Individual people are far smarter than the Fed

I consider myself a typical middle class working man with the simple goal of providing a quality life form myself and my family. I give 100% at my job and feel I deserve what little money I make.

Yes, I make enough to afford a roof over my head and to put food on the table, but I'd have to say that I'm far from being rich. In fact, I'm not even close. The only way I'm able to go on vacations, or to accumulate dollars in the bank, is by living frugally.

I have no problem paying local taxes. I also have no problem paying state and federal taxes, but I absolutely do not want to pay any more than the minimun necessary to keep the government running.

Literally, my wife and I try to save every penny possible, and when the government raises our taxes, we feel the pinch. That is why I am leary every time a politician states that he or she want to start a new government program, because I know to pay for it will require the government to raise my taxes.

I have no problem helping the poor. Yet, even though the government has spent billions of dollars the past 40 years in programs to help the poor, the number of poor in this country has remained stagnant. So this is proof to me that these government programs are not working to help the poor.

To keep these programs running, it requires taxing the middle class. Why is it that people like me have barely enough money to provide a quality life for my family, and the people in Washington want me to pay for these programs to help the poor, especially when these programs are not working.

The same thing with education. George Bush has doubled the budget for education in the past 8 years, yet the quality of that education has shown no signs of improving. This is proof to me that this government program is not working.

And I'm not like my neigbors and have two new cars, a new camper, two snowmobiles, and two dirtbikes all on a lease and credit. I have a new house because I have bad allergies, but I also don't have a yard because I chose to try to get out of debt before I spent money on the yard. And, while my neigbors spend thousands of dollars getting their yards landscaped, I do all that work myself.

Thus, when the government raises taxes, I feel the pinch.

I believe that most people in this country are smart like me and my wife, and don't want to waste the money they make. And, when it comes to government, most people believe too much of the money they take from us via taxes is being wasted.

It's being spent on government programs that do not work, yet are impossible to get rid or even to fix, like Social Security. It's being spend on education, while the majority of that money is being absorbed by the beuarocracy.

Big Government is not the answer, in my opinion. I think money would be much better spent in the hands of the people. I think I can solve my problems far better than some guy sitting in Washington. I think each state can solve their probelems far better than some guy in Washington.

And, for that reason, I think Washington should be as small as possible. I don not think that the Federal government is even remotely capable fo providing a good educaiton for our kids, and I don't think they are even remotely capable of getting rid of poverty.

We, people like me and my friends, are capable of solving these problems. When governmental officials choose to create more govenrment, what results is nothing more than more wasted money, and a need to ask middle class people like me to reach deeper into our wallets to pay uncle Sam.

Too many of our politicians are passing bills that benefit big businesses and hurt the middle class. They do this because lobbyists for these big businesses provide thousands of dollars for politicians.

Too many of our politicians are approving bills that have billions of dollars of pork projects that benefit one politicians jurisdiction and have absolutely no effect on the average middle class American like me and you.

This, what I have described here regarding education, the poor, lobbying, and pork barrel projects, result in nothing more than my taxes to go up. And then, when candidates for president propose more government programs that will cause my taxes to go up even more, I cringe.

This is not about republican and democrat, it's about a political system that is corrupt. We, as Americans, as middle class workers, are tired of Washington. That is why polls show Americans give our elected officials in Washington a grade equivelent to an F.

George Bush has failed us. Sure, he has done an excellent job of keeping taxes low, and for that we herald him, but he has done nothing to fix the problems in Washington that I listed above. Bill Clinton, in effect, failed us also in this regard, as he raised our taxes, was popular, and still did nothing.

Washington is too big. The person I vote for for president in 2008 will be the person I think will trust the American people to solve their own problems, because I know full well that Washington cannot.

My brother is going to vote for Huckabee because he is pro-life. I, on the other hand, will not vote for someone on one issue alone. My other brother said he is going to vote for Obama just because he thinks change is needed in Washington. I, on the other hand, think that too much change can be bad for the middle class as well, especially when said candidate has said right out that he wants to raise our taxes to create more government.

