For months, pundits and politicians have been saying that Americans have a math problem. They have a point, for Mr. Obama routinely champions the idea that running annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion dollars can be continued, simply by requiring Americans to pay $200 billion in taxes more each year. Anyone with a 3rd grade grasp of math has long ago come to the conclusion that even if Mr. Obama gets his way, huge annual deficits will remain, and the nation cannot sustain the current level of profligate spending indefinitely. Somehow, contrary to all known mathematics principles, and contrary to all common sense, in the mind of our president, the math works.
Now, even our language is under assault. Americans are no longer arguing about increasingly misleading and dodgy ways to represent the budget numbers, but are now battling over the meaning of the words being used by both sides in these arguments.
Consider Mr. Obama’s primary contention that the millionaires and billionaires (defined, without any sense of irony, as those making $250,000 a year) need to pay “just a little bit more” in taxes. The president contends that raising taxes to 39% on the top 2% will generate $1.6 trillion dollars over 10 years with no adverse effects to job growth.
Barack Obama, has said "We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more."
According to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), "At a time when middle class families continue to struggle, it’s only fair to call on the wealthiest Americans to pay just a bit more toward their fair share,” Murray said after the vote".
Peter Orszag (former head of OMB) claims: calling for the wealthy to pay "just a bit more" in order to achieve needed compromise on taxes and debt, is a reasonable and moderate approach.
However, in the Democrat's lexicon, what constitutes "just a bit more" changes dramatically when referring to calls for cuts of $400 billion in entitlement reform. Suddenly, much smaller calls for cuts of $400 billion are defined as imprudent "hacking away", "a gusher" and "hemorrhaging.", Yet, the president's plan to raise $1.6 trillion (or about 4 times that amount) in new taxes are described as “just a little bit.”
Remember the Paul Ryan Budget that called for $1.4 trillion in cuts to Medicaid? That plan was quickly called a "draconian", effort to punish the poor and elderly. If $1.6 trillion is defined by Mr. Obama as “just a little bit”, how then can a smaller number be defined as a draconian slash designed to punish? But, all of this, Mr. Obama tells us, is in the pursuit of a “balanced approach”.
Words do matter, and according to Socrates' Law of Identity, A=A. Or, as John Stuart Mill explains: "Whatever is true in one form of words, is true in every other form of words, which conveys the same meaning". So, if 1.6 trillion dollars is "gouging" and "draconian" when talking about entitlement spending cuts, then $1.6 trillion dollars is "gouging" and "draconian" when talking about tax increases.
We seem to have reached a sad impasse: even before members of Congress can agree on a course of action to avert the fiscal cliff, they need to agree on what words they use.
During the last election, Democrats proved their ability to inflame and to misdirect attention away from the president's failed policies, while obfuscating the very real financial crisis our country is facing. Inciting class warfare and racial tensions with the careful use of loaded words has become a Democrat stock in trade whenever there are difficult policy decisions to be made. The question is: how can Republicans negotiate with Democrats when the two parties clearly speak different languages?
They have skillfully captured certain words in the American lexicon and redefined them, applying Democrat-themed meanings for the specific purpose of cowing Republicans into silence and submission. I have watched the escalation of this vocabulary abuse for almost a decade, and I am sorry to say, this particular Democrat scheme is working.
Republicans seem afraid to speak the unvarnished truth about Democrat party leaders for fear of reprisals in the mainstream media, an organization that has repeatedly proved that it is indisputably in the tank for Barack Obama.
What are Republicans afraid to say?
Republicans seem afraid to say that Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States, seems to be a racist and a liar whose clumsy, inexperienced efforts at leadership have put our nation’s economy and our citizens’ safety in jeopardy and has proven incompetent and unfit for office.
Meanwhile, Democrats seem quite comfortable throwing labels of “racism” and “lying” about freely when they attack Republicans, comfortable in the knowledge that no Republican dare do the same. With full support and acquiescence from a compromised media that long ago lost its objectivity, charges of “racism” and “lying” have morphed into an Orwellian fog, becoming purely political terms to browbeat Republicans, allowing Democrat leaders to dodge the discussion of tough issues.
Americans have seen “racist” tendencies from Democrats who reflexively jump to the assumption that any white Republican who disagrees with Obama’s failed policies is doing so because Obama is a Black man. Meanwhile, many Democrats openly support Obama for the simple reason that he is Black. Furthermore, Obama’s surrogates are quick to circle the wagons and level accusations of “racism” should anyone point out their obvious, raced-based prejudices.
When Obama was elected president by a majority of Americans, it sure seemed that the race-baiting which went on during the 2008 campaign would finally have to be put to rest. But, in the past three years since Obama’s election, the “racist” moniker seems to be flung about with even more frequency than before the election.
In addition, too many Democrats have shown that they do not understand the definition of racism and, instead, seems to think that racism is a one-way street—that it only exists as a White against Black issue. In reality, any person who immediately assumes that a person’s actions towards them are solely based on one’s ethnic origin may be exhibiting symptoms of racism.
Still, almost anyone who criticizes Obama and the Democrats’ failed policies is labeled as a “racist”. When Black Republicans, such as me, criticize the president’s failed policies, Democrats know that the “racist” moniker won’t work, so instead, we are attacked as “traitors to our race”, or the media tries to portray us as stupid or corrupt.
But if a president’s policies are bad, if they fail to achieve their objectives (such as Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Caulkers, green energy investment initiatives, the “summer of recovery” or the Stimulus) is it really “racist” to criticize the policy or to think that the American people deserve better—even if the policy is advocated by a Black man? Is it “racist” to criticize the president because he has failed to submit a viable budget to congress for the past four years, or just incompetence on the part of the president?
The president also seems to be a liar. According to Webster, a liar is “a person who tells lies”, who deliberately “makes an untrue statement with the intent to deceive; to create a false or misleading impression.”
Isn’t that exactly what Obama has done when he says: he didn’t really know or hear the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preach anti-American sentiments, or when he writes about events that are patently untrue in his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, or when Obama deliberately tells lies about Romney and Bain Capital, or when Obama deliberately lies about the debt ceiling, or when Obama tries to claim the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya was not terrorism?
