Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Food for Thought, Never to Forget

Check out this article regarding the bail out of wall street from Time.com.
www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html
For those of you that don't want to bother reading it, I have copied the last paragraph for your reading pleasure to sum it up. "Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing."

Don't forget people, it's still not over. They are going to continue to try and use your tax dollars to pass some sort of bail out. Keep writing your senators and representatives to let them know you oppose any kind of "loan" or however they want to spin it, with your tax dollars.

Gas prices. Don't get complacent because they are coming down some. I realize they have agreed to let the ban expire on off shore drilling. But let me remind you of a simple fact of why this is so important. Billions of dollars are being sent to the middle east to support our demand for oil. This is money that we will spend regardless, but it is currently helping their economy. Just think what a boost it is to our economy if we stop sending it overseas and start to spend that money in our own economy.

Health Care. Here's a quote that you never ever ever want to forget about when talk comes up of nationalizing health care:

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!"

P.J. O'Rourke


Just remember nothing is free when it comes to the government. And the only people out there to pay for it is you and me. Be careful what you ask them to take care of because they will likely do it less inefficiently than you could yourself, or someone else for you.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Failing Education


I don't know if you all realize just how bad our education system is. But the fact that politicians and others who have a vested interest in this government bailout to "save the economy," keep touting the mantra, "the average person just doesn't understand what all's involved and just how devastating it will be if we don't provide this bail-out," should be an indication just how terrible things are in public education.

Here's why. The government caused a problem that now they are trying to convince you the average person, that they are the solution to. The sad part is that many people have decided that this must be true. They accept the word of the government rather than question the word of those in our government. This should be scary to most of you come election time. Because many or most of the people won't be voting on substance, they'll be voting on who looks good to them, or who their parents told them to vote for, or who their friend told them to vote for, without ever doing 10 minutes of research on the issues and what and why the candidates take the position they take and what that means if that person is elected.

The government has a monopoly on education. What I mean by that is that all the tax dollars collected and distributed for education, go to government schools. You can't just decide to send your kid to the private school of your choice and expect the government to give you the money they would have paid the public school in your district for your kid to attend. So what happens if you choose to forgo the tax dollars you already pay for your child's education and send him to private school? That money still goes to the government school district you live in.

Then the government teachers teach your kids to become mindless followers and believers in the need for government. If you don't intervene and teach them to question everything, then that is what they will become. They don't question the motives or actions of politicians, they just vote for the one that will "take care" of them. Luckily there are still parents out there that take it upon themselves to continue their kid's education at home. Good for you and keep up the good work.

I believe there are things that shouldn't be taught at school because it is the responsibility of parents to teach their kids their belief system or send them to a school that will instill their belief system. Two topics in particular are sex and religion. The biology associated with sex is fine but birth control vs abstinence should be addressed at home. There shouldn't even be any arguments as to whether or not the government school should teach abstinence or birth control. Stick to biology. Same with religion. They can and ought to offer elective classes on religion just as students should be allowed to form religious clubs if they want to. But it should not be forced on any student who's parent doesn't want that. Likewise that parent shouldn't fight to remove any non-forced religious classes or clubs from the campus.

That said I believe a parent should have the right to choose where to send their child to school, be it a government school, a parochial school, or some other private school offering something they want for their child. Schools should have to compete with each other for students. You know operate in the free market like businesses do. If some schools can't keep up, let them fail. Government or not. They have to offer something there's a market for. The money should follow the child, not the child following the money. Maybe that's why we have such a subpar education system in this country. But that's my solution. Oh and while we're taking the monopoly away from the government, let's dismantle the department of education while we're at it and leave it up to the states to determine how much regulation they want on schools and teachers in their state. You all know just how much money we're wasting at a federal level on departments like this.

Who knows, it just might work. Good teachers might start getting paid more, students might learn to think for themselves, and we might become competitive with the rest of the world again.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Slippery Slope, Smoke-Screen, or Both?


With the recent "drama" of the mortgage industry bail-out in session, I saw some news last night that infuriated me, but it was bed time and this presidential candidate needs her rest. Especially when she's infuriated so she can form rational thoughts to share with you. This wasn't overlooked on talk radio today which we can be grateful for. But I'm convinced 90% of Americans weren't listening or paying attention. But they should be. You all should be. This affects you and the future of this country.

