Obama On Immigration Reform

While at the North American Summit, President Obama addressed the issue of illegal immigration. The clips below are from the Washington Post.

"Wrapping up the two-day meeting, Obama said that there needs to be "a pathway to citizenship" for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, and that the system must be reworked to avoid tensions with Mexico. Without it, he said, Mexicans will keep crossing the border in dangerous ways and employers will continue exploiting workers."

Avoid tensions with Mexico? So having a secure boarder might create tensions with our neighboring nation, but we'll pay no attention to the tensions created within our own nation over NOT securing the boarder. Isn't this like saying that though the neighbors keep breaking in to my house I'm not going to lock my doors because my neighbors may not like it? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it?

Mexicans will keep crossing the boarder in dangerous ways? So what we're really interested in here is making it less dangerous for the Mexicans to violate our immigration laws? I know that's my top priority when it comes to immigration reform. It's so dangerous to break our laws that we should just do away with the laws all together. That will make everything so much nicer because right now it's just tragic what they have to go through to bypass all of our immigration laws and boarder patrols. I think it is tragic what people suffer when violating our laws, but we can't forget that they wouldn't be going through any of it if they weren't violating our laws.

Employers will continue to exploit workers? The workers of course have no culpability in their own exploitation; or should we make it easier for them to get false documentation so they aren't exploited. It's just so unfair that we don't give somebody who shouldn't be here taking the job of a citizen the same way we treat the citizen. How rude.

"We can create a system in which you have . . . an orderly process for people to come in, but we're also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so that they don't have to live in the shadows," Obama said during an hour-long news conference at the Cabañas Cultural Center in downtown Guadalajara. "Am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No. This is going to be difficult."

So they don't have to live in the shadows? How dare we force the people who break into our country without documentation, violating our immigration and labor laws and putting stress on our educational and healthcare systems, to live in the shadows.

The common theme in these statements from Obama is that none of the fault for the illegal immigration issue lies with the illegal immigrants. It's all our fault and the poor illegal immigrants are being unfairly forced into dangerous environments to get here illegally, exploited when they try to work illegally, and live in the shadows like a criminal just because they're here illegally.

So the people who violate the laws are the victims and the people who seek to uphold the law are the criminals. Isn't that typical.

Specter Tells The Truth

At the town hall in Pennsylvania Senator Specter finally tells the truth about Washington by making the statement that he didn't have to be at that town hall and he was under no obligation to meet with his constituents.

So what he's really saying is that he's doing the people of PA a huge favor by actually listening to them. I guess I must be reallly naive because I was under the impression that the Senators worked for the people.

His statement that he was under no obligation to listen is the perfect reflection of what's going on right now, but it also reveals how these town halls are perceived by the legislators. If they don't think they are obligated to listen, then they won't, and these town halls are all for show. They will do what they want to do and what the people think about it matters not a jot.

Finally, somebody tells the truth about how the politicians view the people.

Creating Terrorists

We've been repeatedly advised that our behavior in going on the offensive against Islamic Jihadists has created even more terrorists instead of reducing them; that the harder we attack the more vehemently they oppose us. Why then are the Democratic leaders not following their own advise when dealing with irate Americans?

We who speak out against policies we strongly disagree with have already been labeled as radicals and potential terrorists, our ideals scoffed at and our very existance marginalized, but has this shut us up or has it made us louder?

Is it logical or reasonable to believe that disregarding the opinions of people already upset with their leadership will help a volatile situation, especially considering that the situations is only volatile because people feel they are not being heard? Is it really a good idea to deal with a dissenting opinion by telling the concerned people to sit down and shut up whiile in no way addressing the concerns that drove them to speak, or are you only swelling their ranks?

By going on the offensive and referring people to exercise their very American right to question their government as Unamerican, the leadership appears to be alienating even more people. The support for the Obama plan is steadily declining and yet on July 29th Time published an article titled "Americans Back Reform, Worry Over Details". Although the title says we all support the reform, in the body it indicates that over 60% believe that with the government plan the cost and the complexity will rise, while 56% believe that we will no longer be able to choose our own doctors. Yet the title says we back this reform and we wonder why people are getting frustrated.

The leadership will argue that they have told us repeatedly that these things will not happen, that costs will not go up and we'll be able to keep our doctors, and what possible reason could we have for questioning the word of our politicians. They wouldn't lie to us don't you know.

My question is this; will the pat answer of "because I said so" combined with the stradegy of discreting dissenters serve to reduce protests -- or increase them?

The Cruelty of Compassion

Let me start out by saying that I believe it is our responsibility to help those who are incapable of helping themselves, and to assist those down on their luck to get back on their feet. Having said that, I believe the way we currently help, is no help at all, and is actually cruel.

