Whatever Will Be, Will Be

The current US fiscal meltdown has one positive note. It forced Senator Obama to define himself. After comparing the potential of the current economic upheaval to the nightmare of the Great Depression, he calmly told the nation that he could be reached on his cell phone if it needed him.

The nation now understands the maturity of his decision making. This man, who would be President, was more concerned with his campaign and preparing for a scheduled debate than the survival of the country. The “Clinton 3 O’clock Call in the Morning” ad was answered.

Obama told the nation not to disturb him. It was an extraordinary response. The consequences of whatever resolution is reached will impact presidential initiatives for a decade. It will define the country’s future economic options, including solutions for energy, healthcare, education, Medicare & Social Security and national defense.

Any person of gravity aspiring to lead the nation would have demanded input into the final formula. Who knew his leadership skills were honed on the music of Doris Day? While the nation teetered, Senator Obama sang “Que Sera, Sera.”

His response provides other insights into his character and talent. It’s more than possible that he had nothing to contribute, or that he didn’t want to be associated with the root cause of the problem, the collapse of a trillion dollar housing welfare scheme.

No proponent of Big Government wants to be branded with the dire results of yet another colossal, failed income redistribution program.

Maybe instinctively, Obama knew the voters would be reviled by the solution promulgated by the leftwing, the nationalization of the financial industry. So he hid under his desk hoping that his political bedmates Rep. Barney Frank, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Dodd and Senator Reid would do the heavy lifting.

Whatever his reason for cowering, his lack of action foretold the future of an Obama White House. The nation’s course would be set by others because he sees himself as a recipient and not a donor. His response portends that his first reaction to any crisis will be to avoid direct conflict, rather than steering the outcome

This parallels and reconfirms the snapshot of the man we momentarily saw when he said he would sit down with Iraq, North Korea, etc. without precondition. This is the man who said an opinion on abortion was above his pay grade; a man who votes “Present” instead of making a decision.

Like a child, he sees himself as the object of affection and not the subject. He has built his career on ingratiating himself. He is the sum total of the curse of affirmative action. He has never stood without help. It is not his lack of experience that should concern the nation; it’s his lack of maturity.

Pundits have suggested that the Oval Office is not suited to on-the-job training. Neither is it a nursery. When the nation is threatened, the White House’s first responses shouldn’t be rolling out a teleprompter while the staff changes the President’s diapers.

Can Congress be Stopped?

Rarely, only rarely, do politicians bare their souls. Senator Biden had one of these moments when he related patriotism to the duty of Americans to pay higher taxes. His candor defined the politics of national decline.

Biden’s solution: Pad all government accounts to compensate for its reckless abandonment of fiscal sanity. It’s not a solution; it’s an endorsement of the status quo. He believes that buying oats for a dead horse will miraculously turn it into a thoroughbred.

Senator McCain was correct when he said the fundamentals of the American economy are sound. America has the infrastructure, the intelligence, the capital, the willingness and a tradition of solving problems.

There is only one question that needs answering. Can Congress be stopped from interfering with our economic success?

Long term recovery and sustainable economic growth is dependent on government staying out of the pockets of business, and business staying out of the government’s pocket. The margins between these entities have been blurred by decades of legislation which has created an unhealthy dependency.

Now add social engineering to the mix. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was created by the Democrats to encourage banks to approve the mortgages of unaccredited borrowers. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were created to buy the worthless mortgages that the banks would have otherwise refused to approve.

In effect, the government licensed mortgage brokers to pillage over a trillion dollars from the US Treasury to promote housing welfare. Don’t blame the regulators. Send your heart felt thanks to the Democrats for your generosity. Now watch them scramble to control the distribution of the funds.

The bailout will soon become history’s greatest political slush fund. Of course, the Democrats will blame the bankers and paint the need for a bailout as a shared responsibility. That’s code for sticking every single American with a $2300 bill for yet another failed income redistribution scheme.

This fits the Standard Operating Procedure of the Democratic Party: Throw good money after bad. And for the record, President Bush will sign their legislation because he doesn’t have a backbone and his advisors all live on Wall Street.

To keep America’s credit lines healthy, temporary funding should be used to bolster the reserves of the thousands of financial institutions that remained faithful to the public trust.

The nation is in jeopardy because liberals believe government is the source of prosperity. Democrats believe that taxation creates opportunity. Follow this arrogance to its logical conclusion, and taxes can never be high enough. Senator Biden confessed his belief that if government is revenue rich then everyone will live happily ever after.