"A bill set to be passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as early as this weekend—separate from the controversial Wall Street bailout plan—includes $25 billion in loans for the beleaguered Detroit automakers and several of their suppliers."
(Click on the quote for the full story from usnews.com.)

So not only are we bailing out the poor business and personal practices of banks and their lendees, now the auto industry has their hand out saying "what about us." The hope is that you won't notice since $25 billion is a trivial amount compared to $700 billion. I don't know where congress comes from but where I come from 50,000 smart people could probably retire on $25 billion or be dang close to it. That's a lot of money! If that $25 billion were going to the banks, it would still be unacceptable in my book.

What industry is next? You can't give government money to one and not expect the others not to come pounding at your door.

When will you people get infuriated by this trend by our senators and representatives to increase the size of government so large, that you have no choice but to depend on them? You should be fighting this to your grave if you care about your children and grandchildren. Don't give into their out of control practices. Government interference is what got us into this mess to begin with, how can government interference possibly be better than letting the free market work it out. Granted times might be tough for awhile, but the resiliency of the American people will prevail.

If American auto makers can't keep up with the quality and demand of the foreign auto makers, tough luck. The American people shouldn't be forced to keep them alive. They should figure it out on their own or go away.

If I am elected, any garbage like this making it to my desk will be vetoed. But not before publicly humiliating every single member of the house and senate who voted in favor of it. You can be sure of that. Dog's honor...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Term Limits - Not Such a Bad Idea


"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - (Alexander Tyler is given credit for writing this in regards to the fall of the Athenian Republic but snopes.com can't validate this. It really doesn't matter who wrote, the sentiment and caution is a good one)

For those of you that think America is a true democracy, let me correct you. We are a republic that operates under a representative democracy. Simply put, we don't vote on policy and law, we elect senators and representatives to represent us in Washington and vote "on our behalf." So those of us that voted for them are represented and the rest of us are SOL Don't believe me, look it up. So I guess that's not really a representative democracy either.

Here's the problem with that. There aren't any term limits for Senators and Representatives. Why is that when the office of the president now has a two term limit, it isn't deemed necessary for our other elected officials? Whatever happened to the concept of public service? I'm sure many of them go in with the best of intentions but it seems like after term one or two they start enjoying the power they have and they make votes based on what they feel like making rather than how their constituents would prefer they vote. They could impose term limits on themselves, but they'd have to vote on it and why would anyone vote themselves out of a job? Hence where voting for themselves rather than with constituents' preferences. They vote themselves raises and all kinds of benefits. Why not? If I could vote myself a raise I certainly would.

And this is why we have complacency in this country for how our country is run. The power should be in the hands of the people not in the government. People think they can't change things so they don't educate themselves about candidates, don't bother to vote, or just vote for the name they know. What good does that do? We could essentially kick these people out of office and yet we don't. We keep electing the same ones over and over without bothering to check their voting record while in office. Not one of them ever seems to be held accountable unless they are caught in some "scandal." We have a responsibility to hold them accountable. Just like we have a responsibility to write or call them to voice our opinions to them.

I love how many politicians are "in favor" of term limits and then when that time comes they revise their position to "well if there was a bill to come up I'd vote for it, otherwise I can't do any good if I step down now." Well why haven't you written that bill?

If you limit the amount of time they are allowed to spend representing us there maybe they will actually stick to their original intentions rather than wasting their time trying to buy our votes every election. Which is another trick they get involved in. They will vote a certain way in an attempt to essentially buy votes with your tax dollars. Why do we let them do this? Again, term limits might help put a stop to this practice.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Government is NOT the Answer to Your Problems


Whether you believe in creation or the big bang, government was not there to help the first people on earth gather their food, build their houses, and fix any damage to them after a storm. They worked hard to do this on their own and looked for ways to improve things on their own. How do you think we've come so far? Over time, left to their own devices private citizens have learned how to improve processes and methods to develop technology far beyond the imagination of the first people on earth. All without the help of government.

Families came together to help raise their own, not intrude on other families to insist that it be done one superior way. That's not to say children shouldn't be defended if they are severely injured or sexually abused. But a parent should be allowed to discipline as they see fit. Parents should take responsibility for raising their kids to be productive, responsible, members of society, not depend on the government to do it. And if hard times fall on a family member, the family should come together to help them out. That's not to say they should enable them to be lazy, drug addicts, or something else. But it used to be that families and churches provided the temporary help for their members to help them during the hard times that happen and celebrate with them when they make it past those hard times.

