T-SPLOST Overcharges

Looking at the T-SPLOST projects is not enough to understand where the overcharges and prep projects are.  We need to understand the costs we are being charged for each project and then determine how these charges compare with what they should be.  We also need to understand what the prep work is and what they are prepping for. 

Review Projects

Take the time to review the projects on the T-SPLOST list in your county.  These lists are posted on websites on the internet.   Try to find out how many miles are involved in building the projects. Miles are included on some Fact Sheets that appear after the lists that start on page 13 of the ARC report. 

Road Projects

Download the Generic Cost Per Mile Road Construction pdf to get a sense of what it costs to mill and resurface or build new road construction.  You will find that milling and resurfacing costs about $200 thousand per lane, per mile.  A mile of 2 lane road would cost about $400 thousand to mill and resurface.

Adding lanes to existing roads costs about $1 million per lane per mile.  Adding 2 lanes plus shoulders to a 2 lane road would cost about $2 million per mile.  This should include filling ravines, leveling  hills, grading, moving signs, culverts and phone poles, etc..  If land or buildings need to be purchased, the cost may be higher based on what is purchased.  This could include homes, buildings, and frontage property as needed.  A good design would avoid these expenses..

If, like Cherokee County you have 11 miles of road to convert from 2 lane to 4 lane with shoulders, you would expect the cost to be $22 million.  The charge on their project lists for these 3 projects totals $190 million.

Interstate Road Costs

Widening interstate highways can cost $5 million per mile plus $5 million for each bridge expansion.  Adding 2 lanes on each side of I-285 for 30 miles on the north end would cost $150 million for the additional lanes and $50 million to extend 10 bridges.

Light Rail

There are Light Rail Prep projects on the T-SPLOST that cost from $5 million for studies like the 8.8 mile Clifton Corridor and the $695 million for “enhancing” the bus service in Cobb.  These Light Rail projects are awaiting the 2^nd T-SPLOST.  Light Rail costs $123 million per mile.  The Clifton light rail would cost $1.1 billion.  That $1.1 billion cost would add 2 lanes to 550 miles of 2 lane road.

Hard Rail

MARTA is a hard rail train.   There is no expansion construction in this T-SPLOST, but hard rail costs can range from $20 million per mile and $60 million per mile, with some running over $100 million per mile. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in this T-SPLOST for rail corridor study, land purchase and prep work that will be wasted.

Roads are Cheaper

Building new roads and highways and adding lanes to these are much cheaper than hard rail or light rail.  Hard rail is 10 to 20 times more expensive per mile than roads.  Light Rail is 60 times more expensive per mile than roads.   It would be cheaper to purchase homes to widen roads than install any rail.

Data Sources

The Transport Politic website article How significant an opportunity for reducing U.S. construction costs?  Yonah Freemark   August 23rd, 2011  (for rail costs per mile) 

Generic Cost Per Mile Models, 2/1/11 (for road costs per mile)

 

T-SPLOST

Over half of the projected revenue for the Atlanta Region 3  T-SPLOST was $7.2 billion, now revised to $8.6 billion is scheduled to go to Transit trains, hard rail and light rail prep, studies and buses. 

This is because T-SPLOST is attempting to solve two entirely different problems.  One is that MARTA public transit is bankrupt and will no longer be receiving federal funding after 2012.   Their strategy for replacing lost federal dollars and filling their coffers is to get us to kick in a 1% sales tax increase.  Our incentive to do this is that we will get overcharged  for road improvements.  GDOT will get hundreds of millions to correct some of their current and past mistakes.

Interstate Toll Lanes

To make matters worse, Gov. Bad Deal is pushing for toll lanes on all Interstates plus more tolls on SR 400.  This is separate from the T-SPLOST, so a NO vote on the T-SPLOST won’t stop this lane stealing.  This may be a flanking maneuver to distract us, but the threat of having our money wasted on this insult is real.

Plan B for Freedom

Vote NO on the T-SPLOST and defeat it in Atlanta Region 3 .  Repeal TIA to restore County and City sovereignty over roads and abolish all regional commissions..  Remove HOV lanes and  HOT (Toll) lanes.  Shrink GDOT to handle Interstates and the dismantling of HOV and HOT lanes. Outlaw regional taxes. 