What about other Democrat leaders? Such as when Harry Reid claims that Mitt Romney didn’t pay his taxes? Or when Eric Holder says he knew nothing about Fast and Furious? Or when Elizabeth Warren claims she is part Native American so she can game a hiring system which is tilted in favor of quotas and minorities?
In the past three and a half years, Republicans have worn out the pages of the thesaurus looking for euphemisms for lying. Republican punditry, speeches and writings are chock full of alternatives: mislead, mischaracterize, misrepresent, untruth, misspeak, prevaricate, fabricate, story, taradiddle, fairy tale, inaccurate, falsehoods, dishonest, distortion, whopper, canard, deceit, stretching the truth.
Supposedly, according to Republican “strategists”, using the word “lie” is too direct, too brutal, too hostile and might coarsen the dialogue between political parties. Using the word “liar”, they contend, would lead to vicious attacks from the mainstream media and would cause Republicans to lose respect or votes or the moral high ground. But, I would hate to hear what these Republican pundits think is too coarse or too harsh, if they think that the attacks from Democrat leaders over the past few years have been friendly banter.
When did our country slip so far, fall so low, that we have become so handcuffed by political correctness that we are unable to call a thing by its true name? Socrates understood that watering down one’s language does not change the truth or make it more palatable, just more confusing.
Our founding fathers understood that too. Our founding fathers were some of the most courageous and least politically correct folks of their century (think Ben Franklin).
Their willingness to speak the truth as they saw it may be one of the reasons why they had the courage to attack tyranny and hypocrisy and hold up the flawed policies of a greedy and ignorant king for the world to see, and in doing so, lay the foundations for the greatest free government in the history of the world.
Republicans need to stop being cowed by rants of “racism” and they need to stop trying to find ways to soften the reality of Obama’s widespread and repeated deceptions.
Perhaps Wednesday’s debate might be a great place to start.
Four years ago, Barack Obama chose to use ten, grandiose, Greek columns as the backdrop for his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. The staging was a rather clumsy effort to substitute showmanship and theatre to help disguise Mr. Obama’s hostility towards American enterprise.
What many Americans watching the Obama speech four years ago may not have realized was that Obama’s fake Greek columns were a bad omen of things to come. Mr. Obama was about to put the United States on the same economic path as Greece.
Watching Greece try to solve its insolvency problems over the past three years offers a terrifying roadmap of Barack Obama's vision for America. Why? Many of the problems which led to Greece's collapse can be seen in Obama's policies and platform promises over the past four years.
For example, much of Greece's problems have been caused by an unsustainable and counterproductive growth in the public sector and in labor unions. The Greek unions' demands have become more exorbitant over the years and place an extraordinary burden on the Greek government which can no longer sustain the silly and irrational policies once promised. Sadly, Mr. Obama has not only borrowed fake Greek columns, but he has adopted the same economic nonsense.
Under Obama, the public sector has experienced explosive growth, even as federal spending has ballooned out of control. The bloated Stimulus spending, Dodd-FrankFinReg and Obamacare all come with requirements that expand the number of federal entities and the number of federal employees, while erecting additional bureaucratic burdens and increasing the regulatory madness that stifles economic growth. Add to that the increase in the number of czars and their staff supporting Obama's special interests’ lobbies, and it is easy to see that our country's current path isn't too far off from Greece.
Under Obama, the labor unions within the federal government and in the private sector have grown increasingly powerful, demanding more and more benefits, and providing less and less services in exchange. One only has to look at the stranglehold that teachers' unions have over education, and see the sad result. In 2011, America ranked 20th in the world in education, and 74th in the world with the number of students graduating with science and engineering degrees. Compare that to 20 years ago when U.S. was number 1 in the world.
As if these similarities with Greece were not enough, consider long-sustained, and growing unemployment in the US, and the growing underground economy of illegal immigrants and workers who cannot be taxed, but who tax the social services systems of the country and require expanded entitlements. Is becoming more like Greece, with escalating unemployment, really the kind of hope and change that the American people wanted?
Lastly, add to this recipe for disaster, the U.S.' inability to balance our finances, relying instead on an ever-growing need of borrowing from other countries. Four years in office and still Mr. Obama has not yet offered a budget that does not require trillions of dollars in additional deficit spending during each year he has been in office.
As a result, after four years of Mr. Obama’s inept economic leadership, America finds itself dependent upon foreign borrowings and the largess of other nations.
Americans are likely to see Mr. Obama, along with the other Democrat leaders, continue to advance this failed “Greek economic strategy”, believing that an economic day of reckoning will never occur. Democrat leaders do not seem to think they will ever need to turn to the American people, and confess that the government has made promises--wild, extravagant promises--that it cannot afford. Instead, Democrat leaders plan to increase the borrowings forever.
Make no mistake: Mr. Obama has foolishly put the country on the same economic path as Greece, and Americans will face the harsh realities of irresponsible government spending. We should have paid far more attention to those fake Greek columns Mr. Obama used as props four years ago; they were strangely and sadly prophetic.
Democrat leaders are now anxious to avoid any comparison to the Greek economic tragedy that they have so fully embraced over the past four years of economic mismanagement. So don’t expect to see those columns in Charlotte.
Obama cannot run a re-election campaign in 2012 based on his previous, record of failure, so he can only continue to make extravagant promises in exchange for votes. Nor has Barack Obama managed "to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet", as Mitt Romney pointed out in his acceptance speech at the GOP convention.
Three things are certain: whatever Obama promises at this year’s convention, (a) he won't be able to deliver on those promises without crushing 50% of America's taxpayers, (b) Obama's promised actions will diminish the prestige of America in the world and (c) these promises will involve spending more money that the government doesn't have.
My guess is that like any good conjurer, the Greek columns of old will be replaced by yet another backdrop to misdirect attention and help with Mr. Obama’s re election. Americans should not expect to see a backdrop featuring American heritage and historical images. Mr. Obama does not seem to hold the Constitution or the work of the early founders in high regard.
Perhaps the Greek columns of old will be replaced by something new--perhaps Aztec symbols and architecture? After all, Mr. Obama is determined to attract Hispanic voters and he may figure allusions to Aztecs will put him over the top.
Then too, the Aztec worship of the sun should play well with extreme, left-wing eco groups and help potential voters to forget about the Solyndra debacle as Mr. Obama doubles down on an energy policy that inhibits the use of our own natural resources in favor of huge and growing federal subsidies to favored constituents.
