A Nation in Crisis (But the Solutions Are There) By Herman Cain Itâs in my nature to be cheerful and optimistic, and I am optimistic about the future of the United States. But itâs not in my nature to be delusional, and no nation can realize the vision of its most optimistic people if it doesnât face up to the serious problems confronting it. A good leader understands and acknowledges when a nation faces serious problems â and offers real solutions to those problems. Unfortunately, the United States now faces a shockingly large number of big, serious problems and does not have the leadership in place that knows how to fix them â nor is our current leadership even willing to do so. Consequently, as we choose new leadership in this yearâs elections, we must be clear about the problems we face and the solutions that are necessary to deal with them. One could argue that we face hundreds of problems, but I believe we will turn the country in the right direction if we focus on the right problems and get them fixed â and they are these: Economic Stall. Just because we are not technically in a recession doesnât mean you can call our economic state of affairs a ârecovery.â When the growth of our gross domestic product is sputtering along at a pathetic 1.5 percent, we are not recovering. The Obama Administration was pretty excited last week when the new jobs report showed an uptick of 164,000, but it shouldnât have been. Thatâs barely more than the number of people entering the work force, and the last two months the figure was about half that. This is why unemployment remains at a historically high 8.3 percent. The jobs are not there. Why? Not only is the administration committed to anti-business policies today â particularly with the imminent tax increases associated with ObamaCare â but the uncertainty over any number of future policies is killing job growth because businesses are unwilling to make big commitments. They have no idea whatâs coming even in the near term. The solution to this is to make economic growth the nationâs priority, and to eliminate all economic policies that inhibit it. More on that below. National Security Weakness. If the coming defense sequester happens, we will see $500 billion automatically chopped from the defense budget. And shockingly, that only builds on existing policies of national security weakness. We are already reducing the size of our Naval fleet. We are already seeing rising tension in the Middle East. Unfriendly nations like Russia and Iran have no fear of challenging the United States. Allies like Great Britain and Poland cannot count on us for support, or even to keep commitments we have already made. Israel has no confidence the U.S. will have its back if it becomes necessary to use military force to defend itself. The solution to this is to prioritize federal budgeting (but then we would need a budget in the first place . . . more on that below) to fulfill the crucial constitutional duty of protecting national security, and to practice clarity in foreign policy so we treat our friends as friends and we let our foes understand that they should fear confronting us. A president who thinks killing Osama bin Laden was a tough call is not going to give us these kinds of national security policies. Out-of-Control Federal Spending. The federal government is spending a quarter of the entire economy, and liberal demand-siders donât even think itâs enough! Itâs enough to generate annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion, though, as the national debt grows to $16 trillion and beyond. Senate Democrats refuse to even hold a vote on a federal budget, and the nation has not had one since 2009. Everyone can see that federal entitlement programs are growing out of control and need to be restructured, but Congress and the White House are afraid to even touch the issue. The solution to this one is simple â but not easy. The American people must demand fiscal responsibility, and must make clear to politicians that they will face the most severe consequences if they do not rein in federal spending and restructure entitlement programs. As long as politicians think the safest move for their political careers is to do nothing, that is what they will do. Only the American people can change that dynamic. Tax Insanity. Itâs bad enough that tax rates are high, and that Obama wants them even higher. The real problem with the tax code is that it is a complicated mess of exemptions, deductions, special favors and âincentivesâ designed to manipulate behavior, reward people politicians like and punish those they donât like. And it gets more complicated every year as Congress adds new twists and features designed to achieve political ends. Americans spend billions just to make sure theyâre in compliance with this monstrosity. The reason my 9-9-9 plan resonated during my presidential campaign last year was that it solves this problem! It throws out the entire federal tax code and replaces it with something simple, straightforward and fair. Its goal is simply to raise the revenue the federal government needs to operate, and to do it in a way that removes barriers to prosperity. It would take the power away from Congress to add new politically motivated nuances to the tax code every year, and return that power to the people. Thatâs why Washington hates it. What do you think of that? Energy Foolishness. America can grasp energy independence today. We can drill existing oil resources, begin aggressive pursuit of plentiful coal, natural gas and oil share resources, and empower the private sector to pursue alternative energy concepts like wind, solar and biofuels. If there is way to make these ideas work, the private sector will find it, and I will be the first to cheer. If they canât work, then we shouldnât waste money pretending they can! Instead, the federal government is beating up oil companies, and wonât even approve the Keystone XL pipeline that would allow us to buy massive quantities of oil from friendly Canada (while also creating a lot of jobs, I might add). Meanwhile, it invests billions of Energy Department dollars in so-called âgreen energyâ companies that are going bankrupt. If we were smart about the use of our energy resources, we could make them the new currency by which we achieve economic prosperity on a global basis. But in this area, under the leadership of Obama, we are dumb. Immigration Insecurity. Itâs too bad Washington has made such a mess of immigration. Itâs a good thing for our nation when smart, hard-working people decide to come here, and do so legally. But immigration doesnât work when you simply allow people to sneak across the border en masse, many of them bringing in weapons and drugs, and glomming onto public assistance programs once they get here. The border is not secure, and there is no making sense of why Washington refuses to secure it. Illegal is illegal â there is no other way to look at it. If we were simply to enforce our existing laws, we could clean up the problem that has exploded to see 12 million people living here illegally. But we wonât even do that. This is not a problem that requires a difficult solution. The solution is easy. It just requires leaders who have the political will to enforce the laws theyâve already passed. Is that really so hard? Constitutional Disregard. There is a determined segment of this nation that sees the Constitution as a serious inconvenience, because it prevents them from achieving the massive power grabs of their dreams. These people should never be allowed near public office, and certainly not near any federal court. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government because that is the best way to protect the liberty of the American people. When our elected leaders ignore Constitutional limits, or try to find tricks to get around them â and worse yet, when the Supreme Court upholds these schemes â we have come to an age when there are not real limits on federal power. This one is also on the American people. We must know and understand the Constitution, and we must demand that anyone who wants to be elected to public office respect it. I told you I was optimistic! Because every problem has a solution. You just need people who are willing and able to fight for the solutions. And that starts with recognizing that the leaders we have now are not those people.