While I promised you guys I would have made a decision on who I would vote for in the primary by today, I have decided to do a little research instead. I'm going to go to all the candicates websites and do a full review. I'm going to clean the slate, and give each candidate a chance to convince me that he or she is the best candidate.

My quest will be to find the candidate who not only will be the best for me, but the country as a whole. I will not simply look at myself as I suppose too many people will, but at the big picture.

I think this will be fun.

Securing our borders should be top priority

It is a sham that neither the republican nor the democratic party has done anything about the illegal immigration problem this country faces, or at a minimun put an end to the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country.

If we had a president, or a congress for that matter, who cared about the American people rather than big business, our border would have been sealed immediately following 9-11. With the fear of another terrorist attack, and the knowledge that a majority of the 9-11 hijackers were illegal imigrants who planned within the U.S. borders, the public support for such a plan would have been undaunted.

We here at Freadom Nation were, as were most Americans, happy when the debate over S. 1348, the infamous immigration bill that would have granted amnesty to 8 or 12 million illegal immigrants,went down in smoke. And we pray that nothing like this is proposed again by Congress nor our next president.

We think it is unfair that illegal immigrants have access to free public education, while driving up the cost of that education for regular Americans. We think it's unfair that illegal aliens, in some states, have access to college at the same cost of in-state residents, while legal residents in the rest of the country have to pay extra.

We think it is unfair that illegal aliens have access to free healthcare, while legal citizens and legal aliens have the burden of paying for them. This not only drives up the cost of medicine, but it overwhelms many of our hospitals on the Mexican border.

We think it is unfair that illegal aliens are being able to obtain drivers lisences and to vote in some states, while legal residents who break our laws are not provided these privelages.

We a major problem that illegal and legal aliens are not encouraged to assimilate, and to learn the English language. English is the language of success, and by not forcing these people not to learn English we are forever trapping these people in low paying jobs.

And, while legal U.S. residents are pulled over and are documented as breaking U.S. laws, they are placed under arrest and dealt with accordingly. Illegal immigrants are set free and allowed to go back into hiding. Current laws regarding illegal immigration are regularly ignored, while laws regarding legal citicens who break the law are enforced.

We don't even know how many illegal aliens there are. The statistics say it's about 40 million, but they are in hiding, so how do we know if it's not really 8 million, 12 million or 500 million for that matter. The truh is: we don't.

Why do we tolerate this? The reason is because our past 5 or 6 presidents, past republican and democratic members of Congress and the Senate, are afraid of losing the Mexican-American vote. Not only that, they are afraid of losing money from Big Business lobbyists who champion for amnesty so they can have cheap labor because, "they do the jobs that no legal Americans would do because the jobs are too low class and too low paying"

That's absolutely not true, According to Lou Dobbs in his book "War on the Middle Class". Americans, if paid enough, have been willing to do just about any job, he writes, especially if that's what they need to do to support their families.

Just look at the coal miners for example. That's one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S., but people continue volunteer to do this work.

If illegal immigrants were not taking up low-class laborious jobs, Dobbs writes, the Businesses would be forced to raise pay for these jobs, and Americans would suck them up. Studies show that this would not force a majority of these businesses to go out of business. Rather, it would force them to eat the extra profit they now earn to the benefit of middle class America

I could go on, but I'll stop there. You can read the rest of the statistics of how illegal aliens are bad for the nation on your own. There are so many reasons illegal immigration is bad entire books have been written on the subject.

Regardless, I did my research, mulled it over, and I’ve decided: They broke the law. It’s that simple. End of discussion. Any idea of granting them amnesty is an absolutely proposterous idea. Amnesty is an idea that has failed every time it's been tried, and it's something we shouldn't even be talking about.

What we need to do is, in one way or another, seal the border.

As it stands right now, America’s immigration program is an anarchist program. This is not good, because a serious crime is going unpunished, and America as a whole is suffering as a result.