Of course, Mr. Obama will hope that no one will recall that failed leadership doomed the Aztec empire and led to its collapse.
In January of 2009, Barack Obama promised Americans an "unprecedented" level of transparency in his dealings with the American people and throughout his Administration. Almost four years have passed since that promise, during which time, Americans have witnessed an extraordinary level of deception and obfuscation, all designed to divert attention from the Obama Administration's failure to grow the economy, their failure to create jobs, their failure to curb out-of-control government spending, and their failure to maintain American prestige on the international level.
In fact, Team Obama is basing their entire reelection strategy on a single hope, that while it may not be possible to fool all the people all the time, Barack Obama only needs to fool 50% of the people for another 85 days.
Obama is highly skilled at obscuring the truth. Let’s look at the record:
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed that he would create 3.5 million jobs by 2012. 2012 is here and the country faces 8.3% unemployment, or so it would seem. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the request of the Obama Administration has skewed the numbers, artificially lowering the unemployment rate by changing the measurement metrics, re-categorizing some of the applicants for unemployment and dropping others from the jobless rolls if they have been unemployed for too long. Many estimate that the number is far closer to 13% than 8.3% . So, rather than the transparency promised, the Obama Administration has gone to extremes to obfuscate the true unemployment numbers.
The president has not been transparent about taxpayer investments from the Stimulus and other "special interest" programs. For example, the $574 million dollar investment in the failed, solar panel company, Solyndra, is just the tip of the iceberg. The White House has not revealed the true amount of the wasted dollars from failed "green" jobs programs, nor revealed the true extent of its involvement in these failures. This past week, emails revealed that Obama had direct knowledge of the problems with Solyndra, yet continued to tout the success of "green" enterprises and "green" jobs. Hardly the transparency promised.
The Obama Administration's lack of transparency is easily seen in its handling of Fast and Furious . Finding out who knew what and when has been the objective of the questions from Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. But the Obama Administration, including the Attorney General and the president have stalled and equivocated, refusing to provide congress with the complete documents requested, preferring a contempt of congress charge rather than reveal their role in an ill thought, incompetently executed scheme that provided almost 2,000 guns to drug cartels in Mexico. What does that tell Americans about the Obama Administration's commitment to "transparency"?
Obama has not been transparent about the struggles of the small business community which is being crushed by his anti-business policies. Some might argue that the president is simply clueless when in June he proclaimed the "private sector is doing just fine." But how to explain the president's claim: "You didn't build that?"
As a small business owner for 15 years, who often worked 14 hour days, 6 days a week, I don't remember seeing Obama, or any of his ilk, working next to me at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, while I was working to grow my business. Obama's transparent scorn, condescension and ignorance are transparent evidence of his hostile attitude towards the American business community.
The Administration has refused to provide transparency into the true cost of Obamacare, and even now, is hiding behind puffery and falsified statistics regarding the cost of Obamacare and about the enforcement of mandatory birth control and abortion provisions triggered by the legislation.
Nor has there been transparency about the funding provided for Obama's "special" czars. Certainly, senate- confirmed czars have publicized budgets and are appropriated funds by congress. However, Obama has appointed a host of other czars, such as the Green Czar, the Education Czar, the Energy Czar. These czars have staffing and infrastructure costs associated with them that were unaccounted for in the FY10, FY11 and FY12 budgets. Little or no transparency exists regarding the total costs of these czars, nor is it clear that the American taxpayer is getting any value for the dollars spent.
There is also a lack of transparency in Obama's Office of Management and Budget. (OMB). Federal government accounting systems, while supposedly following GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), in reality, have more off-balance sheet items than an ENRON wanna-be. Cleaning up these many and proliferating off-balance sheet budgetary inter-intra agency items is, perhaps, the single most important requirement and the biggest challenge to full transparency and shrinking the size of government. The annual budget reconciliation process, and the "passback" process, offer each federal agency a new chance for transparency, but that too has not been forthcoming.
Now, the president has signed the Sequestration and Transparency Act of 2012 which requires the president, within the next 30 days, to provide transparency into the federal functions that will be cut and the functions that will be exempted from cuts.
Barack Obama has resisted putting pen to paper and making any budgetary decisions over the last four years. No doubt, he will resist the calls and demands from Congress to specify what cuts he will make under the Sequestration Act. Not that it matters much. Anyone paying attention must already know that Obama will continue to expand unsustainable entitlements, and will, instead, push for even deeper cuts in defense.
Even the president's closest allies, such as Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, have expressed alarm with Obama's gambit. Others will be shocked to see just how far Obama will go to push an expansion of the welfare state. So, don’t expect Barack Obama to follow the law and outline his sequestration plan; he cannot afford true transparency.
So what can we expect the president to do when he has contradicted, obstructed, or abandoned his promises for transparency at almost every opportunity? Give a speech on Transparency? Obama did just that this past June 2012.
My guess is that in the weeks ahead, instead of being honest and outlining his priorities, the president will continue to willfully mislead Americans by speaking frequently about how committed to “transparency” he is. Such has been the Obama Administration's pattern in the past--to talk about transparency while hiding actions and intentions from the American people.
Ask any successful leader and he or she will tell you that transparency, integrity and accountability are the three pillars of a highly successful, fully-functioning organization. How unfortunate that Barack Obama has none of that DNA.
There is, perhaps, only one area in which the president has been completely transparent. Despite his claims that he would be content to be a "one-term president", Obama has made it crystal clear that he is willing to do anything, promise anything, say anything to get elected to a second term.
Barack Obama has made it clear that he is a big believer in big government and has adopted a economic plan to run trillions of dollars in annual deficits for as long as possible. Obama remains steadfast against making any dramatic cuts in government spending and when pressed to announce some half-hearted effort to cut the size and the cost of government, his administration has resisted the cuts, and has transformed even the puniest efforts to cut federal spending into even greater demands upon taxpayer funds. The Obama Administration’s cost cutting efforts within federal agencies are so ineffective, they often cost taxpayers more than the savings originally proposed by the cuts.
