The Obama Report Card - It's time to correct our mistakes

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Save a few billion dollars and fix what is broken - Romney in 2016

I doubt many people, Democrats in particular, want to review the consequences of having elected Barack Obama to the presidency the last two elections.  First there were the empty promises whose failure was blamed on Bush even though the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate the last two years Bush was president and the first two years under Obama.

Blaming Bush for what had to be approved by Congress is just plain hypocritical yet what did happen is we got ourselves into an economic quagmire the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

Still, it was obvious to candidate Obama in 2008 that we were in the midst of an economic catastrophe and if elected he would have to get us through the mess.  So he spent a billion dollars on his campaign and won with 52.9 percent of the vote, a mandate in the eyes of the Main Street media.

Now I admit I don't understand Ivy League math anymore than I understand voodoo economics but I do know a little about numbers and I know if just 4 tenths of 1% of the vote had voted for McCain instead of Obama then McCain would have been president.  Since when was less than 1% a mandate?

So we got Obama and soon it became obvious the promises of hope, deficit reductions, withdrawal from wars, working together, serving all Americans, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo prison and re-establishing America's prominence in the world were nothing more than typical campaign promises, empty promises at that.

Obama did bail out General Motors (who benefited from that?) and the banks but about 7 million people still are not working nearly 6 years later and no fat cat crooks are in jail.  He also gave us ObamaCare, which he personally guaranteed would lower the cost of health care, lower the cost of insurance premiums, let you keep your old doctor and let you keep your health insurance.

Thanks to his health care program he got re-elected in 2012, this time with just 51.1% of the vote after spending yet another billion dollars in his campaign.  Two billion dollars spent by Obama in just two campaigns could have fed a lot of hungry children and met the health care needs of a lot of refugees from his failed foreign policy.

Once again his Main Street media called it a mandate and a vindication of ObamaCare since there was absolutely nothing else to show for the first four years and by now the national debt had more than doubled since Bush left office.

The Obama 2012 people's mandate shrunk in half from 2008 and now a change of just 2 tenths of 1% of the vote would have made Mitt Romney president. 

As for his 2008 promises, he did pass health care reform but everything else remained as it was before he got into office.  Oh he did end the war in Iraq if you called leaving thousands of Americans behind ending anything and now more Iraq civilians than ever are being killed in sectarian violence.

As for the glorious ObamaCare promises, so far, none of those promises have come true.  Oh yes, and the national debt has now soared to over $17 trillion and Obama has no intention of fixing our future.

He ran on the platform that he had experience but I think we realize now that being a community organizer and part time state and federal senator does not substitute for real, hands on experience in the big jobs, the tough decisions and the ability to bring people together.

Ironically he also treated his opponent Mitt Romney mockingly and with derision when Mitt said Putin was a danger to our foreign policy and Obama scolded him that the Cold War was over and Russia being a threat to anyone ended in the 1980's.

In hindsight Obama might have been a little less arrogant as Russia has blocked his every move on Syria, Iran and North Korea not to mention destabilizing Europe as he stole Crimea from the Ukraine and has amassed troops on the border of the Ukraine as we await his next move.  Some paper tiger that Putin and again Romney was right but I hear no apology from the Obama camp.

  

This year he will lose control of both the House and Senate and it will take Hollywood spin the likes of which we haven't seen since the Clinton administration to hear what kind of mandate he has for his last two years in office, spin like I didn't inhale or I didn't really have sex.

What America needs is a Reagan type with real world experience, a demonstrated ability to work with both political parties, experience running a real office and organization, maturity in respecting all nations and peoples of the world, common sense, and is not enamored with the Hollywood crowd.  We need a break from politics and politicians.  Peace, stability, real hope, and integrity are sorely lacking in Washington but Romney just might be able to deliver them.

Oh my gosh, isn't that the choice we had in 2012 when 2 tenths of one percent too many of the people believed the Obama health care promises and re-elected him.  As I recall, Mitt Romney offered all those alternatives to the young, hip and confident candidate Obama.

If we only valued experience more than flash, maturity more than stubbornness, compassion more than partisanship and integrity more than expediency think how different things might be right now.

There are a host of good Republican candidates poised to run for president in 2016 but with Obama a sitting, lame duck president and his hands tied by a GOP congress you can bet the partisan rhetoric will be turned up even higher than right now.

Do we really want to spend billions trying to decide who should be president when we already vetted one candidate who survived the Obama onslaught and the media manipulation, was every bit the gentleman we sorely miss, has proven he can work with people of both parties for the public good, and even got health care right when he implemented it in Massachusetts?

Mitt Romney is still out there and time and again he has answered the call to public service whether in state or federal government or the Olympics.  He doesn't need to spend a billion dollars to tell you who he is.  He does know how to fix the economy, implement health care, and gain the respect of foreign nations.  Finally, he would have a great group of young and aspiring Republican governors and members of congress to bring into his administration.

Think about it.  It's never too late to admit a mistake and correct it.

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Obamaville - February 24, 2014 - What Olympics?

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With the President disappearing from the eyes of the press and politicians one can only assume his golf game has drastically improved and private parties at the White House are dominating his agenda.  I mean, how else could White House expenses under our hip hop and bee bop president exceed $1.4 billion a year?

Finances

 

While saying he has done nothing in five years might be a slight exaggeration the fact we spent about $17.5 Trillion in that time seems almost magical.  Where in the world did it go when we are supposed to be cutting back on everything?  By the way, Obama's second $17 TRILLION act was setting new records for the National Debt, which also passed $17 trillion this year.

 

 

Defense

 

This will be the first year since Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize five years ago that we will have no troops at war, (although I suspect the American soldiers still in Iraq and Afghanistan might question the claim).

