The State of the Union

We can do better

With President Obama set to deliver the state of the union address tuesday night, I your humble warrior poet for the conservative movement, offer my view of the state of our nation and it is rather simple.  We can do better.

The current statistics and facts paint a bleak picture of the situation our nation faces.

-14.5 million Americans can not find gainful employment

-an additional 11 million more can not find the full-time employment they want

-45 million people are receiving food stamps

-the national debt stands at $14 trillion

-the budget deficit is $1.3 Trillion and projected to stay over $1 Trillion for years to come

-Federal spending is currently 25% of GDP

-there is $112 Trillion in unfunded liabilities for our entitlement programs

-our nations business's, small and large, have upwards of $1.7 Trillion in regulator compliance cost which is hampering economic growth and job creation

-those same business's face one of the worlds highest corporate tax rates at 35%

-while many of our small business owners face an equally confiscatory taxation rates of 30-35%

-we again face the specter of $3 a gallon gasoline and $100 a barrel oil further dampening our economy

-and home values, peoples largest investment and asset, have declined worse during this recession/depression/malaise than during the Great Depression, falling 26%

While those economic figures are terrible, the cultural numbers are of equal disappointment.

-Since the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision 52 million children have been aborted 

-nearly 1 million more abortions will take place this year

-this year approximately 750,000 teenage girls will become pregnant

-roughly 1.5 million babies will be born out of wedlock

-There are between 12-20 million illegal aliens residing within the United States placing a massive financial strain on our welfare, health and education systems, not to mention the criminal activity some illegal aliens have and will commit.

This picture is not meant to fuel pessimism or to lead you to believe that Americans  best days are behind us or that we are destined to further and irreversible decline.  It is meant to highlight the fact that we, as a nation can and indeed must do better to lead our nation into a renaissance period.

And we can start to do that by reigning in the Federal governments insatiable appetite to spend.  The Republican study committee has compiled as list of $2.5 Trillion worth of cuts over 10 years and the Cato Institute has offered up $11 Trillion in spending reductions, these kind of reductions to government spending must be undertaken today so that we are put on a better fiscal footing going forward.  To further insure that from this day on our Federal spending is held within the bounds of what the government receives in revenue a Constitutional amendment is required limiting Federal spending to a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product.

In addition to curtailing Federal spending we need to reform our nations confiscatory tax system which falls well within Marxist thinking of "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."  When Ronald Reagan instituted across the board tax cuts in the early '80s our nation and economy responded with unprecedented growth which continued for nearly an entire generation.  Within the time frame of the Reagan administration government revenue doubled and 19 million jobs were created.  Those types of results can be replicated and we can stick it to Marxist everywhere by replacing our current tax code with a simple flat 15% income tax that the people would pay annually instead of having it withheld from their pay.  This flat tax proposal would also require that most everyone pay at least something into the treasury so that we do not have a situation like we currently do where 47% pay nothing in income taxes due mainly to them receiving so much in government aid, tax credits and the like.

While our nation prospers under the flat tax, we can further make our tax system truly fair by beginning the work of repealing the 16th amendment which allows for an income tax in the first place and replace it with a national sales tax indexed at such a rate so as to complement the limited spending as a percentage of GDP amendment mentioned earlier, which will allow the government to take in only the money needed to fund its core obligations and necessary outlays.

Furthermore it should become the law of the land that any raising of our taxes or of the nations debt limit be required to receive 3/5's majority votes in both chambers of  Congress.

The easiest, best and proper way to fix much of the fiscal woes our nation faces is to create jobs for the American people and we can create the millions of jobs our nations needs by moving this nation towards energy independence, lowering the overall cost of business by eliminating, changing and consolidating regulations that stifle new business's from forming or make it prohibitive for business to operate.  One of the greatest cost that face the private citizen and our nations enterprise's is the exploding cost of health care and there are a multitude of ways to address that.  And of course there is the further economic growth and job creation that lower taxes on both individuals and business leads to.