The current US tax code is a precursor to the nation’s obituary because it is used to grant special treatment. It’s the official log of business buying favors from a Congress that trades its influence for our affluence.

Senator Biden’s moment of honesty pinpoints the cause of our nation’s economic stagnation. Whether the Democrats are debating healthcare, education or energy their goal is the same. They want to expand and retain the power of government. And that is what’s rotting America’s economic fabric.

Made in America

The leftwing reaction to Sarah Palin is fascinating and enlightening. She is the liberals’ worst nightmare, a political comet hurtling toward the epicenter of the East Coast’s liberal establishment. Their attacks on her are primordial because they fear extinction.

And as with real-estate, it’s all about location, location, location. In America’s heartland Sarah looks like a rising star. The Pedigree Club flies over this geography. The Eastern elite believe the masses huddled in inland communities are a primitive species still clinging to guns and God.

They can’t comprehend people who have more faith in their neighbors’ common sense than the pontifications of a press reared in Ivy League schools. The East Coast conclave believes the liberal agenda should be accepted as Manifest Destiny, an inevitable future.

They view the inhabitants of Middle America as primitives standing in the way of progress. They despise Sarah because she stirs memories. Her career reminds Americans that they don’t have to suffer fools. She reminds Americans that morality, merit, patriotism, self-reliance, motherhood and apple pie are worthy of respect.

And she reminds Americans that they are not pets. They aren’t dependent on a clique of elitists, including Europeans, who have a single goal, to be the sole arbiters of opportunity, respectability and acceptance.

It’s Sarah’s style of independence that liberals want to expunge from the American psyche. She has proven that Americans can still succeed without government nourishment. She is the antithesis of the liberal agenda. She represents the ideals that built the United States of America.

They fear she will spark a revolution. They fear she will instill people with a sense of pride in building their own future. They fear her independent spirit will incite people to take control of their lives and vanquish the hordes of bureaucrats eating away at their freedoms.

The liberal agenda is about creating a society subservient to government. Liberals abhor independent thought. They abhor criticism. And they can’t afford to let anyone lift the rock they slither under before elections.

Want confirmation? Senator Obama has rebuked every position he held prior to his nomination. He knows he can’t win the election if he keeps his real colors unfurled. He needs a teleprompter to remind himself what to espouse. He’s parroting a foreign language.

That’s why his campaign’s attacks on Sarah are personal. His leftwing cohorts can only question her intelligence, her education, her experience and fitness as a mother. They can’t attack her politics without giving away their own positions.

With an 85% favorability rating as Alaska’s Governor, it’s difficult to use scorched earth tactics on her record; a record Obama can’t match.

Her favorability numbers indicate ordinary Americans like her brand of politics. That’s the fuse that Sarah has lit. McCain introduced a real American to America. And she reminds them of who they are and what they can accomplish.

Sarah will carry McCain into office because it’s her message and persona that’s resonating. She’s about putting America back in the hands of Americans. She’s about what Made in America means.

Overpaid Criminals

When the only criterion for getting a home loan is having a pulse, no one should be surprised that the financial market is in chaos. Who would have guessed that lending money to non-credit worthy borrowers would result in delinquent loans?

The Equal Lending Opportunity legislation defied common sense. It broke the cardinal rule of banking by demanding lending institutions ignore the collateral, credit and employment history of the borrowers. Nor could the geographic location of the property be taken into consideration.

The financial community obliged these federal mandates with gusto. With quasi-government corporations like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buying up the new mortgages, the original lenders had no downside to approving loans. Better yet, selling the worthless paper freed their credit lines to issue more mortgages.

Sub-prime and interest only loans were introduced and promoted to broaden the field of potential home owners (read new mortgages). This fueled the construction industry’s surge. The demand for housing inflated property values, which in turn inflated the stock value of the companies buying the mortgages.

The merry-go-round stopped. Thousands and thousands of credit-worthy buyers are sitting on properties whose values have since plummeted. Their mortgages are greater than the property value. This depreciated the reserves of lenders which underpin their ability to lend, to survive. The depth of this problem has yet to unfold, but expect more bankruptcies.

To add insult to injury the homes of most Americans have been devalued by the number of anxious sellers. The market is flooded with inventory. Experts don’t see this problem solved in less than four years.

The executives at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, etc. knew it was a Ponzi scheme. The early stockholders were paid off with money put up by the later ones. The system collapsed when they ran out of people willing to plunge into the inflated market. They ran out of stupid buyers.

