Well, I have made it through the first 60 pages of this new law. I really feel I should study this. It will have such a huge impact on our country. I am happy to see in the last few pages that there will funds given to wildfire protection. Now that I have given my good point I would like to give my bad point.
The government will be giving funds to "the arts" to offset the anticipated decline in philanthropic gifts. This just shows that the government really is tilting toward socialism. In the past it worked like this. Person has money, person sees charitable organization to which they want to contribute, person contributes. Now it will work like this. Government takes money, government decides which charities are worthy of funds, government gives funds to organization. See how our personal choice will be taken right out of the picture? Nice huh?
Please contact your representatives to let them know you are not willing to give up your freedoms little by little.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Gullible Gulls
I started to read a magazine my church publishes the other day, the Ensign. In it I found a very interesting article. It was a "classic" article that they put in every once in awhile. It was a talk given by Marion G. Romney in October of 1982. It was titled "The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance". I would like to quote a portion of it.
"I clipped the following article from the Reader’s Digest some time ago. It reads:
“In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine [Florida] great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …
“The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.
“Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a hand-out.
“A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?
“Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.” (“Fable of the Gullible Gull,” Reader’s Digest, Oct. 1950, p. 32.)
The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens.
We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and in political, temporal, and spiritual independence.
In some countries it is extremely difficult to separate earned from unearned benefits. However, the principle is the same in all countries: We should strive to become self-reliant and not depend on others for our existence.
Governments are not the only guilty parties. We fear many parents are making “gullible gulls” out of their children with their permissiveness and their doling out of family resources. In fact, the actions of parents in this area can be more devastating than any government program."
This was written over 25 years ago yet I think it is still very true today. As I have explained in previous posts, the jobs which the government will create will only be temporary or will continue indefinitely and bleed the country dry of its resources.
Consider these Gulls as you check out the website Recovery.gov. Go there regularly to keep track of where your money is going. You are able to check on where your money is going and maybe comment on it. But going there will not change where the money has gone. Once it is spent it is spent and that is when you find out where it went. I am pretty sure you won't find any of the beneficiaries coming back to the customer service desk to return the funds.
"I clipped the following article from the Reader’s Digest some time ago. It reads:
“In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine [Florida] great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …
“The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.
“Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a hand-out.
“A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?
“Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.” (“Fable of the Gullible Gull,” Reader’s Digest, Oct. 1950, p. 32.)
The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens.
We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and in political, temporal, and spiritual independence.
In some countries it is extremely difficult to separate earned from unearned benefits. However, the principle is the same in all countries: We should strive to become self-reliant and not depend on others for our existence.
Governments are not the only guilty parties. We fear many parents are making “gullible gulls” out of their children with their permissiveness and their doling out of family resources. In fact, the actions of parents in this area can be more devastating than any government program."
This was written over 25 years ago yet I think it is still very true today. As I have explained in previous posts, the jobs which the government will create will only be temporary or will continue indefinitely and bleed the country dry of its resources.
Consider these Gulls as you check out the website Recovery.gov. Go there regularly to keep track of where your money is going. You are able to check on where your money is going and maybe comment on it. But going there will not change where the money has gone. Once it is spent it is spent and that is when you find out where it went. I am pretty sure you won't find any of the beneficiaries coming back to the customer service desk to return the funds.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Our Children's Eyes
Today I watched C-SPAN. Yeah I can't believe it either. But I found it very interesting to listen to the various Senators speak about the "stimulus" bill. Many of the Senators made good points. Senator Dodd (D-CT) spoke about how this bill will provide increased funding for firefighters in his state. I am all for that. I believe that government should pay for roads, bridges (as mentioned by Senator Klobuchar (D-MN)), schools, fire and police services, and the military. Those are the purposes for which government was designed.
Most agreed our country needs help at this time to recover from the financial crisis we are currently facing. It is currently written to give money to people and projects. I believe it should be written to provide people with opportunities and means to make their own money. We have all heard the adage "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime." This bill only gives fish.
Let me use an example. You have just been laid off from a factory. You went to work at a factory right after you graduated from high school. It was good money and took very little if any training. You have worked there for 10 years. During that time you choose not receive and further education or training because you were making plenty of money working in the factory. You may even have had previous generations of your family who worked their whole lives at the factory and you were intending to do the same. Now you have been laid off and are uncertain if you will ever be called back to the factory. You have a choice to make. As many people do when they lose a job.
You can continue to look for factory work while the number of available industrial jobs decreases daily. You can look for work somewhere where you need little education or training but Burger King just doesn't pay well enough. You could go back to school and become trained in another field, possibly a field which is growing like computers, science, or health care. Or now there will be another option. You can take a job which pays well doing construction on government buildings or roads or bridges.