Consider, for example, a recent Obama administration plan to consolidate data centers across the federal bureaucracy--an effort that they claim will save millions of dollars. However, close examination, by GAO and the DoD among others, shows that the cost of the implementation of data center consolidation for almost 24 agencies cost is likely to cost billions, that most of the federal agencies consolidating data centers haven't fully evaluated the total costs.
OMB estimated that " 30%-50% savings could be obtained" in operational costs through data consolidation efforts. However, OMB did not consider, on an agency-by-agency basis, the costs in manpower to transfer data and software from the IT servers located in various agencies throughout the country to the one location of the consolidated data center, nor the costs of the displaced IT persons within agencies who no longer provide IT support, nor the costs of the additional backup storage.
In addition to these increases in the operational costs for the agency, there is also the increase in the energy costs for the data centers to be considered. It turns out that a recent Congressional Research Survey (CRS) study shows that data centers consume "as much as 100 times the energy of a typical office building". In 2012, CRS estimates that costs for energy at consolidated data centers will run about $7.4 billion dollars annually. So, it seems that the Obama Administration is advocating spending $7.4 billion dollars annually to save $510 million. Can't they see what's wrong with that math?
Then, there is the complicated case of federal employee early retirement and buyouts which are occurring in several federal agencies. The U.S. Postal service is reporting that buyouts are expected for 7,400 postal employees. A buyout is where the government has deemed that the service level, capacity or task of a particular series of workers is unnecessary and can be eliminated without creating a negative impact on agency performance.
What often occurs, instead, is that federal employees with anywhere from 25 to 40 years of service who, already, were in the process of retiring, sign up for the buyout and are rewarded with an extra $15,000 to 25,000 for doing what they were planning on doing anyway.
Imagine, an entity such as the Postal Service, which is claiming that it can't afford to deliver mail 5 days a week, can afford to spend almost $150 million dollars this year on buyouts. Of course, taxpayers can also expect to pick up the costs of any of the Postal employees who then continue to receive retirement pay, averaging approximately $1.7 million in pay and benefits per retiree. Or, for those who take the buyout but can't find work, then the American taxpayer also face the possibility of paying for 99 weeks of unemployment in addition to the $15,000-$25,000 buyout. These expenditures are claimed as cost savings by the Obama administration.
Then there is the Obama administration's recent knee-jerk, political posturing in which the administration has canceled almost all federal meetings, conferences, and travel in a throw-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater cost cutting idiocy. In order for the government to cancel conferences at the last minute, many of which have already been issued contracts, the government is required to pay a "termination for the convenience of the government" penalty. These costs can range in the millions for each termination issued.
In addition to a termination penalty fee, the federal government must also pay for any special costs, such as the efforts of the business' contract lawyers, procurement and management professionals, partial goods ordered and severance costs for any persons involved. In fact, the termination costs can equal or exceed the amount of the original contract.
Recently, in the wake of the GSA conference and clown scandal, GSA canceled all travel and conferences, as did many other federal agencies. In addition to the down-the-stream costs to cities, hotels and travel service industries, the government has also paid and continues to pay millions in termination for convenience costs.
The Obama administration's intentions may be well-meaning. Certainly, in the midst of a heated election year, they are trying to avoid political scandal. And, without a doubt the administration is trying to claim that they are doing a good job saving taxpayer money, but this is just not true.
The Obama administration is not saving taxpayer dollars--in fact, their many different “cost cutting” initiative are actually resulting in greater spending.
Americans need to look carefully at the Obama administration's so-called energy-saving, budget-cutting, and efficiency efforts. Whether well-meaning incompetence or poor management, the reform mandates and cost cutting efforts of the Obama administration have not lived up to their hype and are costing the American taxpayer far more than is saved.
The Obama administration will be known as the biggest spender in our nation’s history and even the few half-hearted efforts launched to cut unneeded programs and reduce wasteful spending result in even greater taxpayers costs and a further expansion of government.
Barack Obama was a no-show at the recent 103rd NAACP conference, but, clearly, he is being given a pass by the NAACP leadership. Checking the president's schedule, apparently there was nothing so pressing that he should have been unable to attend the meeting in Texas, but instead, he relegated responsibilities of the annual NAACP meeting to the vice president.
If Barack Obama cannot attend the annual NAACP meeting, in an election year, on a day when he has no other pressing duties, when he has the opportunity to address almost 10,000 attendees, then how can it be a surprise to anyone that during the Obama Administration, Black Americans have experienced more set-backs than at any time in the past 30 years?
Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, showed up, spoke, and was booed.
Three reason come to mind regarding the president's absence. Perhaps President Obama didn't attend because there was no significant, multi-million dollar fundraiser attached to the convention—after all, it seems that in recent months, most of Obama's appearances are in connection with fundraising for his presidential campaign. Perhaps Mr. Obama doesn't have time for any activity that doesn't have a direct bearing on the bottom line of his campaign war chest.
Another possible reason for the Obama no-show leads one to think that George Bush may have been correct back in 2004 when he asserted that Democrats seem to be taking the Black vote for granted. Democrats assume that Black Americans will vote Democrat without Democrat leaders having to make any effort. So Team Obama may have figured that there was no reason to appeal to the black vote, when it is assumed that blacks will always, reliably vote for them, regardless of an endless string of domestic, economic, and foreign policy failures. After all, elite Black leaders long ago ensured that any Black Americans who does not endorse the Democrat's ideology are promptly demonized or called a traitor to their race.
But perhaps the most telling reason for Obama's absence can be found in the government statistics concerning the Black American experience in the United States after three and a half years of his presidency. Unemployment for Black Americans is at 14.4% while unemployment among teenagers is at 24%. 72% of children in the Black community are born to unwed mothers. The Black American drop-out rate from high school is at 40%, and incarceration among Black American males is at almost 10%. Median household income declined 2.3% and home ownership is down too.
Put bluntly, no other ethnic group in America has suffered more than Black Americans during the Obama Administration. Another four years of Obama leadership doesn't promise anything different and existing trend lines marking the deterioration of Black civil society will likely continue. Of course, Obama didn't show.
The NAACP should not give the president a pass. They should not give themselves one either.
