When is a fix a fix and what kind of a fix?
I think you know something is broken when everybody buys the lies. That seems to be happening in our nation's capitol a lot lately.
Automated Phone Answering Systems
Have you tried calling your government lately? Computers have taken over the phone system for the government and about everyone else who needs someone to answer phones. It is certainly a great way to avoid dealing with a frustrated public.
Yesterday I spent 22 minutes talking to government computers trying to get the answer to a simple question. After failing to answer three requests for different ID numbers which I never heard of before, I never even got to talk to a real person.
The voice was one of those nondescript female voices from a Stepford wife, straight monotone and clearly machine made or maid. At first I thought of her as Vanna White on Valium but by the time she asked for voice responses to a question for the seventh time and I futilely answered for seventh time her name morphed to Bitch in my head.
Seems I was making a fatal mistake in my mission, I sounded too much like a hayseed from Iowa Iowa were always the top news broadcasters on television because people speaking all the different forms of English in America
Now I have often reached real people operators, especially at computer companies, who are from foreign countries and you cannot understand a word they say. But for an American government agency to have an automated computer that doesn't understand hayseed English is a setback for American technology.
I finally hung up on the computer when she asked if I wanted to start over.
Our federal government is supposed to have over 2 million employees. Why can't they answer the phones? I say every automated system should reduce the government payroll and somehow compensate people for the nonsense we have to go through to reach our elected and appointed representatives.
What President raised the National Debt the most?
Since both political parties blame the other for the National Debt and the politicians try to confuse us by double talking about both the Federal Budget Deficit and the National Debt, as if they were one and the same, where does the truth lie? Well, as a matter of English usage truth can never lie as the question implied.
That is the same problem with political parties and politicians. In Washington
For the record, if you took all the national debt in our history for the 39 presidents who preceded Ronald Reagan, all 39, and added them together, it would not equal the total national debt raised by any one president since Ronald Reagan's time.
Bet you never heard that from the Democrats or Republicans. But the truth is this. When Reagan got elected and took office in 1981 the National Debt was about $712 billion. So what happened during the presidential terms since then? Here are the facts.
Reagan served 8 years and the National Debt rose from $712 billion to $2.1 trillion, an increase of about $1.4 trillion.
Bush 1 served 4 years and increased the National Debt from $2.1 to $4.2 trillion, an increase of about $2.1 trillion.
Bush 2 served 8 years and increased the National Debt from $5.7 to $10.6 trillion, an increase of about $4.9 trillion.
Obama served 4 years and increased the National Debt from $10.6 trillion to $16.2 trillion, an increase of about $5.6 trillion.
Was that so hard to understand? All of our last five presidents are in the exclusive Trillion Dollar League secret society. Facts being what they are, Obama did increase the National Debt more in four years than the previous record by Bush 2, except Bush 2 took eight years.
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Did we fix the housing crisis like Obama said?
This week the president announced a $26 billion settlement with banks and mortgage lenders over foreclosed housing in which these big, bad companies must cough up the big bucks. So far they must pay $21.5 billion to foreclosed people and it is not clear where the other $4.5 billion goes.
Of course a couple of years ago the government announced two programs to help those being foreclosed promising they would end the problem by serving 4 million families. So far about 900,000 were helped but by no means saved.
In other words government housing programs generally fail based on past experience.
There are a few things I don't understand about the latest effort to wave the magic wand and solve our problems.
There are 4 million foreclosed homes and another 11 million homes delinquent and in foreclosure. These homes represent over $700 billion in negative equity, meaning value lost. How does $26 billion from the bad boys cover the $700 billion in lost equity in the homes facing foreclosure, say nothing of the trillions and trillions of dollars in lost equity by those Ame4ricas who did pay for their homes?
Is this just another example of Obamanomics?
Should we really be paying their salaries?
President Obama is in just the early part of his 4th year and has already held around 200 campaign fundraisers raising tens of millions of dollars. For a mere $38,500 a ticket you can go and rub shoulders with the pres.
During the same time Congress, including both the House and the Senate, has been passing about 1-3 important bills a year while failing to adopt a single budget in four years.
The President, Democrat controlled Senate and Republican controlled House have all failed to address our most critical needs like deficit spending, increasing National Debt, broken health care and dormant housing.
Nor have they addressed the future needs of our nation like Social Security shortfalls, Medicare waste and runaway entitlement costs.
So why don't we pass a People's Constitutional Amendment saying all politicians and their staff must serve the needs of our people and nation or simply not get paid?
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