I made a comment on soembody's Facebook posting that basically said most of what is above, but also that giving a handout to somebody who is fully capable of working only serves to drain their ambition and keep them poor, as we see daily evidence of. Here is the response that I received. "Just what makes you think that you are the "judge and jury", or can play God by determining who is capable of working, and who isn't? Can you tell when a person is physically able,and that he/she isn't suffering from a mental illness so debilitating that they can barely function and perform daily tasks that you take for granted? Not everything is black or white, there are a whole lot of gray areas in life, and if you truly believe that we're all on "a level playing field" and that we are all given the same opportunities to succeed, than that is what precisely what separates our belief in the role of Government, and allows me to wear the label of a Liberal as a badge of honor. Try changing the color of your skin and grow up in a housing project, without the love and support of your family, and tell me that we're truly all equal and born with all the same opportunities to improve our own conditions."

Here is my problem with the philosphy espoused above. First, we should assume that there is no abuse in Welfare and give everybody the benefit of the doubt that they are incapable of working. I've seen, first hand, too much abuse to accept this. And any government program should be vetted for fraud. Second, Where somebody grows up and the disadvantages they had does not make a handout right. All it serves to do is keep them disadvanted and ensure that their children grow up in the same unequal environment with the same lack of opportunity. However, helping those people climb out of that environment, giving a hand up, helps to level that playing field and presents new opportunites for them to take advantage of. Government cannot make the poor wealthy, it can only make the wealthy poor and ensure that the poor stay poor.

By saying that we should support people through welfare because their live has been hard and disadvantaged, is the equivalent of saying "I know your life has sucked so far, so take this check to ensure that your life will suck forever."

Instead of giving a check in apology for what their lives have been, we should invest in them and work with them to bring them up to a level where they can compete and succeed. This is an investment in the individual, but it does take work on their part as well. However, by investing in this person, once they succeed, they will pay back way more in taxes than was ever put into them. And, it improves the opportunity for the next generation.

Keeping somebody in a bad environment out of "compassion" is not compassionate to either that indivual or their children. It is cruel. Not to mention that we are not designed to be idle creatures, and just giving them a check takes away their reason to get up in the morning. It tells them they have no purpose. And I believe we all have a purpose. We just need to help some people more than others on their quest to find that purpose.

So why is giving them money to keep them in the projects considered compassionate at all? Isn't claiming that where they are is horrible, and yet working to keep them there, really the very heights of cruelty?

Bush's Inherited Surplus

I've been hearing a lot about how Bush inherited a surplus and turned it into a deficit. And this is true, but there might just be a little more to the story.

Where did the budget surplus under Clinton come from? Were they spending more responsibly for social programs? Did he make reforms to the entitlement programs, the biggest drain on our federal budget? Did he set out to reduce the scope and power of the federal government and therefore the related costs? To a certain extent, he did. He slashed the budget as it pertained to our military and our intelligence agencies. The main role, the most important role, of our federal government is protecting our sovereignty, and this is where he targeted his cuts. Just ask yourself whether Bush would have inherited that surplus if Hillarycare had gone into place.

So what happened to that surplus? Well, for one, the country was in a recession when Clinton left office and Bush came in. The economy is cyclical and will have it's ups and downs. The only thing the government can really do to affect this, is to make it worse. Bush believed, and I agree, that when the economy is flagging you make government bite the bullet and let the people keep more of their money to put back into the economy. Obama believes that you make the people bite the bullet, and give their money to the government to put back into it where and however the government sees fit. Let's ignore for a moment that raising taxes in a struggling economy has only ever served to make it worse. I know many will say that government spending got us out of the depression. But what got us out of the depression was WWII. So maybe it was government spending on the war, but it wasn't new social programs. All those served to do was stabilize the unemployment rate in the double digits.

So Bush has a surplus, but the economy is on the downward slide, meaning revenues are going down and that surplus is being eaten up without any additional spending. And then what happened? We got attacked on 9/11. There was the recovery cost of that to deal with, while at the same time spending money to rebuild everything that Clinton had torn down. The CIA needed to be rebuilt so we could actually obtain intelligence that Clinton had deemed irrelevant now that the cold war was over. Setting aside the attacks on our planes, our embassies, and our Navy, we didn't need intelligence to deal with those. And the military? We were at peace so what was the point of having a strong military. Don't you know being proactive and prepared is way overrated?

And then we had natural disaster after natural disaster again eating away at the budget. Then Bush had the idea to create the new entitlement program that the country was clamoring for. Medicare part D. A new drain on the budget, a new entitlement program, and more spending.