W.E.B DuBois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Dr. DuBois was the first African-American (DuBois advocated hyphenation-" the destiny of the race could be conceived as leading neither to assimilation nor separatism but to proud, enduring hyphenation.") to earn a doctorate from Harvard, and advocated for advanced education as a means for the Black community to achieve advancement. Consider how far the NAACP has distanced itself from that vision. Black students have a 40% high school dropout rate, while the NAACP shamefully and blindly hitches itself to preserving the status quo of poor schools and the teachers unions.
Dr. DuBois fought hard for interracial marriages, supporting miscegenation laws in every state, not because he advocated for interracial marriages but because he believed that allowing the marriages prevented rendering "colored girls absolutely helpless for the lust of white men" who might seduce and impregnate Black women, and then not marry them. I feel sure that Dr. Dubois did not imagine that the Black community would turn on itself, with generations of unwed mothers and 70% of Black children born to them.
Democrat leaders, pandering to the Black community, bribing them with promises of ever-increasing entitlements and hand-outs is not a good thing, and it is not what NAACP founders envisioned. This path of endless entitlements is, as F.A. Hayek explained, the road to serfdom.
Any honest assessment of the impact caused by these handouts and misguided government programs will show that they have cut terribly into the fabric of the Black community , and are dooming subsequent generations of Black Americans to a future filled with poverty, squalor and ignorance.
The NAACP audience booed Mitt Romney when he promised school vouchers. But that seems to be influenced more by the powerful public school teachers' union lobby rather by a desire to do what is best for Black children. Having more education choices available to Black children is an opportunity that Dr. Dubois would have applauded, since he believed strongly that the "Talented Tenth", an educated elite in the Black community would be needed to create Black leaders.
In 2004, George W. Bush was attacked when he talked about the "soft bigotry of low expectations", and Democrat-led cries of racism abounded.
It seems that whenever anyone, without pandering and without promising handouts, attempts to address the terrible issues facing the Black community, then Democrats and Black leaders levy charges of racism. But, at some point, individuals in the Black community needs to be told some hard truths and must be held accountable for their actions without playing the race card or the blame game.
I don't know-- perhaps that kind of objectivity is no longer possible in this county--though I truly hope it is not.
But, 24.4% unemployment among any identity group is unacceptable in a great nation. 70% of children being born to unwed mothers is also unacceptable, no matter what color your skin is. 10% incarceration of any identity group is unacceptable in a country with a legitimate civil contract.
When taken together, the grim reality is that these facts show a societal breakdown on a massive scale.
But the power and the strength to change these statistics, to change these lifestyle choices and to changes the sad outcomes of those choices must come from within the Black community and cannot be dependent upon hand-outs from Democrat plantation masters.
The National Urban League's annual convention, which Barack Obama will attend in two weeks, has as its theme, "Employment and Education Empower the Nation". One can only imagine the two-stepping, the bald lies and the verbal bribes that will be required to smother the reality of the cold, hard facts about how badly the Black community has fared under the presidency of Barack Obama.
No doubt that's why he didn't show at the NAACP--there are only so many uphill marathons a man can run in a month.
Barack Obama does lip service to the concept of entrepreneurship and small business ownership and, as he moves full tilt into election campaign mode, repeatedly cues up small business photo ops in an effort to become all things for all people. Like a shape-shifter from a sci-fi film, Obama’s primary skill is to appear to be something he is not, as he repeatedly masks his full-tilt assault on entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Consider the many, small business photo-ops that Team Obama has staged in the past few months, in New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Florida. At the same time, the regulatory costs and burdens of Obama’s policies have fallen heavily on the small business community, even as the net worth of Americans has plunged 40% in the past three years under the Obama Administration.
Barack Obama has, arguably, destroyed more wealth during his three years in office than almost any other individual in the history of the United States. And much of this destruction has occurred because Obama is anti-small business and anti-entrepreneurship. Much of this destruction of the economy has occurred because Barack Obama does not understand that business owners and risk takers are what grow an economy, and when the government creates an environment of instability, uncertainty, scapegoatism, topped off with draconian tax regulations, businesses and the economy suffer.
To Obama’s thinking, small business owners are considered part of the “rich”, and thus have become the whipping boy of the Obama Administration. The group labeled “rich”, earning $200,000 or more annually, whom Barack Obama believes need to be taxed at 40% or higher is mainly composed of small business owners, sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, who file their business taxes on Schedules and addenda to their personal income taxes.
Consider, too, that the group hardest hit by the mandates of Obamacare is the small business community which will be required to provide government-legislated healthcare options to employees, regardless of business size and profitability. The new rate hikes due to Obamacare may result in businesses facing a 9% increase in the cost of healthcare premiums. For many small businesses, 9% oftentimes represents the business' entire profit that year, so the Obamacare mandate could wipe out the fruits of an entire year's effort, or even worse, put a small business in the red.
The sad story goes on, as the group hardest hit by the reporting requirements of the Obama Administration policies is the small business community, where the SBA estimates that the cost of the various reports now required by the federal government cost approximately $10,000 to $20,000 dollars—often more than what the average small business makes in profit annually.
The proof that the small business community is the hardest hit by the Obama Administration’s anti-business policies is evidenced in several surveys that have been released this past month.
Small businesses are the biggest employer for minorities and teenagers. But, hiring by small business has slowed to the lowest point ever measured over a ten year period—which also helps to explain the disastrous unemployment numbers for minorities and teens. (The Administration has been trying to posit that teen hiring improved in May, but studies show that teens are discouraged and, thus, there are fewer teens in the market looking for jobs.)
Since small businesses are not hiring, they are also not borrowing as much—which affects the banking industry. Business lending to small business has slowed. Small loans to business of $1 million or less have been shrinking consistently since June 2008.
Average monthly pay for all small business employees decreased to $2,688 in May, a decrease of 13 percent.
The construction sector which has a large proportion of small businesses is, as a direct result of Obama’s anti-business assault is also in serious trouble. Construction sector revenue stopped growing at the beginning of 2006, began a slow decline in mid 2007, and then continued a more dramatic decline starting in mid-2008
“The most common source of startup capital for immigrant-owned businesses is personal or family savings, with roughly two-thirds of businesses reporting this source of startup capital”. But, the devastation within the economy over the past three years means that there’s a lot less “family savings” available for use as startup capital.
