Congress hasn’t passed a budget since 2009, but Obama and the Democrats are doing their darndest to delay any budgetary action until after the election.  Even worse, they are trying to hide the fact that the upcoming defense cuts will cost the nation an estimated one million jobs next year.

The other hidden post-election surprises include massive tax increases on American families and businesses.  Without congressional action, on January 1, 2013, taxes will increase by $494 billion, and that’s only implementing 5 of the 18 new taxes included in Obamacare.  Over the next 10 years, Obamacare alone will impose an additional $1 trillion in new taxes.  By all estimations, ‘Taxmageddon 2013’ will devastate GDP and plunge the nation into a new recession, if not a full-blown depression.

In addition to the economic chaos Obama’s leadership has created, the President’s attitude towards our constitutional rights is disturbing at best.  In what appears to have been part of some twisted agenda regarding the 2nd Amendment, the Administration allegedly allowed thousands of guns to be sold to known drug cartels on the Mexican border.  And in a shocking betrayal of Catholics and other Christians, the President’s rules will force all Americans to financially support and promote abortion despite our religious objections.  It’s hard to celebrate when our own government is putting us in danger and trampling on our religious freedoms.

So while Obama celebrated his birthday in style, a growing number of Americans are growing tired of the ‘Celebrity-Circuit-President’ and his policies.  But it’s my birthday too, and I have a few things on my wish list.  Assuming the Ruger.380 True Texan Coyote Special is out of your price-range, what I’d really like for my birthday is a new President.  It’s really up to you, the American voters.  And guess what, Mitt Romney’s birthday is March 12. 

Just sayin’.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Cedar Park City Council Working For Smaller Government

With federal government expanding at an astronomical rate, it is refreshing to learn that some of our local elected officials are working to apply the American principles of smaller government.  Members of the Cedar Park City Council have launched an ambitious plan to review every single city ordinance, with the goal of repealing, simplifying, and/or modifying laws over the course of several years. 

With 18 chapters in the Cedar Park code of ordinances, this project will take quite some time to complete, but council members have already begun, and on July 22 held their first hearing to repeal ordinances that should have been adopted as resolutions. 

"The goal is to make local government simpler, more accessible, and state things in language that is as plain as possible," said Councilman Tony Dale.  "We also want to ensure that we do not have ordinances that are obstacles to economic development and prevent us from being competitive with other local communities when it comes to job creation." 

The Cedar Park actions are a stark contrast to the federal government;  in 2010 the U.S. tax code alone rose to 71,684 pages, and in correlation, the national debt has risen to 94% of GDP in 2010, and is projected to rise to over 100% by 2012.  (Coincidence?)  While Americans expressed shock last summer that the proposed government health care bill consisted of 1,017 pages, the final bill ended up with a whopping 2,801 pages that everyone, including those who voted for it, are still trying to figure out.  Now, of course, we've become accustomed to monstrous-sized bills and have hardly raised eyebrows at the 2,300 page Financial Reform bill .

Hopefully the 'small government syndrome' the Cedar Park City Council has contracted is a highly contagious condition and soon our other government entities will catch on and start seriously applying Constitutional principles of limited government everywhere.

That's what I call hope and change.