Now the public is told that there is no criminal liability. No one in government, in financial institutions or in the SEC can be held accountable. The taxpayers are expected to believe that this fiasco came as a surprise to the government and the financial community. In a pig’s eye!

Greed is criminal when the participants, with full knowledge of the harmful consequences, pursue deceptive strategies to entice investors. Does anyone with an IQ higher than a cup of mud believe the past and present executives of these companies aren’t bandits?

The US Attorney General should rip the covers off these companies. If they don’t find proof of criminal intent it means one thing. Some important people in government colluded and benefited personally. It’s a cover-up. And if there is no serious investigation, be assured that members of Congress and the Executive branch are in this up to their necks.

The failure of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and many more to come substantiate that when stupid is given what stupid wants the nation always pays the price.

Equal Opportunity Lending is welfare masquerading as monetary fairness. It’s not equal because it penalizes every citizen who makes responsible decisions. These folks will face tighter credit, reduced home values and higher taxes for a decade to compensate for the trillion dollars the government squandered in the name of fairness.

The Democratic solution offered by Rep. Barney Frank: Use more tax dollars to bail out every investor and every home buyer whose poor decisions got them into trouble. The liberal definition of shared responsibility: Protect the criminally stupid and the criminals.

Franchising Corruption

The recent article, Ten Myths about Budget Deficits and Debt, by Brian M. Riedl, The Heritage Foundation, balances the economic causes, effects and conditions that America faces.

Anyone interested in cutting through the political mudslinging in this election cycle will be well served spending fifteen to twenty minutes reading this non-partisan review which places the numbers in context. The complete article with graphs and sources can be found at www.Heritage.org.

The article doesn’t address the pessimism documented in the national polls; nor was it intended to do so. It calculates the economic health of the nation in objective dollar terms. Mr. Riedl’s calculations are cerebral and honest. He doesn’t play with statistics.

Mr. Riedl, an economic wonk, concludes the country is doing okay, but he doesn’t consider the human condition in his analysis. There is no sympathy or empathy in numbers. He leaves these morsels to the pandering politicians and internet scribes.

By definition the country is not in a recession. That’s hard to believe, but technically true. Productivity and the GDP are up because the US economy is entwined with the global market.

It’s wonderful that the workers in China and Indonesia are doing more with less. This improves the profit margins of the US corporations that have abandoned American workers. Of course, their investors are happy and the annual bonuses of executives will be bountiful.

Once proud American corporations are now foreign employment franchises. To maintain the pretense of being American, most of these companies keep their headquarters stateside. Their stocks trade on US exchanges and their annual reports are still available in English.

The Reagan Administration opened the doors to illegal immigration by handling the issue benignly. Granting a “one time” amnesty all but franchised illegal immigration. It looked like a blank check to the fifteen million illegal aliens that have since swept across our open borders.

This unintended consequence provides at least fifteen million people, ready to accept sub-standard wages. Now throw in millions of underpaid HB-1, educated workers to displace Americans who demand a decent wage and presto, profits soar.

In his book, Lion in the White House, the author, Aida D. Donald, quotes Theodore Roosevelt, then a Manhattan State Assemblyman, about the owner of New York City’s elevated railway, Jay Gould. Roosevelt said that Jay and his partners “belong to that most dangerous of all classes, the wealthy criminal class."

This seems to capture the essence of today's meltdown of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The only goal of their executives was the rapid accumulation of personal wealth. They disregarded the well-being of the companies, the employees, the stockholders, and, most importantly, the nation.

Senator Obama recognizes the problem. His solution: Raise taxes on these robber barons and automatically distribute the revenues to the victims. Rather than eliminating the core problem, his solution franchises it. Obama’s plan legitimates Congressional corruption.

The fraud in Washington, DC won’t end until national revenues are off limits to business. As boring as Senator McCain is, if he cleans government of the lobbyists and the legislation (earmarks and subsidies) that their clients are buying, he will restore confidence in government.

Hillary's Last Hope Wears a Skirt

The contest between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama concentrated the nation’s attention on gender and ethnicity. Voter alignment and sentiment swirled around these issues.

The candidates’ political agendas were nearly identical. The media’s attention on the soaring rhetoric of Senator Obama and its love of his skin color caught the Clintons by surprise. Bill and Hillary thought they owned the airwaves and the press. That’s the assumption that sank her campaign.