Yes, illegal immigration is effecting the wallets of every day working Americans, and is taking a toll on our economy. More important than that, however, is how easy it is for terrorists to get in here. The borders must be sealed and they must be sealed now. Securing our borders is vital to our national security.

Yes, there are laws on the books for dealing with immigration, but officials are ignoring these laws, and it's an absolute sham.

This is an illegal immigration fiasco, and it must be fixed. This should be part of the number one priority of our next president; it should be right up inside the mix of securing the nation.

Great things come by change: part 4

If great men like Benjamin Franklin had not changed their minds at some point, the great world we have today would never have come to fruition.

There are times when we must all look at ourselves, bite our pride, and make changes in our opinion. I’m sure this wasn’t easy for Franklin, but not any easier was it for Ronald Reagan. King John was utterly forced to change, but that’s how things had to be done back then. I mean, no one is going to simply give up that much power without being forced to do it.

Actually, this is why most wars occur. Some people will not change unless they are forced to change. Hitler in WWII is a good example. He was a ruthless dictator who had no reservations whatsoever about taking away the God given rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and exchanging it with death or fear in order to obtain his objectives.

A man like this will not change on his own accord.

Many people forget that, for hundreds of years, the people of Germany were raised to be a unified fighting machine. From the time Germans were born they were trained to fight. They knew no other way of life. They, like the Spartans of earlier times, were not trained in the arts of love and respect for life, but to hate and fear.

While other nations of Europe were prospering in Democracy and Capitalism and learning how to get along with other nations in a smaller world, the Germans were planning how they might take advantage of this for their own benefit. Then Hitler came along.

If it weren’t for men like FDR and Churchill, we might have been forced to live by the old German way. Instead, the Germans lost WWII and were forced to give up their rogue ways and join the rest of the West as a prospering and free nation, and the people of Germany have never been happier.

While most nations of the West have respect for their people, there are still many rogue nations out their where people live in fear, and are taught to hate and envy people who live in more prosperous nations like America and Europe and Israel.

Instead of allowing people to enjoy their God given freedoms and creating a market suitable to success, the rulers of these nations inculcate fear and hate of richer nations. Instead of teaching their people how to create their own businesses and become rich themselves, instead of teaching them to love and respect people of other religions, they are taught to hate and destroy those who do not live as they do.

Japan and Germany were once like this, but once their rulers decided to take their hate and fear to other nations in WWII, they were forced to change. Now nations like Iran, Syria and North Korea are among the most feared nations of the world. They cannot stand to see a nation like Israel prospering, and they can only hope the insurgencies in Iraq succeed so the people in Iraq aren’t allowed to live in freedom and happiness.

This behavior, in essence, has created an environment for terrorism. Since the people are forced to live in poverty, there are no taxes to collect for the totalitarian regimes to get rich, so they allow groups like Al Qaeda to surreptitiously live among them to plan and plot how to make the rest of the world unhappy too.

The only way to stop this was to force change. The West had to change its way of dealing with terrorists, and countries that harbor terrorists had to be stopped. Thus, the post 9-11 world was set in motion.

In the 1920s, Winston Churchill warned Europe of what Germany was up to, and nobody listened until a great war broke out and millions of people died. On September 11, 2001, 3,000 people died and the sleeping giant that is America woke up to see that these terrorists were on the surge.

And now America is falling back to sleep. George Bush seems to be the only one willing to take on the fight, while even people in his own nation turn against him. An old saying states that people have short memories, and thus six years without a terrorist attack on our territory seems like a lifetime ago to most.

I suppose, in this way, George Bush has succeeded: Americans no longer live in fear. And, when people do not live in fear, they see no need to fight a war. Bush, like Churchill before him, has not taken his eye off the enemy. The difference between Churchill in 1920 and Bush in 2007 is that Bush is in charge of the military.

So, as long as the world has a vigilant leader in office, the terrorists will remain on defence where they belong.

While we may not normally need to go to war, we must never put our guard down. We must accept that there will always be rulers of nations out their who want to destroy what we have in America. And, while the odds are against a hero like Ben Franklin or Ronald Reagan arising in one of those nations, change is still needed.

