I found a Billion dollars we can save

Here is $1.12 Billion that we can save immediately – eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire Arms (BATF).  The buffoonery of this particular arm of the government is legendary.  Heard of Ruby Ridge?  Waco and the Branch Davidians?  Or most recently the botched sting “Fast and Furious?”  Meet the guys who are responsible – the BATF. 

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are all legal.  So why exactly do we require more then 5,000 Federal bureaucrats to mismanage booze, cigarettes, and guns?  Well – we don’t.  Essentially the BATF was a mistake that has been perpetuated.  However the Federal government rarely if ever acknowledges mistakes.  In the case of the BATF the agency has been passed back and forth between various bigger agencies.  As the government taxed or tried to reduce our freedoms, they added responsibilities to the Revenue Laboratory (1886) within the Treasury Department. 

I think that it is time to put a bullet in this agency.  Just doing away with it would save $1 billion a year AND reduce the flow of American guns to Mexican drug lords.  Further, given their track record some bureaucrat will add something like chocolate or french fries to their duties to tax and control if we don’t put a stop it.  Get rid of them now.  

 

Please don’t help Mark

I received an e-mail from one of my Senators trumpeting his column in the Washington Post about increasing the debt ceiling.  It was from Senator Mark Warner (Idiot – VA).  Essentially he’s making two points:

(1)  Like most liberals (socialists, democrats, progressives, whatever) he says that it is inevitable that we must raise the debt ceiling.  You see we are all supposed to bow to the inevitability and stop fighting this ruinous action proposed by the morons that got us here.  This is the way these fascists speak – everyone agrees, all economists say, the science is settled, bla. bla, bla, bla.  Horsepuckey. 

(2)  According to Mark we have to both raise revenue and cut spending.  For those of you that don’t live in the Commonwealth of Virginia (I’m sorry for you – unless of course you live in Texas) you haven’t experienced the utter stupidity of Mark Warner.  What he proposes is like trying to save your boat from sinking by taking a bucket of water from the bow of the boat and pouring it into the stern.  If you cut spending it will have the effect of improving the economy but if you raise taxes it will retard the economy.  That’s economics 101. 

It is time for all Republicans to tell every one of these economically illiterate Democrats that we have been trying it their way since 2007 – it has broken the back of our economy.  Their way doesn’t work.  Democrats have proved it yet again.  Woodrow Wilson (D), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D), Lyndon Baines Johnson (D), Jimmy Carter (D), and Barack Obama (D) have all validated that Democrats don’t know jack about running a country, a government, or an economy.  I didn’t include John Fitzgerald Kennedy (D) because it was he who said “a rising tide lifts all boats” and he CUT TAXES.  I also didn’t include William Jefferson Clinton (D) because he did not have control of the government (or his libido) and he has no deeply held principles or convictions so he pretty much rolled with the punches. 

And the crowning achievement?  More “unexpected” bad economic news today.  The unemployment rate edged up again.  Senator Warner is part of that problem too.  

 

Ready, Fire, Aim

I’m getting more than a little irritated at some of the rock throwers who have decided that everyone in Washington is the problem.  Where have all these critics been?  And who the hell are they looking at?

I can tell you that I have an utterly splendid Congressman.  They don’t make them any better than Congressman Rob Wittman of Virginia’s First Congressional District.  He is pretty much what the Founding Fathers had in mind for a representative of “We the People.”  There are more like him, all you have to do is a modicum of research.  Please tell me what’s wrong with Congresswoman Kristi Noem from South Dakota.  Look over Congressman Allen West of Florida. 

We have good people in Congress – quit bitching and get behind them.  If you don’t like your Congress-person start working now.  Communicate with him/her.  If that doesn’t work find someone you can support and work for them.  I don’t mean just vote for them, I mean walk your neighborhood, work in his/her campaign headquarters, and contribute to their campaign.  If you don’t – to paraphrase Joe Biden “You’re on your own Jack.”

 

We are in a great deal of trouble and we need a sea change in government to turn things around.  Speaker John Boehner and Governor John Kasich played golf with the current temporary occupant of the White House and his side-kick.  I find that hard to condemn.  I don’t like golf but I’m not sure that I would pass up the opportunity to speak in private with President Barack Hussein Obama.  He probably would only put up with me for three or four holes – but I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. 