Senator Obama won eleven straight primary contests before he was vetted. Then the rules of political correctness hampered the Clintons’ counter attack. After Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers and Michelle and Barack Obama’s politics were unveiled, the Clintons were unmercifully slapped around for mentioning these issues.

That’s the irony of her loss. Political correctness was concocted by the Clintons’ aficionados to shade the truth and change the rules of debate. Gender was the politically correct horse Hillary planned on riding into the White House. So she doesn’t deserve sympathy.

Hillary’s fortunes changed once Barack’s true colors were identified. Political correctness was trumped by the privacy of the voting booth. Although she carried every swing state in the final rounds, her resurrection came too late. The nation will discover on November 4, 2008 how many Americans regret pulling the Obama lever.

Senator Obama remains the Democratic nominee because the Convention Delegates knew that they would lose the black vote if they selected the best candidate. They were trapped, having depended on blacks for fifty years to keep them in office. Without the black vote the Democratic Party would cease to exist as a national contender.

Finally, the election is focusing on issues rather than the fanciful images created by the liberal media. It’s McCain verses Obama. Character, experience, economics, US security, energy, trade, education, healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, immigration and taxes are now percolating into the national discussion.

It’s now about liberal solutions verses conservative solutions. It’s about reality and ideals. The dynamics of this election have been changed by Sarah Palin. Senator McCain correctly portrays himself as neutral. He is neither fish nor fowl. So in the cold light of day, this election now pits the politics of Sarah Palin against the politics of Senator Obama.

There are two debates that Americans would relish: 1) Sarah vs. Barack, and 2) Sarah Palin vs. Speaker Pelosi. These contests would define the underlying choice Americans will make.

Who would win these debates? The jury is still out. But Hillary Clinton would benefit if Sarah walked away with America on her side. A McCain/Palin win in November would leave the door open for a Clinton run in 2012. Who would have guessed that Hillary’s last hope would be wearing a skirt?

A final irony: Sarah wouldn’t be a factor if Obama had selected Hillary as his running mate. That decision, of and by itself, identifies his petulance, immaturity and arrogance.

Her Name is Sarah and She's Packing Heat

It doesn’t take a forensic expert to patch together the evidence of what occurred at the Republican Convention in St. Paul. A little lady with a sense of humor beat the devil out of her boss’ adversary.

More importantly, she didn’t apologize. That’s refreshing. She showed up practically unannounced and introduced the nation to some wisdom that President George W. Bush ignored for eight years. A national leader who hides behind the opponent’s colors doesn’t earn respect.

Sarah Palin was forthright. That appeals to Americans. Her boss’ speech was okay. Had he delivered it prior to her national debut, it would have been a bust. His acceptance speech rode on the reverberation she created. She added the can-do dimension to his thoughts.

Senator McCain was told in no uncertain terms that Sarah Palin is the gravity that pulled the audience toward him. Let’s hope he heard the message. He may define himself as a uniter, but she defines the direction the nation will follow.

Senator McCain will win the presidency if he stays by her side. He may be a military hero, but she represents the millions of American heroes who fight everyday to protect their families. They pick up a lunch pail or a briefcase and head to work, hoping the job will still be there when they arrive.

They aren’t looking for handouts and are willing to bust their humps to pay the rent and keep food on the table. They just want a fair shake. These are the Americans that respect Sarah Palin because she cut through the polite doublespeak and told the truth.

The majority of Americans will pull the lever for Senator McCain if they believe he will follow her example. He is a decent man and an honorable man. But many people fear his willingness to compromise with Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid and the Kennedy crowd will chip away at the foundation of the American Dream.

This cadre doesn’t represent America’s passion for excellence. They smite success. They represent the takers and not the givers, the complainers and not the doers. Sympathy is good. But handouts are appeasements; they are not solutions.

This country was built on a work ethic. Americans are willing to put their shoulders down and push with a ferocity that uniquely defines the American spirit. They define competitor. This is the nerve that Sarah Palin awakened.

Americans want a system that rewards effort. They want a government that builds opportunity, not one that distributes it based on gender, ethnicity and pandering. They want a government that protects their backs.

And there stands a tiny woman with the heart of a lion and the soul of an American. The nation heard her roar. She promised to help her boss clear the barn of vermin. Only a fool would doubt her capability.

And don’t underestimate Senator McCain’s resolve to end the Congressional featherbedding and return our schools to the business of education.

Sarah Palin

Governor Palin changes the dynamics of the 2008 election, and maybe America’s future. She’s admirable. You can sense the steel in her backbone and the resolve in her mindset. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine her resolutely trekking across America’s 18th century prairies with her eyes on the horizon.

