A comment heard on the radio aroused a compelling response. The caller said that both parties contributed to the serious crisis facing the country today, and contributed to the enormous $9 trillion national debt, and severe Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid crises. It is ironic that the caller cited the last 40-50 years. Consider this. It took 200 years (1787 to 1980) for the national debt to reach $1 trillion. It took 27 years for it to balloon to $9 trillion (1980 to 2007). Ergo: $6 trillion (1980-1992); +$2 trillion (1992-2001); -$5 trillion (2001 to 2007). Total: $9 trillion. So, who was in charge during those years? Who caused the $7 trillion hit on the economy in 2000? Who provided the prescription drug bill that was to cost $400 billion, but ballooned to $1 trillion and caused health care cost to increase 10 to 15 percent each year? Who allowed the corporations to duck their obligations for pensions all across this country? Who sat by while the banks and mortgage corporations manipulated the hapless home buyers to sign those sub-prime mortgages? As an immediate first step to resolve the crisis, who bought $2 millions of those egregious loans, then reduced interest rates for the banks and mortgagors, but left those hapless mortgagees swinging in the wind? Who is being held accountable? Where are those trillions and trillions of dollars? The answers? Corporations and our government! ...more

February 2, 2008

The Bush administration and the Republican Congress of 2001 buried the economy with the Alternative Minimum Tax. The first thing they did was to ditch pay-as-you-go to make the Medicare private prescription plan seem affordable in 2003. Shortly after massive tax breaks were given to oil and pharmaceutical companies. According to OMB.org: "Those tax cuts were designed to increase the amount of taxes paid through the A.M.T. The tax policy center, which has written extensively about A.M.T., notes that tax cuts enacted between 200l-2006 have more than doubled the projected share of tax payers who will face the A.M.T. in 2010 (from 16 to 33.6 percent). ...more

January 25, 2008

Gov. Crist was wrong for attacking and publicly stating that Allstate customers should seek coverage elsewhere. I have absolutely no affiliation with Allstate. I believe we pay too much for insurance and the industry controls too much of our daily lives. Our government should show some humility as they throw our stones from our glass houses. ...more

January 23, 2008

The police are just as out of control and inefficient as the rest of our government. It took me three separate visits to recover some stolen property from the sheriff's office. My attempts were made during normal posted working hours and as instructed by our finest. ...more

January 4, 2008

in priority order - the global war on terrorism, the shrinking U.S. dollar, the increasing trade deficit, threat of a recession, and the increasing national debt. Most alarming about this list is what didn't even make the top five. ...more

December 26, 2007

"The Income Tax Relief Measure Comes at Expense of Debt" article in last Friday's paper, by Jim Abrams, clearly defines the policy and lack of principles of the Senate regarding tax cuts, spending increases and who pays the bills. Further, to have this White House praise the 100 senators' actions opposing the 435 representatives of the House's action, confirms our bankrupt policy. That this action could have closed loopholes to pay for the $50 billion peoples' programs only confirms that it is the working class wage tax that pays the national debt. The Senate and White House strenuously continue to protect the loopholes in the $200,000 range, which is the rule of thumb when big money is involved. It's a double win strategy for the Republicans in a losing year in that, like Sherman's scorched Earth policy, it leaves little in the treasury for the incoming "public servants," which may or may not be a blessing. ...more

December 11, 2007

the brakes are gone. ...more

November 22, 2007

'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' was a proud moment in American history. Standing alongside the Berlin wall that divided east and west Germans, President Ronald Reagan demanded it be removed. ...more

October 22, 2007

A new, childish entitlement was advocated by Sen. Hillary Clinton in a recent speech to the Congressional Black Caucus. ...more

October 8, 2007