The belief that one person can make a difference, can create a thing of value with no help from the government is antithetical to everything that Obama believes. Furthermore, the entrepreneurial ideology scares Obama because business owners act in direct opposition to the kind of government-doled out opportunities that Obama wants Americans to think is the best they can do.
The 2012 election is all about the government and its relationship to the American people and American business. That’s it. That’s all. Whether the issue under discussion is the economy, strengthening the capital markets, the bloated entitlement system, the military, American involvement overseas, Greek debt, healthcare legislation, attracting talented and educated workers, the tax code, or the risks and rewards of being an American, there’s just one degree of separation from these issues and the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed, regulatory overreaching into the lives of Americans.
Barack Obama’s policies cannot and will not work, because the Obama Administration does not truly believe that the economic success of America is intrinsically tied to the success of the American small business community.
And so, our shape-shifting president hopes to disguise his antipathy towards business, entrepreneurs and small business leaders, as he moves skillfully around the country in one staged photo-op after another. Each carefully orchestrated to mask the economic destruction caused by his policies.
Americans should watch how effortlessly Obama shifts his shapes, how effortlessly Obama dons whatever mask is calculated to disguise his intents and best serve his reelection efforts. Americans better say a prayer for the small businesses and entrepreneurs pitted against Barack Obama—a most formidable foe, capable of destroying vast amounts of wealth, ushering in even more restrict regulations, and killing off job creators.
Acts of faith are performed each day in this country, and we are all the better for it. But sadly, Barack Obama does not seem to have faith in the American system, nor does he believe in American exceptionalism, nor does he believe that Americans can make it on their own without government handouts.
In short, Obama doesn’t have faith in us.
Faith has become an inflammatory topic in the 2012 election. In policy, speeches and campaign ads, the president has used faith as a means to demagogue his Republican opponent. Faith has been used by the left-wing extremists as a diversionary tactic, to attack Catholics and divert attention from a floundering economy. Faith has been used by Democrats as a political tactic to try to turn women against the Republican party. But, faith plays an even bigger role in the 2012 election than Democrats may realize because every day, the president shows a lack of faith that reveals his disdain for America.
For example, Barack Obama does not seem to understand that every small business that opens its door is the result of a profound act of faith. An entrepreneur believes in himself and his idea enough to take the risks, sometime to use his life’s savings, to create a better life.
Each time a business hires a new employee, it is an act of faith shown by both parties—the business believes that it can support the increased staff costs and will grow enough to make the expense worthwhile. The employee shows faith that the business will keep its doors open and offer opportunities for upward mobility.
But each small business also shows its faith when it counts on its government to create a climate with policies that support and encourage that growth.
Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith in small businesses or the judgment of entrepreneurs. Instead he believes that only the government can make wise investment decisions or hire the unemployed.
Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith that investors will do the wise things on their own. And so, he urges his Administration to invent even more restrictive mindboggling regulations al l designed to further the government’s ability to manage, direct, and ultimately control private enterprise.
Obama has shown that he doesn’t have faith in his fellow American to provide charitably, despite decades of evidence that Americans are the most generous people, the most philanthropically-inclined people, on the history of the world.
We are a nation of faith. America was first discovered, in a profound act of faith, by an explorer, Columbus, who sailed west at a time when most people believed the world was flat. Columbus’ belief, that the world was not flat, was an act of faith that made our great nation possible.
The colonists who came to America had faith that the new world would be different than the old world. They had faith that with hard work and perseverance, they could build a better life for themselves and their family.
Our founding fathers showed their faith in the principles that founded this great nation—to the point where they were willing to lay down their lives to break from England in a belief that the American system of government that they were creating was worth the sacrifice and would stand the test of time. But, Obama doesn’t seem to have any faith in the founding fathers’ belief in limited government.
Abraham Lincoln had faith in the union of the states and fought harder than any during the civil war to keep the nation together, insisting on pardons for Confederate soldiers and determined to move the nation past the great divide of the civil war.
Our nation showed its faith when we sent men to the moon, in an act of faith, so daring, so breathtaking in its scope that it is heartbreaking that our current, faithless presidential leadership has now cancelled the program.
Faith in the future, faith in our children, faith in a better life, faith that one man can make a difference—these are some of the immeasurable gifts that our country gives to the world each day. Our country, its origins, its innovation and its continued success inspire others to action and offers hope to the oppressed throughout the world. Our country is a beacon that attracts people from countless nations to our shores in the hopes of a better life.
Our great leaders and past presidents understood that America is a nation of faith and called upon that faith to bolster the nation during times of hardship.
On the eve of the D-Day Invasion, knowing that America was involved in a great struggle President Roosevelt prayed not for a quick victory, but for faith:”Oh Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled."
There is a wide and growing gulf between our current president and the American people, and that chasm is all about faith, for clearly, Obama has little faith in Americans as a people, capable of all things great and good.
Faith is frightening to Obama because with faith comes hope, and with hope comes independence and a belief in the future, a belief that difficult deeds can be done, and frontiers can be conquered. In sharp contrast, Barack Obama believes that Americans should place all of their hope and faith in the government rather than in themselves.
America is a faith-based nation, and whether the president likes it or not, our country is all the better for it.
Emigrant Bank was recently identified to receive a waiver that would allow the bank to opt out of rigorous Dodd-Frank requirements. These of course are the same new rules and regulations that Barack deems essential to the nation. Yet when the bank’s owner, Howard Milstein, who is a close friend and was a bundler for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, protested that the new rules would seriously crimp operations of his bank, the Obama Administration worked with members of congress to grant him a waiver from the new rules.
Other financial institutions and banks have consistently and vehemently argued that the Dodd-Frank Legislation that Obama championed is seriously flawed and will bring a raft of unintended consequence--but they were not friends of Barack Obama. These many other banks and institutions are not deemed worthy of a waiver.
Sadly, the case of Emigrant Bank is not the only example of the Obama Administration’s mercurial application of our nation’s laws. There is the obvious case, now being decided by the Supreme Court, of Obamacare, in which some (Nebraska´s Cornhusker’s Kickback or Louisiana’s Purchase) are allowed full exemption from the law’s requirements. What those who are exempted have in common is that, once again, friends of Obama can expect special exemptions from the rules and laws that others must follow.
