He Knew in 1802!

"Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, 'What about the other 90 percent of the people?'"
-- Thomas Sowell

About the time I could not stand to watch the election stuff anymore, the "bail out" began. This issue was so important that it interrupted everything for several days until a decision was made to allocate the money, a bunch of money, a whole lot of money!

So it was rammed down the throats of Americans that we would become "investors" in resolving the economic crisis. Whether we are called "investors" or just tax payers really doesn't matter in the end; but it should have mattered at the time.

It did not matter because our elected representatives again simply turned off their phones, shut off their email, turned off their faxes and did what they wanted to do - over the objections of those that elected them.

And here we sit how many months later? Has the crisis been stopped? Nope!

Has it spread? Yep!

Is the problem solved? Nope!

Have the guilty been identified? Yep!

Have the guilty been punished? Nope!

Has change come to America? Yep!

Has anything changed? Nope!

The very folks responsible for this mess are now in charge of fixing it. Who am I talking about? Congress, Congress, Congress. The very same individuals who allowed, encouraged this crisis have been telling us for months they are going to fix it.

The only things I have seen is a stock market that is being manipulated by speculators, everyone else is lining up behind the financial entities for their hand out - and the free market is not being allowed to right itself.

He knew in 1802!
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson 1802

I was talking to my friend Earl the other day and he said something I found quite profound, "I was just thinking how the Government in 1990 seized control of the Mustang Ranch down in Nevada. Within a few months it failed. Now they have taken control of our entire economy. It scares the crap out of me to know that a bunch of nit wits that can't run a whore house and sell booze are making decisions about my country." Just something to ponder about.

It does not take a genius to figure out what is wrong in D.C. It's the politicians and our political system. Mark Twain said it best a long time ago, "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

Here is what Norma White, a retired network engineer for Southwestern Bell in Amarillo, TX suggested. Her suggestions work for me.

"Limit Congress from serving more than two terms, that's all a President gets.
Stop Congress from voting on their own pay raises, how did that get started anyway?

Stop paying for their high priced insurance premiums. After all, they are only part time employees. They might actually pass on laws on insurance companies if they had to deal with them like the rest of us.

Stop paying lawmakers their full salary after just one term or at retirement. We need to get rid of that pension plan; they've let other companies get rid of theirs. You're lucky to get 40-50% of your salary after working somewhere for 35 years, but they get 100%.

Make Congress pay into the Social Security system. They make laws for it. If they spent some of their own money, they might have interest in making it solvent.

Stop handing out aid to illegal aliens. If we did, the Medicaid and the food stamp program would have enough money to aid the aged and the poor.

Secure our borders.

Stop allowing babies born to aliens in the United States automatic US citizenship.

Stop the abuse of our benevolent welfare system. We feed children free meals three times a day until they are 17. Churches give away good, clean clothes. Companies buy and donate school supplies. Emergency rooms provide healthcare at taxpayer expense and the food stamp program is buying food at home. What are parents doing for their children?

Have a computer program that cross checks Social Security numbers with finger prints to stop fraud on many fronts. Use it on voter registration too.

Stop bailing out mortgage companies and banks that give loans to people who cannot afford them.

Stop companies from paying CEOs and other executive's outrageous salaries and bonuses while doing away with the worker's pension programs.

Stop all unnecessary spending so we will have the money for our nation's security and to help needy and elderly Americans.

Stop permitting anyone to have a photo with their face covered on driver's licenses."

Mark Twain also said, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do you are misinformed." Luckily Mark was not talking about the Webster County Citizen. Unfortunately, he never realized that technology would create our modern news media.