Our nation currently uses 20 million barrels of oil a day while producing only 7 million barrels of oil a day, meaning we import 13 million barrels of oil a day on top of our coal and natural gas imports, none of that has to be.  Indeed this nation has enough energy resources that it cannot only be energy independent it could become an exporter of energy.  There are 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale in Colorado, the Bakken shale deposit in North Dakota has 4.3 Billion barrels, the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have 45 billion barrels of oil left to be utilized,  The outer continental shelf around Alaska has around 39 billion barrels of oil and there are over 20 billion barrels of oil on shore in Alaska as well.  The Energy Information Agency pegs the United States as having 267 billion tons of coal left to be recovered and 2,586 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.  Clearly enough conventional energy deposits to fuel our economy for centuries or more.

Then there are the wide open spaces across this fruited plain upon which we can build new nuclear power plants to generate the electricity our way of life has become dependent on.

For each new oil well, coal mine, pipeline, oil rig, or nuclear power plant, jobs are created not only to construct, man and operate them, but at the machine shops and fabrication factories building the components, and for the truck drivers transporting those vital goods from point A to point B, then there are the jobs created at the refineries, and at the service providers and local retail shops and restuarants.  Becoming energy independent will allow job creation to reverberate across our entire economy.  To illustrate the point look at all the jobs that have been lost in Louisiana and other states because of the drilling moratorium.

To lower the cost of health care that is affecting all Americans a few common sense things need to be done the first of which is repealing the massive tax increases, spending and growth of government that came about because of Obamacare.  We do not need over a $1 Trillion in spending, $500 billion in new and higher taxes or 150 plus new government agencies and programs to fix what is wrong with health care.  We need to reform our tort laws saving the people $54 billion as Senator Harry Reid of Nevada has said.  We need to expand health savings accounts and remove the Federal prohibition preventing folks from shopping across state lines for their health insurance.  We need to allow small business's and individuals to form pools upon which they can purchase health care coverage as a collective unit.  We also need to reduce the number of mandates forcing insurance providers to cover many things that a particular person may not need and along those lines we should allow individuals the ability to pick and choose what it is they exactly want covered on their insurance plan.  None of these solutions require a rapid growth in government, the raising of taxes or Trillions of dollars in spending, just a willingness to actually address the real problems with health care.

When it comes to regulations no one minds the ones that enforce workplace health and safety or protecting minors from hazardous occupations, but there are other regulations that inhibit an entrepreneur from starting his or her own small business or harm the operation of existing business's, such as the 1099 form requirement for each transaction over $600 contained within Obamacare.  Then there are the regulations that are designed to cause maximum damage to our industries and enterprises, like the regulations that would cap and limit carbon dioxide.  Efforts are underway at the Environmental Protection Agency to classify CO2 as a pollutant and to thusly curtail its emission from our industrial society.  This effort is undertaken due to the misguided notion that human industrial activity has added enough green house gases such as CO2 that the Earth's temperature is rising.  There are so many fundamental flaws with that train of thought it is hard to know where to begin to dispel it.

First of all should the EPA consider CO2 pollution then every last human being would then have to be labeled a polluter since we exhale CO2 with every breath we take.  Then there is the fact that CO2 is a prerequisite for life as we know it on this planet as plant life uses CO2 in the photosynthesis process to create the oxygen which we need to survive.  Then there is the small detail that the Sun is the source of warmth here on Earth and green house gases are required to keep that warmth trapped here, other wise we would all freeze to death.  On a historical note the planets temperature has never been constant, case in point there is a thing known as the Ice Ages, which occurred multiple times long before humanity came around or started using fossil fuels, that is unless the man made global warming crowd want to claim that the last ice age was caused by man's discovery of fire.  Now there is a problem that comes from to much carbon dioxide in a confined space in that 20% CO2 saturation levels cause humans to loss consciences-ness and death at 30%, but again that only happens in confined spaces and we don't have masses of people passing out or dropping dead on the street.  So even if we all take up an Amish lifestyle the global temperature will still be outside of our control.

With the lesson in basic science over it is time to return to the task at hand, creating jobs.  And there are countless jobs waiting to be made into reality as our inventors, scientist and entrepreneurs develop new technologies and techniques which turn what was once science fiction into reality.  From cold fusion to capacitors that could harness the electrical energy of lightning to Ion propulsion making maned exploration of our solar system viable unlocking a new frontier upon which future visionaries can realize their dreams, ambitions and provide untold of opportunities for the future.