The government is just create a temporary fix for a problem which will just resurface when all of the government buildings are "green" and all the roads have been repaved. The problem is that as a country we are moving away from manufacturing. The simple fact is people need more education to survive in the workplace than they ever have before. People need programs to help them get trained in more technical fields. Potentially, lower interest student loans. Maybe even forgiveness of student loans. Teach them to fish. Give them the tools to succeed in the new economy.
Finally, today on C-SPAN, Senator Coburn (R-OK) spoke. He gave a beautiful and well thought out speech. If you can get your hands on it I recommend you listen to it. He made the point that no one had had a chance to even read the whole bill. He stated that because of the speed with which it was being pushed through Congress it was a sloppy bill. In the upcoming months the bill would just have to be revised to fix all of the problems in it. Then he said that what we were really doing was taking a little bit of hope from our children's eyes tonight. The difference between the our children and those in third world countries is that our children have hope. This bill takes that hope from their eyes by burdening them with debts and problems. We are not making this country better for them. We are just transferring our problems into their pockets. I am disappointed that this bill we pass tonight and I fear the problems we will face from it.
Most agreed our country needs help at this time to recover from the financial crisis we are currently facing. It is currently written to give money to people and projects. I believe it should be written to provide people with opportunities and means to make their own money. We have all heard the adage "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime." This bill only gives fish.
Let me use an example. You have just been laid off from a factory. You went to work at a factory right after you graduated from high school. It was good money and took very little if any training. You have worked there for 10 years. During that time you choose not receive and further education or training because you were making plenty of money working in the factory. You may even have had previous generations of your family who worked their whole lives at the factory and you were intending to do the same. Now you have been laid off and are uncertain if you will ever be called back to the factory. You have a choice to make. As many people do when they lose a job.
You can continue to look for factory work while the number of available industrial jobs decreases daily. You can look for work somewhere where you need little education or training but Burger King just doesn't pay well enough. You could go back to school and become trained in another field, possibly a field which is growing like computers, science, or health care. Or now there will be another option. You can take a job which pays well doing construction on government buildings or roads or bridges.
The government is just create a temporary fix for a problem which will just resurface when all of the government buildings are "green" and all the roads have been repaved. The problem is that as a country we are moving away from manufacturing. The simple fact is people need more education to survive in the workplace than they ever have before. People need programs to help them get trained in more technical fields. Potentially, lower interest student loans. Maybe even forgiveness of student loans. Teach them to fish. Give them the tools to succeed in the new economy.
Finally, today on C-SPAN, Senator Coburn (R-OK) spoke. He gave a beautiful and well thought out speech. If you can get your hands on it I recommend you listen to it. He made the point that no one had had a chance to even read the whole bill. He stated that because of the speed with which it was being pushed through Congress it was a sloppy bill. In the upcoming months the bill would just have to be revised to fix all of the problems in it. Then he said that what we were really doing was taking a little bit of hope from our children's eyes tonight. The difference between the our children and those in third world countries is that our children have hope. This bill takes that hope from their eyes by burdening them with debts and problems. We are not making this country better for them. We are just transferring our problems into their pockets. I am disappointed that this bill we pass tonight and I fear the problems we will face from it.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, Part 1
So I have been reading this bill online. First off, let me say that maybe this was not the bill that I should have used to begin my study of politics. Secondly, let me say that I see a huge boom in paper production. Not only is the bill extremely long, but all of the paperwork that it will create should really give the logging and paper production industries a boost.
But seriously, do you work for the government, get paid through a government grant project, or receive a government subsidy? If not you will soon. This bill looks as if every government agency asked all of it's employees to make a wish list and then submitted it for inclusion in this bill.
How many of us put off making home repairs until we can afford them or can afford to take out a loan and make payments on them? I would think most of us. A good chunk of this bill is for repairs to infrastructure. I understand the desire to make government buildings "green". Who doesn't want to live in a healthier world? But can they afford it? I don't think so. If they could afford it they would have done it already. Or will we really save the envirnment and money by buying a whole new fleet of government vehicles? If we could, wouldn't we already have them? I believe they would. Trust me there are no government owned vehicles that are '96 Hyundai Accents that are rusted out like my family drives. We drive it by the way because we can afford it.
Oh and here is a novel idea. Go to the bank and ask for a loan to do some research on a potential business or home improvement you want to start or make. Ask that the loan agreement include a clause that if you decide not to go ahead with the business idea or home repair, that you don't have to pay back the loan. What you say? Who would allow that? Oh the US government. The Western Area Power Administration will be allowed to use their grant money to consider projects relevant to the purpose of the grant but if they are not pursued they do not have to pay back the balance owed on those projects. They also don't have to pay back the loan if the project reaches "the end of its useful life" and there are still monies owed.
