PA Blog

I was recently contacted by an owner of a website that tracks how Senators and Representatives in Washington have voted on the major issues of the day. It is a very interesting and easy to use down-loadable PDF for each state. Here is the link to how Pennsylvania Congressman have voted on the major issues. Click Here. If you are reading this and you are from one of our other states Click Here to find your state.

The nice thing is you can print this out on one page and take it with you to the place you vote and easily share it with your friends, churches and other organizations.  The chart does not get into party affiliation. In all honesty that should not matter to most of us. While I may be a Conservative and often vote Republican I will stand by anyone who is for smaller government, lower taxes, energy independence, fiscal responsibility and tough on terror. I don’t care what party affiliation you have if you believe in these things.

Washington will never learn unless “We the people” decide to make them listen by voting out the wrong headed career politicians and vote in the new blood, pro Constitution small government types.

You can stop reading now if you want. The rest of this is just my venting on recent political issues. If you need to rant simply register and submit your rant via a Post. We will review and approve it if appropriate.

Since Barack Obama has taken office with his Democrat majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate they have wasted time and precious American resources. Not that Bush was much better. However, I believe if a Conservative was in office he or she would have immediately pivoted towards the economy. Just like after the 9/11 attack we should have gone aggressively towards fiscal responsibility.

Just think about this for a minute or maybe you already have. While the country tail spins our Congress and President squandered an entire year on 2 major issues that Americans were overwhelmingly against. They were Cap and Trade, known as Cap and Tax as it would cost all Americans billions if not trillions of dollars and hurt our economic standing in the world. All based on faulty science that says man is causing the earth to warm. If you been paying attention to the news you now know the earth has been cooling for the past 15 years or so and that it is all a natural thing. The next thing our politicians have been wasting time on is Government run Health Care. Even though all the polls prove Americans want to take a slow incremental approach to changing they way health care is delivered, the President, Pelosi and Reid are going to try and ram through a government take over of health care against the wishes of the American people.

I remember the line that rocketed Bill Clinton into office: “It’s the economy stupid!” However catchy that slogan was it did not come to fruition until the Contract with America came about by Conservative leaders in 1994.The Tea Party Movement is similar only it is a grass roots outcry of the people to our government to reform the way it does business now. It is the people saying “It’s the economy stupid” rather than the politicians. It is the people wanting a new Contract with America.

If you did not know it, Congress is the branch of our government that holds the purse strings. They decide how and or if money is spent. A President can Veto bills he doesn’t like but it can be overridden by a two thirds majority vote by the Congress. You may have recently seen how Congress planned to stop Obama and Eric Holder from putting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in civilian courts. The measure failed by just one vote. However, the point is Congress was going to use “the power of the purse” to stop this as it will likely cost us anywhere from 300 million to 1 billion dollars to try him in civilian court. A military tribunal would cost virtually nothing.

Back to the main point of my rant. It is time to vote these jokers out. The only problem is when it comes election time we often forget how our Senators and Representatives voted on previous issues. Visit http://www.votetrackers.com and grab your states voting history on the major issues today.

I caught Hannity over the weekend interviewing the guys who made the movie Generation Zero. It was compelling. They showed more clips than the short teaser below. I linked to the Hannity show at the very bottom. I think Generation Zero is worth seeing. One thing they pointed out is something I realized in my life time. Personal responsibility has gone out of big business. Once upon a time if a company made a bad investment and lost money the board of directors or CEO had to write out a check to cover the losses. Today, the shareholders bail out the board of directors and in recent times the government bails out the corporations. That is if the company is big enough.

The average small business, like mine, is my personal responsibility. If we make a bad decision, we or I as the CEO suffers the consequences. The old “buck stops here” is how it works for most of us. No wonder the large companies and Wall Street don’t sweat it. They support candidates that have the “nanny state” mentality. This is what lead to our recent economic crisis. It was 40 or 50 years of letting companies get so entangled in a “Global Economy”  with no personal skin in the game.