Big problems require big solutions and I think that people like Boehner know that we need bi-partisan support.  When Democrats say “bi-partisan” they mean that they peeled off one of the goofy Senators from Maine.  However Republicans mean bi-partisan as in when they passed the Civil Rights legislation with 80% of the Republicans and 60% of the Democrats voting in favor to break the filibuster against Civil Rights by Democrats. 

All you rock throwers need to visualize a rational and possible path to success.  I might not have picked John Boehner to run this thing, but this is the way the system works.  He’s our guy and he’s the best shot we have at a near term comprehensive solution.  We have three paths to cracking this nut: (1) Be part of the Republican solution; (2) Support the Democrat destruction of our way of life; or (3) Be irrelevant.  Remember the Art of the Possible. 

This is a simple target acquisition problem.  Boehner is not the problem.  Republicans are not the problem.  There are plenty of bad guys and gals to go around – just look for the (D).  Nothing would please Obama more than for everyone to hang the problem Obama caused around Boehner's neck.  

       

Turn This Economy Around?

You broke it Debbie - you own it.  

      

The Orkin Guy

I was unable to win the war at my home with ants so a couple of years ago I hired Orkin to take over.  The guy that shows up at my house is from Ghana and he is a happy and friendly sort.  He shows up every other month and treats the inside and outside of the house and we usually chat while he does it.  His family is still in Ghana.  He will be able to apply for citizenship soon.  When he’s an American citizen his intent is to bring his family here. 

Today he arrived and wished me a "Happy Independence Day."  He is probably one generation removed from when his former country was dominated by the British.  He had celebrated the independence of his adopted country yesterday and told me that he had purchased a copy of the Declaration of Independence.  He said that he intended to frame his copy.  When he was treating the inside of the windows in my den I showed him my framed copy.  When we went up stairs I showed him my framed copy of the Constitution and also provided him a pocket copy of the Constitution.  He was thrilled. 

The time that we spent together was rich in lessons.  A man who is here legally, working hard to provide for his family.  His love of America and appreciation for the opportunity that it provides is obvious.  He bought and plans to frame a copy of the first document that freed a nation and a people.  When I explained the importance of the Declaration he was moved.  When I handed him his very own copy of the Constitution he treated it with reverence.  The Orkin guy could teach any liberal a great deal about America.  The Orkin guy loves America more than Barack Obama does – amazing.  

     

Happy Birthday America

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end ofthis continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

"You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory I can see that the end is worth more than all the means; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even though we [may regret] it, which I trust in God we shall not."

John Adams; July 3rd, 1776

Much to do about Private Airplanes

I watched part of the President’s news conference the other day. You might recall that I tried very hard to see nearly all of his speeches over the last two plus years – but I turned this one off very quickly. Three reasons: (1) Obama was obviously lying; (2) When he wasn’t lying he was engaging in shameless class warfare; and (3) Mark Halperin was right – he was acting like a “dick.”

This does provide a situation dripping with irony, falsehoods, and lessons on democrat double-speak. Most importantly this illustrates why we need a flat-tax and why government has to stop screwing around with the tax code.

Obama’s cronies put an accelerated depreciation schedule in his “stimulus bill” to encourage businesses to buy corporate jets. Obama signed that into law. It is not a “tax cut” as he calls it but rather accelerates the rate at which businesses can take the cost of these planes off their taxes. Same net tax avoidance to the business, it just happens faster. This is one of many of the ways that democrats lie and Obama as liar-in-chief is the best liar they have.

None of these things would be happening if we had a flat tax. We wouldn’t be arguing about whether businesses deserve to depreciate their airplanes or not under a flat tax scenario. This ridiculous method of government interference in business through tax advantages creates the environment for scams, patronage, pay-to-play, and plunder by government. Do away with all this meddling and the result would be stability in capital markets which would finally shake off the Obama depression and produce jobs, wealth, and a booming economy that would accelerate revenue for the government.

Why are we castigating businesses for buying airplanes when at the same time we are paying people to take food and convert it to bad gasoline? It boggles the mind. Why are businesses that receive tax cuts for buying airplanes any more evil than Farmers who get paid to deliver corn to be brewed into ethanol that takes more energy to produce than it provides? Even most the obtuse liberal must see how ludicrous that scenario is.

January 2013 can not come fast enough.