It just isn't real life. We are throwing money away. Money that we don't have. We are paying for it. Are you willing to provide for all government buildings to be made "green" on your dime? Nope, I am not. I am providing something better for government workers than I am able to provide for myself. Do you want to loan out your money and not know whether or not you will be repaid in full? Nope, I am not. Giving away money for nothing is what a charity does not a democratic government.
Just a few things to think on as Congress prepares to pass this bill.
But seriously, do you work for the government, get paid through a government grant project, or receive a government subsidy? If not you will soon. This bill looks as if every government agency asked all of it's employees to make a wish list and then submitted it for inclusion in this bill.
How many of us put off making home repairs until we can afford them or can afford to take out a loan and make payments on them? I would think most of us. A good chunk of this bill is for repairs to infrastructure. I understand the desire to make government buildings "green". Who doesn't want to live in a healthier world? But can they afford it? I don't think so. If they could afford it they would have done it already. Or will we really save the envirnment and money by buying a whole new fleet of government vehicles? If we could, wouldn't we already have them? I believe they would. Trust me there are no government owned vehicles that are '96 Hyundai Accents that are rusted out like my family drives. We drive it by the way because we can afford it.
Oh and here is a novel idea. Go to the bank and ask for a loan to do some research on a potential business or home improvement you want to start or make. Ask that the loan agreement include a clause that if you decide not to go ahead with the business idea or home repair, that you don't have to pay back the loan. What you say? Who would allow that? Oh the US government. The Western Area Power Administration will be allowed to use their grant money to consider projects relevant to the purpose of the grant but if they are not pursued they do not have to pay back the balance owed on those projects. They also don't have to pay back the loan if the project reaches "the end of its useful life" and there are still monies owed.
It just isn't real life. We are throwing money away. Money that we don't have. We are paying for it. Are you willing to provide for all government buildings to be made "green" on your dime? Nope, I am not. I am providing something better for government workers than I am able to provide for myself. Do you want to loan out your money and not know whether or not you will be repaid in full? Nope, I am not. Giving away money for nothing is what a charity does not a democratic government.
Just a few things to think on as Congress prepares to pass this bill.
It's conservative not liberal
I am sure that you thought this would be a liberal blog. How wrong you were. Well, I am sure those of you know me thought it would be a conservative blog, but the rest of the world would not from the title huh? I decided to start a new blog because I am sick of venting to just my family about my political feelings. I am sick of hiding my thoughts because they are unpopular at this time. I am going to use my voice to share what I think.
I am just a simple person. Not terribly politically minded. I vote. I listen to the news. I keep up a little. I listen to Rush, Hannity, and Beck occasionally. I am a 32 year old homemaker with a 2 year old son. I have a bachelor's degree and worked in my field for about 10 years before becoming a full time mom. I am sure I am a lot like most of you. I am not wealthy. Can't say I ever really have been as an adult. But I also don't believe that the way the country is going right now will ever help me to achieve my personal, family, and financial goals.
I have taken the title in part from the plaque on the Statue of Liberty. To quote just a portion " cries she (the Statue of Liberty) with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
That is how I feel as a conservative at this time. I am tired of hearing the same complaints and guilt trips from liberals. I am poor now and stand no chance of ever being wealthy since my taxes will continue to increase thanks to redistribution of wealth. I am huddled with my mass of fellow conservatives who are afraid to speak against the changes. Most of all I am yearning to breathe freedom. I am seeing that little by little this country is going away from the freedoms it has been blessed with.
I have much more to say, but I will save that for future posts. Thanks for reading feel free to leave your comments. I am always listening even if I am not agreeing.
I am just a simple person. Not terribly politically minded. I vote. I listen to the news. I keep up a little. I listen to Rush, Hannity, and Beck occasionally. I am a 32 year old homemaker with a 2 year old son. I have a bachelor's degree and worked in my field for about 10 years before becoming a full time mom. I am sure I am a lot like most of you. I am not wealthy. Can't say I ever really have been as an adult. But I also don't believe that the way the country is going right now will ever help me to achieve my personal, family, and financial goals.
I have taken the title in part from the plaque on the Statue of Liberty. To quote just a portion " cries she (the Statue of Liberty) with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
That is how I feel as a conservative at this time. I am tired of hearing the same complaints and guilt trips from liberals. I am poor now and stand no chance of ever being wealthy since my taxes will continue to increase thanks to redistribution of wealth. I am huddled with my mass of fellow conservatives who are afraid to speak against the changes. Most of all I am yearning to breathe freedom. I am seeing that little by little this country is going away from the freedoms it has been blessed with.
I have much more to say, but I will save that for future posts. Thanks for reading feel free to leave your comments. I am always listening even if I am not agreeing.
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