Look at the recent companies that have been bailed out. Most of the old board members and CEO’s are still in charge of the biggest failures in history. Fifty years ago these guys would have not only lost their jobs they would have lost their shirts. Today the argument is that the failed decision makers are the only ones capable of correcting their own mistakes. I see a red bullsh#t flag going up every time I hear that excuse.

Here is one often cited example. Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of General Electric has overseen a drop in GE stock of nearly 60%. Yet, he is still the CEO and was even appointed by President Barack Obama to his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. See WikiPedia excerpt below. Just because GE is not in a financial crisis doesn’t mean they aren’t screwed up. I can’t imagine anyone keeping a person who allowed a 60% drop in stock price let alone asking him to advise me on anything.

“Immelt was named to Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.^[5] He was also named one of the five worst Non-Financial-Crisis-Related CEOs of 2008 by the Free Enterprise Action Fund.^[6] Since taking over, GE’s stock has dropped nearly 60%. In February 2009, Immelt was appointed as a member to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the president and his administration with advice and counsel in fixing America’s economic downturn.”

If you are to young to remember the old days of personal responsibility or just never paid attention I highly recommend that you check out this and other clips of Generation Zero.

Longer Clip Click Here

Sometimes I laugh at Glenn Beck’s antics. Tonight he was in rare form, very animated but very concise in front of the CPAC cameras. If you did not see it (luckily I have DVR) you should take the time to watch the entire thing once it appears on YouTube or FOX News.

It was an extremely hard hitting speech mixed with encouragement and hope. Glenn compared the Republican Party to Tiger Woods. He said they should simply start out admitting their mistakes. If you read Tiger’s apology pretending you were hearing a Republican Politician standing up and saying those words they would be welcome words. Not about an affair but about spending without thinking there would ever be a day of accountability.

Glenn pointed out the hard truth that America was built on “rugged individualism” not hand outs. It is only when you are at the bottom of your string that you can look up and realize you need to change. Glenn knows, he is an alcoholic. He reminded us that the first step is to admit you have a problem. He is right. We all have a problem. It is called big government, out of controls spending and handouts.

A major revolving theme during his speech was on Progressivism. He has been pointing this out on his TV show for a while now. The old Communists in America realized they would never be able to win by a violent over throw of the government. They invented Progressivism which is the slow movement to change the Constitution until it is more like the Communist Manifesto. I suppose it is similar to putting a frog in a pot of cold water and turning up the heat slowly. Before he can realize the water is boiling the frog is dead. The same thing is true with Progressives. They want to “evolve” our country into something completely different which will and already has started to ruin it.

Progressivism is not a Democrat or Republican thing. Beck pointed out that most of the Progressives are in the Democrat Party. However, there are many in the Republican Party. Progressivism is like a cancer. It doesn’t just attack part of the body, it attacks the whole thing.

Glenn also talked about being a small business owner. Wow, can I relate! We are the one’s who create jobs, care about other people and do our best to see that their needs are met. Did you ever get a job from a poor man? That is the question you always here and I know you are tired of hearing it, but it is true. Rich people provide for poorer people out of the goodness of their hearts and the need to provide services, not out of the government coffers.

Beck emphasized this is going to be hard. People are going to have their homes foreclosed, lose jobs and yes some will die. That is the hard truth. In order to fix this problem people are going to die. Not by a direct method as in war but here and their because we’ve over spent on everything. As Beck stated, “Since when is health care a right?”  Yes, under either system, Socialist or Free Enterprise people are going to die from lack of proper health care. You cannot save everyone. Get over it.

For the fortunate ones their houses and jobs is all they will lose. However, in that loss is opportunity for some to start anew. Many will come out of it better than if they never experienced the hardships. What is the old saying? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? There seems to be some truth in that if you ask me.I belive it was Janice Joplan that sang, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

What does it all boil down to? We have to swallow the bitter pill. After binging on wasteful government spending for years, giving hand outs instead of hand ups it is time to pay the piper. When the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared we will mourn our losses be it home, job or life of loved ones. We must vow never to make this mistake again. The time to start on the new course is today. Time to get to work America. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get your ass to work because Uncle Sam is broke.