There seem to be two sets of rules. The special, privileged class of people and businesses (Friends of Obama -FOO) can expect to be granted unique waivers, carve outs and shameful side deals designed to escape, to dodge, and to be exempted from much of the overreaching, poorly conceived legislation and administrative orders that Obama’s White House pushes with utter conviction on the rest of the nation.
On the other hand, if an organization, such as the Catholic Church, that is not a FOO, seeks a principled exemption to an emerging national policy, the organization is ridiculed, dismissed, and ignored.
This disgraceful double standard is becoming a standard practice in the Obama Administration.
Want more examples? Arne Duncan has recently allowed some 10 states to have exemptions from No Child Left Behind. No doubt the Teachers’ Unions in these states, critical to Obama’s reelection, were keen to ditch the pesky requirements for improved accountability. How much easier to call up friend in the White House and demand an exemption from rules and regulations that are not popular with Union members!
Consider too, the case of government-backed loans to Solyndra. Typically, in a government-backed loan, the government’s is the first debt that must be settled. But if one is a FOO, the rules are different. In that kind of situation, the debt to the federal government (read American taxpayer) is subrogated to that of a friend of Obama—not only friend, but, one of his largest campaign contributors. Other organizations and companies cannot expect similar sweetheart deals--they are not FOO.
Consider also, the case of the revolving door. The law for the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, is very clear. The statute mandates a two year ban on any kind of direct involvement with a previous employer, client or co-worker. Unless, it seems, if one is a FOO. In that case, the rules are different, which seems to have exempted Craig Becker, former counsel for the Service employees International Union (SEIU) who, through an Obama Administration recess appointment, served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and who moved directly from there to his current position serving as general counsel to the AFL-CIO.
No time off or recusal needed for FOOs.
What does it mean for the country that the Obama Administration spends so much time exempting certain privileged individuals and businesses from the law?
Under Obama, will the United States devolve into a nation where laws are negotiable and will be applied differently for different people, as long as they belong to a special interest group that wants to opt out of the law and that also happens to be a friend of the president?
Our nation could once proudly boast of our national adherence to the Rule of Law. Every American should expect and demand equal treatment under the law, and special friends of the president should not expect or apply a different set of laws for themselves.
But, Barack Obama doesn’t seem to understand this basic principle that governs our nation, and , instead, seems to think that laws are flexible and the rules apply to others. (“Others” means anyone who is not a Friend of Obama-FOO).
Somewhere inside the White House, it is likely that yet another czar is employed to process the many requests for special treatment and waivers from the many new rules and regulations that Barack Obama has inflicted on the rest of the nation.
FOO have learned to expect special exemptions. The unlucky others are not only expected to follow those same rules, but to do so knowing full well that other, more connected FOO are escaping the burdensome new costs, and can avoid the intrusive requirements.
The Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has requested all federal agencies to cut their FY2014 budgets by 5%. Not too surprisingly, these “cuts” are being heralded as an example of new, fiscal prudence by every Democrat seeking office. If only. What the President is conveniently forgetting is that these cuts, if actually implemented, will only impact discretionary spending, and avoid the much bigger and more problematic entitlement spending that is the primary cause of our economic problems.
The president’s Simpson-Bowles commission told him more than a year ago that entitlement spending was the problem, but Obama and all other Democrat office seekers continue to ignore the facts. Worse yet, they continue to champion policies that will further erode our economy, pile on even more debt, and throttle the engine of growth and innovation.
Clearly, the White House doesn’t understand, and doesn’t care, that federal spending is bloated and can’t continue to grow at the pace urged by Team Obama. Instead, Obama continues his curious set of campaign stops where he consistently promises different interests groups more than the government can possible deliver.
Barack Obama seems to believe he has an infinite supply of goodies and benefits to shower upon his favorite constituents, for which no one ever will have to pay. And yet, the president’s merry, 2012 election campaign carnival continues, with a never-ending stream of unfulfillable promises, economic delusions, and further government support for bad habits and cultural rot.
The White House refuses to understand that every additional dollar our country borrows comes at a cost to our own weakened economy, our own weakened political clout and ultimately strains the economies of the other nations who buy our bonds and loan us money.
Nor does Obama understand that our debt has grown too high to be long sustained and annually running a $1 trillion dollar deficit is reckless. Instead, Obama is fully and completely focused on winning his next election. Obama’s campaign strategy consists of buying votes by promising the impossible, then taking money from one group of Americans to give to others.
In what will likely figure as the most irresponsible administration in the nation’s history, Democrat leaders in the White House and in congress have decided to ignore common sense and, instead, indulge their every pseudo-philanthropic whim—providing largess and preferences through expanded entitlements, all at the expense of the nation’s future economic viability.
Team Obama is equally inept at encouraging economic growth and innovation. Interestingly, this past week was National Small Business Week, which went largely unheralded by the Obama White House. Not too surprising, since the Obama Administration has been hostile to business from day one, and has been especially hostile to small business.
Why? Because a vibrant, small business community creates jobs. Private sector jobs grow the economy. A vibrant economy means affluence, and affluence means choices—which is what America is all about. But, Dems don’t get it.
The president’s lackluster speech, nominally giving the nod to risk takers and innovators, touts the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, a piece of legislation which might be more appropriately called the Small Business Strangulation Act, since the number of reporting requirements--not to mention their intrusiveness into the intellectual property and proprietary information of businesses--made the proposed government-backed loans unattractive as a business expansion option. Drafted by bureaucrats, the Small Business Jobs Act has been a failure. (Witness--continuing 8+% unemployment for the past three years).
Team Obama does not understand that access to capital is not the only factor in growing a business. Small business owners need regulatory freedom to innovate and an environment of predictability and opportunity that encourages a small business to expand—all of this is best created by less (not more) government interference.
President Obama seems determined to eliminate options for American independence and innovation and increase Americans’ dependency on the government. This, in turn, increases the size of government.
Democrats don’t understand that a small government will operate more efficiently, and at less cost, on behalf of the American people. Instead, with each new rule implemented by Team Obama, and each new piece of legislation, additional government entities are created that must be funded with more and more taxpayer dollars.
What is essential--a strong defense, a strong currency, low taxes, less regulation and policies that encourage the growth of free enterprise—can be accomplished better with a limited, rather than a bloated government.
Democrats, especially Obama, talk poignantly about WTF (Winning the Future). But the Democrats’ political pablum is all lip service.