She embodies what Made in America means. There is something special about this lady. She is self-reliant and doesn’t seem to have an ounce of quit in her.

Her path to the vice presidential nomination wasn’t coated with rose pedals. There is no family pedigree or scent of entitlement about her. She cleared her own path. She epitomizes the promise of America.

Her political career was built on improving the quality of life in the communities she represented rather than on a carefully groomed image that money can buy. She has been proven loyal to the simple concept that government is for and by the people.

This doesn’t make her old fashioned. She renews the American spirit that has been degraded by generations of elected, pandering sycophants strutting down the streets of Washington, DC, and in the capitols of too many states. This self-serving crowd has succumbed to buying loyalty.

They have put the nation up for sale rather than grappling with the problems. They have pitted race against race, gender against gender, state against state and American against American to enhance their personal fortunes. Listen to them. Their promises are never tied to national unity and growth. They are only interested in dividing the pot.

And there stands Sarah Palin. She doesn’t represent the political status quo. She is a free spirit. Anyone would be hard pressed to believe she entered the political fray with a career in mind. It’s clear that she backed into public service because she was tired of “The Club” enriching itself by scamming the system.

Many on the left, and a few on the right, claim she is not up to the challenge. There is nothing in her history that supports this conclusion. Others submit that her selection was gender based. It would be difficult to refute this ascertain. But this feeble snub doesn’t diminish her character, her principles, her talent or her aptitude.

She is the real McCoy, an American through and through. And she happens to be a woman. The nation needs honest leadership. If it takes a woman to put this nation back on course, so be it.

Sarah Palin has always lived on the same street as average Americans. She is not a princess. She is us. That’s her greatest asset.

Senator Obama, Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi will never understand why Americans are proud of Sarah Palin. She is a stranger to the Big Government crowd. They are her antithesis, the sum and total of self-serving political avarice, class warfare and the dismissal of moral standards.

They fear Sarah because she represents the heart and soul of this nation. They fear Sarah because she will rise to the occasion.

Kitty Litter Economics

Educated Americans understand the Kitty Litter Principle underpins the Democratic Party’s theory of economics. Thus, the backdrop of Senator Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver would have been more representative of his politics if pallets of kitty litter ensconced the stage.

It would have been an inclusive symbol, representing the productive segment of society he plans on soaking, which was the essence of his message.

His heart went out to the disappearing Middle Class. He forgot to mention that this once robust segment of society has been nearly taxed and legislated out of existence. This backbone of America’s progress was crushed by sales, toll, excise, income, property, inheritance and capital gains taxes. Even their savings, retirement programs and Social Security benefits are taxed.

America’s bread and butter core has endured fifty years of legislation that debunked opportunity built on personal initiative, merit and savings. They lost out to legislation that pitted their aspirations against those who loot the system. And here’s the irony. The Middle Class was forced to fund its own demise.

Now they are contending with illegal aliens for the scraps.

The Middle Class has been robbed blind. They have nothing left to give after five decades of being treated like kitty litter. They can’t absorb any more. And what have they received for bankrolling the Democrats’ scheme to share the responsibility? They are drifting into the ranks of the poor.

The Democrats in local, state and national politics have drained the Middle Class. Now they are targeting the wealthy and Upper Middle Class. And the stakes are getting higher because these survivors are expected to support the expanding ranks of poor created by confiscatory taxation.

It’s a vicious cycle. Taxation and over regulation have already destroyed the mainstay of Middle America, namely, manufacturing jobs. Made in America labels have all but disappeared, along with the Middle Class. This is not a coincidence. When large manufacturers fled the US, they took the jobs with them.

Obama plans on expanding government and increasing benefits to all who knock, including twenty to forty million illegal immigrants. Where will the money come from to achieve these goals? His answer: Raid the remaining businesses for the new revenues.

Understand! Senator Obama’s promise to reduce taxes on the Middle Class is a hideous deceit that will bring Americans to their knees. His proposals will result in a greater economic catastrophe than has befallen the Middle Class.

His plan will suck the economy dry of its last source of investment capital, which in turn will send unemployment beyond anything experienced during the Great Depression.

And here is the kicker. Tax revenues will plummet and government welfare will collapse under its own weight. If the Democrats have not been discredited by this time, they will again raise taxes to protect the poor created by their confiscatory tax policies. This is the hoax that will drive the last nail in America’s economic coffin. And this is what Obama has promised.