When this is left to the government, it will cost way more than necessary and they will seize your money to help someone you may not care to help whether you want them to or not. When did government become the solution? Everyone should know by now that if left to the government, things like charity, education, food, clothing, etc etc are executed in such an inefficient manner that it should be criminal how much of our hard earned tax dollars are wasted.

History has taught us this over and over and over and yet we still let politicians try to buy our votes by promising us this and that. With our money no less, with the exception of those that don't pay taxes.

We all have choices and we should be expected to live within our means rather than rely on the government to bail us out every time we make a bad decision. The same goes for corporations. They shouldn't be bailed out every time they enter in to bad decisions. And now because they did, responsible tax payers are footing the bill for it. That isn't right. Companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to fail and go away. People that make bad choices should be allowed to fail. If you don't experience failure, how are you going to learn to make better decisions the next time around? And how are you going to reassess your situation to make cut backs to live within your means if you've been taught that it doesn't matter, "big brother" will bail you out?

Personal Responsibility should be demanded of all of us, not just those who take pride in it. You can't change history but you sure can learn from it. Well you should learn from it to change the future.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Lola and Riley '08

Meet My Vice President


This is Riley. My Vice Presidential running mate. She's tough on security and won't hesitate to take down anyone posing a threat to America. She agrees with me that there is too much wasteful spending in the government and as president of the senate, she would vote against any bills filled with wasteful spending should her vote be needed. She will also use her voice of reason to discourage elected senators from passing bills that will waste the tax dollars of those that elected them.

She's a strong proponent of personal responsibility and will do everything she can to promote the personal responsibility of each and every American, and work to inhibit government interference in their attempts to take personal responsibility for themselves.

Together we want to help teach every American to take pride in setting their priorities straight to rely on themselves rather than the government. One way we plan to do that is to privatize social security. The government will no longer take ownership of your social security. You will own that money and it will go into an account for you to invest. It will still come out of your check every time you get paid, but you get to direct the investment of it, and if you die before you retire, the total balance belongs to you to pass on to your family. Once you reach the age of 50 or the balance is $300,000, whichever comes first, you can have access to it. You can also contribute more of your income to it each pay period if you wish. But the point is you can decide how much risk you want to take or not and you will own your money, not the government.

Another plan we have is to reduce the corporate tax rate to 10%. The United States currently has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That's not what this country is about. We want America to have one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world to encourage American companies that have sent operations overseas, to bring them back to the U.S. which will provide more jobs to Americans that want to work. This will also encourage other countries to come and do business within our borders. This helps you as a consumer because corporations pass the cost of those taxes on to you the consumers. The lower the cost, the less you have to pay for goods and services as long as you the consumers are prudent and the free market is allowed to operate freely to compete against each other.

We'd also like to replace the income tax, that hard working families pay,with a national sales tax. This is currently known as the fair tax. We propose a few modifications to the Fair Tax to impede government growth and takeover in your daily lives and to encourage personal responsibility rather than discourage it. All you need to know now is that you pay taxes when you choose to consume. Each family will receive a prebate every month based on family size to cover the taxes on necessities like food and clothing. Those who consume the most, pay the most taxes. It also means we will now be collecting taxes on tourists, illegal immigrants, organized criminals, and anyone else not currently carrying their fair share in the tax burden. Feel free to read up on the fair tax and ask me specific questions on what I'd do differently.

Finally, we'd like to eliminate the ridiculous death tax. It's government robbery to take money that has already had taxes paid on it once. We'd like to end that horrid practice.

These are just a few of our proposed economic changes to help stimulate the economy by increasing jobs, increasing the purchasing power of you, and giving back social security ownership to the people.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Why a Strong Economy is Important

I'm not going to go into my "economic plan" just yet. Instead I'm going to give you a few basics on indicators of a strong healthy economy and why it's beneficial to you as an individual and to your family. Keep in mind a person or family's perspective of whether or not the current economy is strong or weak, is largely driven by their own personal circumstances. If you dad just lost his job, his view of the economy will be that's it's terrible. However if 2 or 3 weeks later he gets a new higher paying job than he lost, his view of the economy will likely change to a more positive outlook.