 

 

The 2014 budget includes $526.6 billion for the Department of Defense base budget, a figure that does not include war costs or nuclear weapon activities at the Department of Energy.  In other words, about half of the defense spending is not in the defense budget.  Real defense spending averages about $1 trillion a year.

 

 

Defense Secretary Hagel says he will cut back $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years.  So according to my math that means we will cut $100 billion a year from our trillion dollar a year spending.  And here I thought we had ended two very expensive wars under the president.  Where are all the savings?  Fuzzy math seems to dominate our nation's capitol.

 

Olympics

 

Of course our hip Obama family spends millions of dollars to bring their favorite musicians and celebrities to lavish White House parties, private parties I might add that we the people can't attend.  You can find Beyonce, Bieber, Swift, Jay Z and who knows who else prowling our White House and giving private performances for the Obama family, at taxpayers expense of course.

 

 

But do you think the President, the First Lady and family, or even a single soul from the 2 million civilian employees of the USA including over 3000 appointed by the President could travel to Russia to support our Olympic Team.  Not even smiling Joe Biden or a single cabinet member had time to go support the team.

 

 

President Putin of Russia was there a whole lot and so were representatives from over 100 countries competing in the winter Olympics.  As a nation we should be ashamed our first family was too busy to support the Olympic team or send anyone else.

 

 

NBC did it's best to trash the Russian Olympics, most likely to help Obama win the world popularity war with Putin.  NBC is the last major media outpost for Obama liberals and the person they helped put in office has collapsed in the polls so it is only logical they would help him.

 

 

Unfortunately for both NBC and Obama Putin delivered, the Russian Olympic team delivered, the people of Russia delivered and the nit picking Americans who tried to undermine the Russian production failed miserably.  The Russians did a great job under very difficult circumstances and terrorist threats.

 

By the way, in the process of staging the Olympics Putin managed to take a seriously deteriorating Stalinist Russian city and transform it into a world class resort on the Black Sea and the people of Sochi will benefit for years to come.

 

 

Mid-Term Elections

 

OMG, after two billion was spent in 2012 on political campaigns, here we are again in the middle of another election year.  I say everyone in America should cancel their television service, local, cable and satellite, and take a year off from the incessant and unintelligible campaign nonsense.

 

 

What would you miss?  Certainly nothing of any value to the future of the world.  No more super-hyped weather warnings to force you to race to the store and load up on pre-storm supplies that have been marked up because the advertisers need more sales, the TV stations need more ads, and no one cares about the lonely consumer who is the target of every crook and creep disguised as productive members of society.

 

As the political parties encourage you, vote early and vote often because it may be the last time you have anything to say about what happens in government.  Long ago our freedoms were hijacked and our rights were trampled.  We are spoon fed lies and falsehoods as if truth no longer counts.

 

 

Neither the news media nor political processes makes any effort to force politicians and political parties to tell the truth and the federal regulatory agencies like the Justice Department are hardly able to enforce fairness on politicians when they can't even send Wall Street crooks to jail.

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Campaign 2012 - The Seven Cardinal Sins of Politics

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Sins of the past, present & future

1.  Failing to do something about the national debt!

2.  Failing to cut government deficits!

3.  Failing to attack the unemployment and under-employment problem!

4.  Failing to adopt a national energy independence plan!

5.  Failing to stop unnecessary gas, prescription drug and food price increases!

6.  Failing to reduce medical and health insurance costs!

7.  Failing to improve relations with China and Russia!  [They can solve our problems with Iran, Syria, North Korea and the Middle East.]

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Obamaville, February 16 - Everyone buys the lies!

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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 for my English to be understood.  Quite odd since hayseeds from Iowa were always the top news broadcasters on television because people speaking all the different forms of English in America could understand the hayseeds.

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 they teach you to tell lies so often it becomes the truth, at least your truth, and hopefully the truth for the unsuspecting public.  Are we really that dumb?

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.

Clinton served 8 years and increased the National Debt from $4.2 to $5.7 trillion, an increase of $1.5 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.

Searching for debt ceiling

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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Obamaville, February 14 - Obamanomics Center of Budget Debate

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 The Wizard of Washington on Economics

This week President Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion budget, promising $4 trillion in deficit savings the next ten years while sticking it to the rich.  Of course most of the cuts are from mandatory budget cuts resulting from the inaction of Obama and Congress on reaching any agreement on the budget.  Other cuts came from ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Didn't stop the administration from taking credit for it.

Obamanomics did not include anything new to cut federal spending, fix Social Security, make Medicare sound, reduce the national debt, lower health care costs or most other things he, the GOP and Democrats promised.  Imagine that, broken promises from politicians.

One wonders if the fact he dumped his entire economic team that guided him through the first three years had anything to do with the lack of details and failure to address national priorities.

Congress and the White House will now spend the rest of the election year blaming each other or the political parties for all their failures that have been and are yet to come even though no one has done anything to find solutions.

The failure to address long term debt and deficit issues is turning their back on all of our youth because the systems will be broke long before today's youth have finished paying their fair share.

Sometimes it seems as if the only solution to our problems, which are caused by political expediency, greed, waste and abuse, would be to throw them all out of office.  It might make things interesting if Washington, D.C. was filled with new faces.

We already know how to survive an inexperienced president and no one seems to know what Congress is even doing.  Perhaps it would be wise for Congress to just take a vacation for the year thus ending the name calling and back stabbing so much a part of our political process.

One thing no one wants to discuss is why are we trying to raise billions of dollars in taxes on anyone when we are already wasting billions of dollars on everyone.

When nothing is getting done what have we got to lose?

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