Plan B for MARTA

Have MARTA turn their bus service over to private companies and take their resources to stabilize their train operating costs.  Then turn inward to keep their train service within DeKalb and Fulton Counties and the City of Atlanta.  The stakeholders here include the CIDs, TADs, Tourist venues, hotels, businesses near stations and philanthropists..  If they step up to support MARTA, that might complete the subsidy support for trains.  Otherwise Maglev might replace MARTA as the “no cost” solution.

Plan B for GRTA

The other public transit bus service, GRTA should be replaced by private bus companies and should be abolished.

Plan B for Roads

Voters need to engage their elected officials to give them the road priorities to pursue to begin to remove road congestion and ensure that costs are in line and corruption and incompetence are prevented.

 

Plan C for Freedom

Replace all elected officials who voted for or supported TIA / T-SPLOST.

 

 

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

GDOT Audit

Audit finds GDOT financial mismanagement by Richard Belcher

ATLANTA — 

The Georgia Department of Transportation spends more than $2 billion in taxes every year, but the agency's financial management has ranged from terrible to poor for years, according to auditors.

Every year, GDOT spends hundreds of millions of dollars, nearly all of it from state and federal fuel taxes. Residents buy gasoline, and the DOT gets money for roads and bridges. Channel 2 Action News investigative reporter Richard Belcher discovered that state auditors have just given GDOT their fourth straight scathing report.

"I started with 2008, the audit report, and I was surprised. It was terrible," said Laurie Dyke, a forensic accountant who Channel 2 Action News asked to review the most recent GDOT audits.

"Millions and millions of dollars of things were found and needed to be corrected," said Dyke.

Back then, GDOT's money management became a political issue.

"People went to jail over similar things in Enron and other corporations, and those were private corporations," said former Gov. Sonny Perdue in July 2009.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the state attorney general conducted a criminal investigation of the DOT's former treasurer, but no one was charged.

"They are better now, but they still don't have adequate financial controls to prepare and present materially accurate financial statement in accordance with the law," said Dyke.

GDOT officials said they’re working on it.

"We have some work to do in that area, too. We've admitted that. I think we've been working closely with the state accounting office and the state auditors and the governor's to come up with, overcome those," said GDOT Commissioner Keith Golden .

Golden and the GDOT treasurer told Belcher that software problems have contributed to the financial mismanagement, but Dyke agrees.

The most contentious issue is that GDOT has moved money among its 15 or 18 separate programs without the approval of the legislature, which is illegal.

Auditors said the confusion over the various programs is so great that neither GDOT nor the auditors can say whether the agency spent its money as the legislature intended last year.

Dyke said the current situation is probably beyond repair.

"It can't get better. There is no way it will get better," said Dyke.

The amount of unspent cash in GDOT accounts has risen from none in 2008 to well over $1 billion last summer.

Highway contractors complain GDOT's financial mismanagement has kept it from letting contracts and creating jobs as quickly as it should.

State auditor Russell Hinton called the last few audits of GDOT's finances scathing.

"I don't know if it is scathing, but I know that we have work to do," said Golden.

Belcher asked Dyke to grade GDOT's financial management.

"Originally, I would say it was an 'F.' It's probably come up to a 'C', if you just look at the improvement, but there is still a long ways to go," said Dyke.

Dyke told Belcher real progress will require that GDOT, in effect, zero out its old accounts and start over.

Commissioner Golden and his staff said the governor, the legislature and the attorney general are all on board to try to correct the problems, and put those Enron insults in GDOT's rear view mirror.

Comments: 

GDOT should be closed and it’s board and committees disbanded.  All gasoline and road sales taxes should be delivered to cities and counties.  Regional commissions should be disbanded and TIA repealed. 

The T-SPLOST vote on July 31^st should be a resounding NO.

The state may form a department to ensure that harbors and interstate highway infrastructure is managed.  State roads should become county roads or city roads.  I-285 is a bottleneck and so is the GDOT.  The T-SPLOST final list is a boondoggle because of the Regional Commissions.  GDOT is a boondoggle because of its Commission.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party

Cancel Greenies Credit Cards

Federal government spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities’ since 2008

The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military.

The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same time period.

Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the expenditures are foolish at a time when the military is facing “devastating cuts.”

“Everyone agrees that energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal,” he said. “In fact, I have been a strong supporter of some of DoD’s alternative energy solutions that are affordable and make sense, including their initiatives on non-algal bio-fuels and natural gas. But forcing our military to take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not only wrong, it’s reckless.”

