Our Aloof President

As the Middle East is ravaged by civil unrest, our president seems rather distant and unconcerned.

Our president supported Egypt’s Mubarak for weeks before offering rather tepid support for the insurgents. Likewise, he didn’t come out in support of the insurgents in Libya until the world media made an issue of his absence. In 2009, rebels in Iran staged the strongest protest to their terrorist supporting government in 20 years. Our president has yet to voice support for them.

Every president in modern times would have immediately voiced support for the rebels in their fight for democracy and freedom. Not our current president.

Likewise, all former presidents in the last 50 years would have immediately dispatched an aircraft carrier task force to the Mediterranean. Not our current president. Doesn’t Mr. Obama realize that not dispatching a carrier is putting Americans at serious risk in both Egypt and Libya? Doesn’t he realize that the Middle East could erupt into much more widespread bloodshed possibly involving other countries or even all out war?

Our president seems to be more concerned about not doing anything that might possibly irritate his Muslim friends than protecting American citizens.

  

To Cure a Lot of Societies Problems

Large numbers of low birthweight, drug addicted, premature babies, infant mortality, fatherless families, uninsured children,  disruptive students, truancy, school dropouts, juvenile delinquency, drug use, murderers, felons, etc., etc. These problems result largely from simply having too many underprivileged children for the system to deal with. Most of these unfortunate children were born to a mother that could not begin to provide emotionally, psychologically, or financially for her children. A huge number of these children were the second, third, fourth, fifth child of a welfare mother. We taxpayers pay not only for the birthing of these children, their food, shelter and health care, but for the multitude of problems they create as they grow older; often for their entire lives. Enough is enough. Welfare mothers should be sterilized before they leave the hospital following the birth of their first or second child.

The Politics of Wisconsin

February 18, 2011

In order to save their state from death by debt, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Republican assemblymen (legislators) are considering a bill that would strip most public service employees of the right to collective bargaining. In addition, public service employees are expected to pay a small part of their pension and health care costs. Police and fire unions are exempt.

The reaction was astounding.

Eleven hundred teachers called in sick. Schools were closed.  A crowd of 25,000 protestors stormed Madison, the state capital. Downtown Madison looked like Cairo, Egypt. In order to prevent a vote on the issue, every Democratic assemblyman left Wisconsin to hole up in a resort in Illinois. An offshoot of the Democratic National Committee is actively organizing protests and bussing in protesters against the proposed legislation

This type of reaction has been seen in Greece, Ireland, and Great Britain when their governments announced budget cuts. There may be a similar reaction by the American public when Republicans try to reduce the deficit by any meaningful amount.

Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare consume 57% of the federal budget. Expenditures for these entitlements are projected to grow quickly in the future. The president completely ducked the entitlement funding problem in his budget; preferring instead to commit taxpayers to yet another huge entitlement, Obamacare. Republicans will but have yet to present a bill that would repair these financially failed programs. Democrats prefer to deny there is a debt or spending problem and therefore cannot be criticized for doing nothing except demagoguing any budget cutting plan to death.

While tea partiers and conservative congressmen believe the American public will support cutbacks in order to reduce the deficit, the reality remains to be seen. As the good people of Wisconsin, Greece, Ireland, and Great Britain have shown; many folks are not willing to give up anything in order to deal with deficits and debts.

I can only hope other Americans will respond better when the time comes for them to give up some benefits in order to prevent a national and global financial disaster. I am not optimistic.

Michael 

Jacksonville, FL 

References:   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_wisconsin_budget_unions

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/DNC_playing_role_in_Wisconsin_protests.html?showall

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/116390569.html

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/article_c40c09e4-3a43-11e0-91c0-001cc4c002e0.html