Election Babble

A little known fact about me... I get really caught up in the presidential elections. I could spend hours researching and learning about what the candidates actually do and not just say. The whole circus is fascinating - although this election has me nervous and more worried than anything. I believe that we are in for a long hard economic ride.

I do think some good can come from it. We live in a negative savings society. We spend more than we make and that is not right. The only way we will give up our dependence on credit is if we can't depend on it for a long period of time. Wealth and riches are not evil but appearance of these things without the merit actually becomes dangerous to people's self worth, to say the very least.

My soap box for ages has been about the government's need to live on a budget - an honest one (nice try Clinton but not). I am convinced that the American people are resourceful and we can make programs work better and more efficiently without money just being thrown at it. The waste in everything government is criminal. For example, right here it Utah my sister worked as a teacher in Ogden. Ogden has a lot of failing schools and a bond was voted on (don't even get me started on bonds) and money was allotted for actually knocking down schools and building new schools. Meanwhile, they decided they would "invest" (look for that word from the candidates. It means a lot of money) in bathrooms that would be more efficient like motion detecting sinks and toilets that would save money over time. Guess which schools got their bathrooms remodeled first? You got it, the schools first on the list to come down. Davis county school district supposedly spent $1 million dollars on just the bell for the bell tower at the district offices. These things drive me crazy.

The fact that drives me the most crazy in this election is the way Obama says Bush did this and Bush did that. Vote for change from Bush. Bush and McCain are the same. Newsflash: The President of the United States can not make laws. He can sponsor a law and sign in a law but he can't make and pass the law all by himself. If the American public thought about it for all of two seconds they would see that the democrat congress and senate have been doing most of the damage because they have been the majority most of the last 30 plus years. Funny thing is that all the economic success under Clinton happened under a republican house and senate. But who gets the credit?

You might have heard the word earmarks during the election and how lawmakers add one liners to the wording within laws giving money and or power to something that may not even be related to the actual law. The president has to get power from congress for a line item veto in order to not lose the whole piece of legislation for that one earmark. In 1996 it was the republican congress that supported this veto power under Clinton and it was a good thing. It was later ruled unconstitutional in 1998. It is the lawmakers that need reform. I am afraid giving them more power IE a democrat run senate, congress and white house is not a great idea right now. Obama's record shows that he Voted NO on paying down federal debt by rating programs' effectiveness. (Mar 2007) and he Voted NO on $40B in reduced federal overall spending. (Dec 2005) Are you kidding me? $40 bill is not that much when you deal in tens of trillions! McCain wants a freeze on spending and I am all for it. When politicians talk about cutting programs it is not cutting the actual program anyway - it is cutting the rate of increase. Each year budgets get an automatic raise, kind of like a cost of living raise for us. We need to make sure the programs are working before we throw more and more money at them.

After that long rant, here are some resources for you. One is the Senate website where I found lots of interesting info too large to just cut and paste.

The website, Hotair, does a great job at pointing out the problems with Obama and then uses video clips of his own words to back up the claims.

In the end, heaven help us because whoever wins, we are going to need it!