Inhofe, who believes climate change is an unproven scientific theory at best and a hoax at worst, expressed concern about recent statements by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressing the department’s focus on making and keeping the military “green.”

Panetta’s comments came just two weeks prior to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the current Defense Authorization bill. During that markup, Inhofe said he plans to “put the spotlight on President Obama forcing his costly green agenda on DoD while [Obama] is gutting the defense budget.” He added his intention to introduce amendments to stop the administration’s green military plans.

“As President Obama’s war on affordable energy wages on there are real threats out there, and, contrary to Secretary Panetta’s remarks, man-made catastrophic global warming isn’t one of them,” Inhofe said.

The Oklahoma senator added that Panetta’s green focus reveals the administration’s true feelings about energy development.

“Secretary Panetta’s commitment of a billion dollars for alternative fuels makes clear that, despite President Obama’s recent change in rhetoric for his re-election campaign, he remains fully determined to implement his all-out attack on traditional American energy development — and the military is one place where he can force it to happen,” he said.

Inhofe noted “drastic” cuts in personnel, brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft DoD has undergone in the last four years, along with the cancellation or postponement of specialized ship and aircraft construction.

“Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force Base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?” he asked. “Would you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put towards modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend our nation against the legitimate threats that we face?”

According to Inhofe, Panetta’s focus on greening the military was a direct order from the White House — an order he should disobey.

“President Obama can write press releases for his lackeys but Secretary Panetta has an important job to do and doesn’t have time to be pandering to President Obama’s global warming fantasies or his ongoing war on affordable energy. He has a real war to win,” Inhofe concluded.

Source:  Tea Party Economist  and The Daily Caller  6:13 PM 05/17/2012

Follow Caroline on Twitter
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/17/federal-government-spent-nearly-70-billion-on-climate-change-activities-since-2008/#ixzz1vaCljNqt

Comment:

The $70 billion should include the bad loans and alternative energy projects and subsidies, but the entire cost for Agenda 21, the “fundamental transformation” plan is much higher.  Global warming was the scam that prompted George (Hapless) W Bush to sign on to Agenda 21 in the first place.  Every federal department and agency has been consumed with Agenda 21 implementation for the past 4 years.  I believe Obama is spending the better part of that extra $ trillion a year on this treason.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

T-SPLOST Won’t Work

Too Little Congestion Relief

T-SPLOST is weak and late on congestion relief.  Assuming drivers will take trains and buses is naïve at best and cenacle at worst.  Congestion relief requires establishing a grid,   T-SPLOST doesn’t do that.   

What T-SPLOST Does

 T-SPLOST is designed to bail our MARTA, expand wasteful public transit, fix a few expensive GDOT mistakes, make Greenies happy with walk and bike trails,  Make convention-addicted Atlanta happy with a beltline,  make the Amtrak folks happy with a terminal, widen a few roads, fix a few bridges, not have any appreciable impact on our traffic congestion and take decades to implement.

All Roads Lead to I-285

The worst congestion causer is I-285 and T-SPLOST doesn’t solve that problem.   This is an Interstate bypass and should be funded with federal and state transportation funds from gasoline tax revenue.    It worked when the population was 3 million.  It wasn’t expanded as our population went to 6 million.  The combination of no real grid of highways and continued interstate traffic ensures gridlock.  We need lanes, not trains.

Public Transit – a loser

Trains and buses are a mal-investment for Atlanta.  Only 3% of the population uses the MARTA trains and only 2% use the buses.  Expansion won’t change this.   MARTA’s annual budget is $750 million a year and revenue is $120 million a year.  The annual loss is $630 million a year and has been made up from tax subsidies and grants.  Few cities on the planet have a population density that will support public transit.   Atlanta isn’t one of them.    All bus service should be private.  

Companies Don’t Locate on the MARTA line

Companies locate to the exurbs or suburbs.  They don’t locate next to train and bus routes.  They go to Duluth,  Athens,  Suwanee,  Forsyth and  Peachtree City.

Overcharges on Roads

Cherokee County comes up short on the T-SPLOST list.  Besides a bridge re-do for $7 million, they are being charged $190 million to turn 11 miles of Hwy 140 from a 2 lane to a 4 lane.  That’s $17.3 million per mile.  The Generic Cost Per Mile for this is $2 million per mile.   Google (cost of road construction)  to see the Generic Cost Per Mile pdf.   Cherokee would be better off if T-SPLOST fails and they get their County Engineer to have this done for $22 million.  Vote NO and save $168 million.