How the people of Japan ran their country was none of our concern until they killed our men for their cause. Same thing with Germany.

And if the Muslim world wants to treat its people poorly, all the power to them. But the moment they decided to force us to change from Christians to Muslims by killing innocent people and causing fear, we had no choice but to respond.

In rare instances like this, war is a must. Why? Because evil people do not give up great power and wealth unless they are forced to do so. Just ask King John.

So, I’m sure some of you are asking yourself right about now, "So, why don’t you ask Bush to change his stance on this war? Isn’t he simply being stubborn?"

Bush has changed. He has opened his eyes wide to the dangers of terrorism. He has lead all Americans into a post-9-11 world.

Bush was re-elected in 2004 to win the war on terror. He cannot stop protecting Americans just because Americans feel safe, or just because someone criticizes him, or just because some poll comes out saying Americans no longer support him.

He said right after 9-11 it was going to be a long war, and opinions in every war change from day to day. Lincoln’s war was very unpopular until just before the election of 1864. Even FDR lost control of the House and Senate during his 6th year in office (just like Bush.) But he didn’t stop doing what he thought was best for America because of this.

My hope is that some day the entire world can enjoy a surging economy as America is today. I hope for a world where there is plenty of food available for everyone, and happiness galore.

I pray for a world where the biggest stresser for people is how they are going to change themselves by losing weight or responding to the latest gossip about them.

I pray for a world where everyone has a chance to enjoy fantasy sports, writing for fun, spending time with their children and enjoying every moment of life as I do.

This is why I appreciate men like Reagan and FDR and Franklin. What I, we, enjoy today is because of men like these, and the millions who suffered and died before us, and the many who changed for the benefit of mankind.

Change may not always be great, but great things come by change. Sometimes we have no choice but to change, other times we simply look at the man or woman in the mirror.

Great things come by change: part 3

Ronald Reagan was a democrat before he was elected republican governor of California. In fact, he was an ardent supporter of John F. Kennedy and, yes, he even raised taxes while he was governor.

Before running for President in 1976, Reagan switched parties chanting, “I did not leave my party, my party left me.”

Reagan liked Kennedy not simply because Kennedy was a great leader, but because Kennedy believed in the power of the individual. Kennedy believed that freed from the burden of high taxes and government regulation, the American people would prosper. And, following Kennedy’s tax cuts, the economy of the 1960s soared to new record highs. In fact, the GNP nearly doubled.

Reagan also liked Kennedy’s stance on foreign policy. Kennedy, a WWII hero, believed that America needed to keep a strong and powerful military and, at times, needs to show it military might abroad. Kennedy proved this by starting the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs.

When the democratic party started to get away from Kennedy’s views, when that party started to represent the breaking up of our great military and tax hikes to support a BIG government, Ronald Reagan decided the Republican party better represented his ideas. So, he changed parties.

Still not far removed from the ideals of Kennedy, Ronald Reagan cut taxes and built up our military. Then he placed a load of pressure on the Soviet Union. He placed so much pressure on them, in fact, that the Soviet economy collapsed, and thus the Cold War was ended.

And, as a result of Reagan’s tax cuts, the economy in America soared even higher than in the 1960s. The GDP in the 1980s doubled., so that the U.S. government made more money after Reagan’s tax cuts than following any tax increase, and the people prospered as unemployment dropped to record lows, jobs grew at a record pace, wages rose, the stock market soared, inflation remained stable and relatively low, and so forth.

Senator Richard Shelby, in a press release paying tribute to Ronald Reagan, wrote, “President Reagan’s eternal optimism gave our country a renewed sense of self – a belief that the American dream was possible and that every individual had the opportunity to create his or her own success. Ronald Reagan believed that each new day was filled with high purpose and opportunity for accomplishment. He gave America back the hope we had lost for many years.

“President Reagan’s leadership and courage,” he continued, “were central to ending the Cold War. He was certain that freedom and democracy could prevail in all corners of the globe if only the one country with the capacity to do so would step in and show the way.”