After that the Republicans in Congress hit their spending stride. The economy was booming and revenues were climbing at a faster rate than ever before, but they fulfilled the old cliche of the more you make the more you spend. Setting none of these new revenues aside for the future, they kept a short-sighted vision on the expectation that the economy would never have another downturn.

At the same time, the banks were being put under pressure by the likes of Barney Frank and ACORN to give loans to people who didn't actually qualify for them. All in the belief that every American has the right to own their own home. A right I have as yet been unable to locate in the Constitution. This drove the housing costs through the roof. The banks were also being pushed to give other loans, and Americans went on a spending spree, emulating their government, and maxed out limits that were set way too high in the first place. As a result of the pressure put on the banks to make these loans, people's money was being taken up paying for the past with nothing left to spend in the now. Demand for products began to drop, meaning production went down, and the workforce was cut. And then the defaults started.

The credit crisis, the inflated housing market, and a cyclical slowing of the economy is what served to create the deficit. Much is made of the money spent on the war, but the truth is that if Congress had stayed the hell out of banking, and allowed the banks to operate the way they needed to instead of the way Congress thought they should, and had Congress focused on cutting the pork and payoffs in the bills they passed, then we would have been able to sustain the cost of the war.

The housing boom and bust is the center of our current troubles, and what has Obama and the 111th Congress done to address that? Not a damn thing!

Bend Over For The President

While in Italy the President was captured checking out a backside reportedly attached to a 16 year old girl. This could be just a man appreciating a thing of beauty, after all, who hasn't looked at something that caught your eye just to find out it was something you really shouldn't be looking at? I'd give him the benefit of the doubt if it wasn't for the fact that, since he took office, he's been asking every American to bend over and grab their ankles.

But here we have a man who is trying to pass legislation, and pass it quickly, which will grow the federal government to the largest it's ever been. He's taking us further and further away from the government listed in our Constitution and the ideals set forth in our Declaration of Independence. He is single minded in his goal to turn us into Europe, the one thing our Constitution was supposed to protect us from. But maybe he only wants to be someplace where he can ogle a teenage girl's backside with impunity. But if that's the case, I wish he would have moved there on his own and left us the hell alone.

And why do you think it is so important to pass the healthcare legislation before the August break? Is it because the crisis that they've been talking about for 20 years just can't wait a day more? Will all of us be bankrupt from our medical bills by the time Congress comes back? Nope. But if the congressmen get back to their own districts and find out just how upset people are about the high cost and low return, his bill will really be in trouble. People may want a healthcare bill, but they also want a good one.

I for one am a little ticked at the idea of our healthcare reform bill including money for parks, walking paths and street lights. They may say it's an encouragement for people to exercise, but if you don't go out and walk now, streetlights aren't going to help.

So when it comes right down to it, I'd rather have our President looking at a teenage girls butt instead of him asking me to bend over and present him with mine.

If You Build It...

I just watched the Nancy Pelosi weekly press conference (have I mentioned that I love working from home)and healthcare was addressed. The congress is looking mainly for a government run option which would follow their pattern of spending as much money as they can as fast as they can.

When asked about the cost of the public option that the majority support, Pelosi indicated that the Congressional Budget Office has not factored in the savings from prevention and early intervention, and that they need to look for every bit of savings they can find. Savings, savings, savings, is what she said. But that savings would be very difficult to calculate. Should we base the savings on the assumption that if you build it they will come? There are many people, like me, who just don't go to the doctor regularly. And I have preventative care as part of my insurance. How then can we calculate the cost of the savings when we don't know how many people would actually use their new preventative benefit? History has already shown us that their estimates on the costs of their programs is usually way off, and this could be why. If they are going to count on savings that won't actually ever come to pass, we should be concerned.

My other concern is their insistence that a bill, any bill, must be passed this summer. This continues their trend of being more concerned with doing something fast than doing it right. Look at how that worked out with the stimulus package. We had to pass it without reading it so the money could get into the system immediately. And 4 months later only 10% of the money has been spent. Shouldn't we instead take the time to ensure that a program which will impact the country for decades, if not forever, is the best possible bill that it can be? Shouldn't they be looking for a plan that delivers the best solution for the lowest cost instead of trying to cook the books to make the plan they want more palatable to the people? Shouldn't this fall under the old cliche of "if it's worth doing it's worth doing right"?

I am very concerned with the way Congress is spending our money. It appears, to me at least, that they are using our money to fund the growth of the government instead of the growth of the economy. And should we burden an already struggling economy with another $1 trillion in debt?

Delay is preferable to error. - Thomas Jefferson