Burdensome taxes to pay for bloated federal spending have crushed the rosy future of our nation’s youth. Democrats, led by Barack Obama, have resorted to manufactured conundrums, diatribes on student loans and access to birth control, to successfully divert the attention of inexperienced college students from the trillions of dollars of growing federal and public debt which they, as the nation’s future generation of workers (if they can somehow get a job), will be required to repay.
Democrats don’t seem to care that entitlement spending has ballooned out of control because so many of those receiving the entitlements vote Democrat. Promising an ever-expanding roster of federal entitlements is the only way that Democrats can garner the votes necessary to stay in office.
If Democrats cut off the federal entitlement spigot, the votes would dry up. Taxpayer dollars, in the hands of Team Obama, are the biggest source of “get-out-the-vote-money” and it’s completely legal (albeit unethical).
Unfortunately, the American taxpayer is a shrinking base, doomed to extinction under current Democrat ideology. Democrats have grandiose social engineering-philanthropic ideas that always seem to require someone else to foot the bill, so Democrats have no compunction about raising the debt ceiling, and raising tax rates to increase the amount of money the federal government can spend.
What Americans taxpayers have learned--from the wasteful spending scandals at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), from the scandals with the Secret Service, from the revelation that almost ever federal agency in the executive branch, as well as the legislative and the judicial branches of government have indulged in self-aggrandizing, over-the-top conferences, at which members of government, public servants, were themselves the major recipients of the largesse--is that their taxpayer dollars are being wasted.
Team Obama has created, within the government, a culture of excess and indulgence, wherein public service has become self-serving rather than serving the people of this country. That’s not the American way.
Almost 180 years ago, Alexis de Toqueville wrote: ““Americans are taught from birth that they must overcome life’s woes and impediments on their own. Social authority makes them mistrustful and anxious, and they rely upon its power only when they cannot do without it”.
America is a grand country, achieved through great dreams, built through hard work, innovation, frugality and self-reliance. These are the characteristics that make America the envy of the world. These are the characteristics that Democrats fear. Something sure smells bad in Washington—methinks it’s Obama’s economic cowpies.
Barack Obama claims to be pro-growth. So does Greece, Spain, and almost everyone else. Why? Because admitting preference for the alternative—crushing, heavy-handed government interference that kills initiative and destroys wealth—is not attractive to any citizen of any country.
The problem lies in the meaning of “pro-growth”. As an unabashed capitalist, and as a supporter of free markets, I believe “pro-growth” means less government interference and more individual accountability where private sector businesses create the jobs and government pretty much stays out of the equation. But it's increasingly clear that our president has a much different idea and defines “pro-growth” far differently.
Of course, Barack Obama often says he is “pro-growth”—but the question to ask is: growth of what?
After three years in office, it seems rather clear that Obama believes in the growth of government. At the core of all of his policies is a belief that government can allocate resources more efficiently than can the private sector.
According to Obama, only the government can make wise “investments”. According to Obama’s view, private money and private investors are simply not as capable or as wise as is government in choosing the kinds of investments that will lead to growth and job expansion.
Not too surprisingly, Obama’s strange definition of “growth” is actually a call for a growth of government, growth of debt, growth of bureaucracy, growth of taxes and growth of government regulations. Barack Obama simply believes that taxpayers should be required (or compelled) to send more money to Washington where the political class can then decide how best to “invest” the money.
The “growth” that Barack Obama seeks, ultimately, is growth in government’s control over the lives of all Americans. As we have already learned from three years of watching our president try to apply this tragic economic theory, we have seen our economy stagnate as entrepreneurs and small businesses get squeezed. The only “growth” in Obama’s economy has been the growth of economically harmful and dangerous trends.
Obama has overseen a growth in the price of gas at the pump, growth in the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, growth in unemployment, growth in the number of people receiving and the amount of dollars allocated to entitlements, growth in the number of Czars designed to evade oversight from congress, even growth in the number of foreclosures.
In general, after three and a half years of the Obama administration’s “pro-growth” efforts, Americans are poorer and more dependent on the federal government.
Is this really what Americans are endorsing when they hear the term “pro-growth”? This is certainly not what the Founding Fathers envisioned.
Under Obama federal spending has grown from $1 trillion dollars in 2008 to almost $4 trillion dollars in just three years, without any growth in the economy, without any reduction in unemployment and without any significant improvement in the quality of life or opportunities for the future of Americans.
Under Obama, the public debt has grown to the point where it exceeds our nation’s annual GDP. Nowhere and at no time has this kind of equation ever been a recipe for economic growth.
LUnder Obama, the number of regulations affecting all aspects of American lives has grown. In 2011, the Obama administration put into place over 2000 different rules, statues or regulations affecting everything from the environment to the kinds of paper used for filing federal reports.
Under Obama, the number of czars has increased, even as the number of senate-confirmed leaders has dwindled. Coinciding with the increase in czars comes an increase in the bureaucracy, and an increase in the staff to support the czars, all paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Under Obama there has been growth in the number of unemployed, with minorities and teens hit the hardest.
Under Obama, the regulations affecting small businesses has created an environment of uncertainty and increased cost which discourages, rather than encourages, job creation.
Under Obama, Americans have seen an increase in the frequency of fear-mongering and race-baiting as a Democrat political strategy, designed to intimidate anyone who questions or criticizes Democrats’ flawed policies.
There has been growth under Obama—it’s just the wrong kind of growth. Lots of fine sounding rhetoric that fosters the illusion of growth. One thing seems clear--while we all seem to be speaking the same language the meaning varies greatly between what Obama says and what Americans understand.
When Barack Obama talks about his “pro-growth” agenda, Americans should start to ask just exactly what Obama hopes to “grow”.
For months, pundits and politicians have been saying that Americans have a math problem. They have a point, for Mr. Obama routinely champions the idea that running annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion dollars can be continued, simply by requiring Americans to pay $200 billion in taxes more each year. Anyone with a 3rd grade grasp of math has long ago come to the conclusion that even if Mr. Obama gets his way, huge annual deficits will remain, and the nation cannot sustain the current level of profligate spending indefinitely. Somehow, contrary to all known mathematics principles, and contrary to all common sense, in the mind of our president, the math works.