One indicator of a strong economy is the unemployment rate. The lower the unemployment rate the stronger the economy. This means that people have jobs and there are jobs available to them if they want. There will always be a certain amount of unemployment simply because some people are "holding out for management positions," meaning there are jobs for them if they will choose to take them, even if only on a temporary basis. Then there are the people who have learned to work unemployment to their advantage, meaning they find ways to get fired from jobs to collect unemployment. They are adding to the unemployment rate every time they "loose their job."

Either way, a low unemployment rate is a good thing and job creation helps keep this number low. Let say you want to start a snow cone stand in front of your house. You have just created a job for 1 person that didn't exist before. Let's say your stand does so well that you can now afford to hire your friend to help you work it. You have just created a 2nd job that didn't exist before. Let's also say that you and your friend were only working for 3 hours a day, but you discover you still have people coming up for snow cones when you are ready to quit. So because you notice you still have a demand for your snow cones, you hire 2 more people to run the stand for the next 3 hours. Now you have created a total of 4 jobs that are available. In the real world, you'd pay sales tax to the local government, and you and your employees would pay income taxes to the federal government, which they use to pay for all kinds of intrusions in our lives. However some of these services they provide are seen as necessary. Either way the more people that are employed, the less dependence there is on the government for help.

Another indicator of the economy is Gross Domestic Product or GDP, which measures the market value of the goods produced for a given period of time. One of the easiest ways to understand this is to put it in a math equation:
GDP= consumption + investment + government spending + (exports - imports)
The trick is to not have more imports than exports, reduce government spending, and have a happy balance between consumption and investment. However you never want to give up investment in favor of consumption. This is why consumption is commonly perceived as an indicator of a healthy economy. But just because consumption is up, doesn't mean investment is up. Just remember government spending is always going up and up and up and is hurting the overall GDP. I'm not in favor of that personally. And that is one thing I intend to get a handle on if elected.

In my opinion the true test of a healthy economy is whether or not its citizens can take care of themselves now and when they retire if they choose to retire. This means they don't have more debt than they can handle, they can pay their bills every month, they don't have any credit card debt, they have savings that they are contributing to so they can handle financial emergencies, and they are contributing to retirement savings every month. A healthy economy is filled with citizens who take personal responsibility for their finances and their financial well-being. They don't depend on the government, or other countries to feed, clothe, and house them. They prepare for emergencies, and are generous and helpful to each other in temporary times of need. Based on the credit card factor alone, I'd say we live in a pretty unhealthy economy. I'd like to educate people to start taking more personal responsibility for themselves since you can't rely on the government to.

For the Kids

Hi Kids. I have a word find for you to do if you are looking for something to do. The words are listed below and can be found forwards, backwards, up, down, or diagonally. If you come across a word that you don't know, you really should talk to your parents first about what that word is and what it means to them. Even if you do know a word, you should talk to your parents about what these words mean to them and your family as a unit.

Over the next several weeks I will talk more about some of these words which you may find to support what you discussed with your parents, or give you and your parents a different perspective. Either way, there are lots of things that your parents should teach you rather than the government, so don't ever hesitate to ask them questions. Enjoy!

Constitution, Vote, Election, Economy,
Taxes, Welfare, Environment, Energy,
Budget, Debt, Responsibility, Security,
Freedom, Flag, America, President

Friday, September 5, 2008

Let Me Introduce Myself and the Purpose of this Blog


Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages. My name is Lola and as this political season is gaining momentum, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring, since there is mass cynicism and mistrust of humans to lead this country. My hope is to write at a level kids can understand so that parents can use this site as a tool to help teach their kids about politics and the key issues surrounding politics.

One thing that won't be discussed on this blog is abortion. Other than the poll on the left. That is because I don't believe that most people can sit down and have a rational discussion about it if they have extreme views on either side of the issue. People feel passionate about this issue, but I feel it is a topic that side-tracks us from discussing issues that we can work together to improve our lives, this country, and our personal responsibility. I just won't debate this issue, but you are entitled to your choice and opinion on the topic as I am.

You can see a summary of my beliefs in the "About Me" section to the left.

From time to time there will be polls on the left, so check them out. I will also try to put fun things on here from time to time to help get your kids interested.

Feel free to ask me questions or comment on things you agree with or disagree with or leave a comment in my guest book to the left.

I look forward to sharing more with you over time, and hope to win your vote in November.

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