Harry Reid 'Dirty Liar' for Romney Tax Smear by Patrick Hobin Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is lying about Mitt Romneyâs tax returns in order to divert the presidential campaign away from real issues. At the end of an interview with Candy Crowley on CNNâs âState of the Union,â Graham unloaded on Reid, saying, âIâve been around this town for awhileâI actually like Harryâbut what he did on the floor of the Senate is so out of bounds. I think heâs lying about his statement about knowing something about Romneyâs [tax returns]â¦â That sentiment was echoed on ABC, where Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus called Reid a âdirty liarâ this morning on âThis Weekâ for accusing presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney of not paying taxes. "I'm not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn't filed a single page of tax returns himself," Priebus said. When asked if he wanted to take back that phrase, Priebus said he stood by his comment. Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, has said in repeated interviews that, according to a source that called his office, Mitt Romney did not pay taxes for ten years. The accusation was strongly denounced by Romney, who said it was false and that Reid needed to âput up or shut up.â Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts has been under intense pressure by Democrats and even some in the GOP to release more tax returns. Graham continued, âI think heâs created an issue here. I think heâs making things up at a time when the countryâs just about to fall apart.â Reid, a fellow Mormon, repeated the charges in a statement released by his office, accusing Romney of âhiding something.â âI just canât let that pass,â Graham told Crowley. âI just cannot believe that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate would take the floor twice, make accusations that are absolutely unfounded in my view, and, quite frankly, making things up to divert the campaign away from the real issues.â When pressed by Crowley during the following segment for response to Reidâs statement on the Senate floor and whether it was appropriate, Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs refused to answer directly. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell also lashed out on Sunday at Reid's thus-far baseless allegation. "This is a reckless and slanderous charge by Harry Reid," McDonnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "This is a guy who hasnât released his own returns and for three years, can't get a budget passed in the United States Senate. "People donât care about Mitt Romneyâs tax returns. They are [worried] about their own tax returns, and the taxes that are going to be increased under President Barack Obama, where nearly a million small business people are getting a whopping tax increase. Thatâs the issue in this race," McDonnell said, adding that Democrats are simply trying to change the subject from jobs and spending. "This is a more, change the situation, hide the ball, where they don't want to focus on jobs and the economy, and spending and debt and deficits and energy because their record is so bad, the Republican governor said. "And, of course, they're trying to change the subject to tax returns." "You know what we know about his tax returns? Heâs paid his taxes. He's a very generous man. And heâs made a lot of money because heâs been successful. Why donât we start talking about the things that are important, that people and going to vote about and thatâs jobs and spending."
Odumbo is a liar and fraud. Between him, Reid, and Pelosi... they don't even measure up to a steaming pile. Yet greedy Socialistic parasites in the population will likely re-elect all of them. Sad.
Romney, RNC raise more than $101M in July Associated Press Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee say their political money-raising machine netted more than $101 million last month. Romney's presidential campaign says in a statement issued Monday that about 26 percent of the money raised in July came in donations of less than $250 dollars. The campaign says that Romney, the RNC and state GOP parties have nearly $186 million in cash on hand. Romney's finance chairman, Spencer Zwick, says the Republicans are "well on track to raise the money to be successful in November." President Obama's fundraising totals for July were not yet available, but Romney brought in more cash than Obama during both May and June. GOP-aligned "super" PACs also are raising and spending millions of dollars to defeat Obama.
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Obama's a great president and will do even better the next term. You Obama haters will just have to suck it. Your pain will be in proportion to your irrational hatred, which is nice.
An inexperienced, incompetent socialist who's routinely lying through his teeth and is clearly out of his depth. Better let him go now, a la Jimmy Carter, and spare the country the pain, suffering and inordinate damage of a second term. But, I will give him this: he's a good family man who's done a lot to cleanse the dirt that Clinton's cleating and naked lies have plastered all over the democratic party.