There is so much potential awaiting the American people if we could only get our Federal bearuacratic behemoth to stop spending, lower taxes and quit trying to make economic decisions on our behalf that we are far better suited to make ourselves.

However a grave financial threat exist to our nations ability to grow and prosper and that is the unsustainable entitlement system burdening generations not yet born with crushing liabilities to cover promises and goodies to prior generations.  With the day already here where Social Security pays out more than it takes in and the day coming when there will be 2 young workers paying for the benefits of one retiree.  The day has already come and pass where we must reform all our entitlement programs because failure to do so is to great a risk to place on our unborn children and grandchildren.

It is on the topic of the unborn that our nation has to have a reawakening of our nations founding principles; as stated in the Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

There is simply no means of refuting the fact that the act of abortion is the wanton and intentional destruction of new life and the ultimate denial of all rights to the child that is snuffed out under that practice.  Therefore in keeping with our nations character our laws must be changed in such a manner so that no innocent child is ever again robbed of their rights by permanently and completely abolishing the act of abortion.

A great many societal ills have there root in the decay of the family unit and the increase in non-martial casual sex.  The solution to the problems caused by those break downs is simple.  Do not have sex before marriage and be faithful to your spouse afterwards.  That is how you combat out of wedlock births, teenage pregnancy, unwanted pregnancies and the rest.  Simply repeat that message of abstinence over and over and over.

Another simple message that needs continual remind-el to the people is found within Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense "that in America THE LAW IS KING."  And the laws of our nation clearly state that immigrants to our nation need to have approval to enter and stay in the country.  Hence it must be stated that those who have violated our laws on immigration by entering and staying in our nation unlawfully must leave, preferably those illegal aliens will voluntary leave and return to those lands which they came from, the alternative is to be deported, not en masse, but one by one should the proper authorities come across them.  It should also be stated that we have laws against employers knowingly employing illegal aliens, those who skirt the law should suffer the consequences of our justice system.

Moving in these directions: curtailing illegal immigration, drastically lowering taxes and spending, reforming entitlements, paving the way for unleashing free-market, free enterprise capitalism, promoting the socially healthy notion of abstinence and reinforcing the meaning of our founding principles our nation can achieve a greatness undreamed of because we can truly do better than the mess we currently find ourselves in on this day.

But none of that will mean much should the unthinkable happen and our nation faces the calamity of another terrorist attack or heaven forbid Iran or North Korea use their nuclear weapons against us or should Communist China decide to flex its military muscle.  None of these scenarios are pleasant but we must take the steps necessary to protect the American people from these risks and others.

To prevent another 9/11 or Times Square car bomb or any of the other ways radical islamic extremist terrorist have tried to harm the American people we must continue to be ever vigilant by hunting down and killing or capturing the terrorist pukes plotting mass murder where ever they may hide.  We must continue choking off the terrorist ability to finance and to monitor and intercept their communications.  We as private citizens need to always be aware of suspicious activity and our law enforcement needs to find and neutralize those neighbors of ours who sympathize with the Jihadist and are plotting independently to inflict harm to the populace.

To prevent the horror's of nuclear attack a missile defense shield is a must.

To counter-act the Chinese aircraft carrier killer missile, stealth fighter and other military advances.  We need to advance our military technology with things like the free electron laser to shoot down missiles, the rail-gun on our naval ships, digital interactive camouflage, the xm-25 dubbed the "Judge Dredd" gun, the next generation of unmanned drone vehicles, further advances in vehicle armor, GPS and other guided munitions and many more things to insure not only Americas military dominance but freedom and liberty both here at home and around the globe.

We the people of the United States of America are capable of doing great things, we have in the past and we can again.  We can do things better than any other people or nation in the history of the world and we have yet to reach our fullest potential.

My fellow Americans that full potential , that renaissance of American exceptional-ism can begin right now should we undertake the policies and initiatives to allow it to happen like lowering taxes for everyone, forcing government to live within its means, reforming our entitlements, protecting the rights of all Americans, being resolved to see islamic terrorism defeated, breaking the chains holding back our economy and staying true to what made this nation the freest and greatest nation in all of human history because we can do better than the state of things today.

thank you and have a nice day