Dunwoody has a $12 million re-do of 3.5 miles of Mt Vernon Road on the list.   That’s $3.4 million per mile.   Again,  the Generic Cost Per Mile lists the cost of milling and resurfacing is $200 thousand per mile.   Dunwoody would be better off if the T-SPLOST fails and they get their Public Works Manager to do this for $700 thousand plus slight widening to allow traffic to flow past left turners.   Vote NO and save $11.3 million

Cobb County is being charged $695 million for an “enhanced premium transit service”.  This means bus service.  They already have this bus service.  It goes from the MARTA station at the Arts Center to Town Lake, Ackworth and Kennesaw.   Vote NO and save $695 million.  

Bad Deals with No Roads

Cobb gets a $695 million bus service it doesn’t want and won’t use.  It’s a jobs program for MARTA bus drivers and General Electric.  This runs for 14 miles from the MARTA Arts Center to Ackworth. 

Gwinnett County has a $95 million charge for a “North Transit Corridor” planning and engineering and a walk and bike trail along side of I-85.  Construction to begin after 2040.  Will cars be able to use this if walkers and bikers don’t keep it jammed ? 

I-20 gets a bus freeway for $225 million, east to Hwy 278 at the DeKalb County line that opens after 2040.

Clifton Corridor has a $5 million study and a walk and bike lane for 8.8 miles on the site of what is planned to be a $10 billion light rail from Lindburgh to Avondale that wouldn’t be approved until after 2022, if at all.

Close to $500 million is planned to fix what wasn’t put in correctly in the first place.  It’s for error correction, tinkering, studies, EPA overreach, pipe dreaming and full employment for GDOT.

Bike lanes on the street are not viewed as useful .  Moms don’t want their kids to use these.  They want them to use the sidewalks.  We are told that younger families will want these because “a study” says so.   I think this is multi-modal  nonsense.  Buses should be private and bikes belong on the sidewalk in Atlanta. 

No  Congestion Relief for Decades

All Projects on the list are bottlenecked inside the GDOT and scheduled starts are spread out over the next decade and beyond.    The multi billion dollar light rail and heavy rail expansions won’t be done for 40 years and they will still only be utilized by 3% of the population.

Pro-T-SPLOST Propaganda

A huge propaganda campaign is underway by Pro-T-SPLOST groups who have some special interest in this useless, wasteful scam.   The Untie campaign, MAVEN, MARTA, engineering firms, Atlanta Journal, chambers of commerce and elected officials will be stumping for this.  This plan is so bad, it needs a big advertizing budget.

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Diversity

Arab Christians assimilate well into American culture.  Immigrants from most other nations and ethnicities, who are Christian also assimilate well.  Most other immigrants who continue to practice their native religions assimilate well.   They are normally well educated, they are smart, they have a great sense of humor and are hospitable.  If they are Christian, their religion gives them a bridge to Christian America.  If they are Hindu, Buddhist or other religions, they bridge the gap with their humanity, intelligence and humor. 

Assimilation is not ethnic or racial, it’s cultural.  Whoever moves to America will find it difficult unless they can assimilate.  Moslems who want to live in America, but wish to adhere to their faith to the point that they must separate themselves from us, will always feel separated.

Diversity doesn’t always work. 

Pakistan was created by the British, because the Moslems and Hindus couldn’t stop fighting over control of India.  Diversity ruined the Scandinavian countries as Moslems moved in and didn’t assimilate.  The same happened in England, France and much of Europe.  In Europe, their welfare states and political correctness did them in.  Their immigrants move directly into government subsidized housing in major capital cities with high cost of living and high unemployment.  This was neither smart nor kind.  Way too many non-assimilating Moslems occupy the ghettos of Europe’s largest cities.

Moslems

Very strict Moslems who only want their daughters to marry other Moslems or they are honor-bound to kill them would have been better off settling in a totally Moslem country.  Moslems who believe non-Moslems are infidels who must be converted or killed will find life short in America.

Some devout Moslem families will survive in America.  They must remain insular.  This works fairly well for Orthodox Jews.  Other Jews chose Reformed or less strict congregations, in part, to better assimilate.

Latino Americans

There is a divide in the Latino Americans.  Mexicans bear the brunt, being associated with illegal immigrants who do tend to form sub-culture communities in America, for some, because of their illegal status. We have appreciated their intelligence, diligence and skill as they built most of our structures over the past 20 years. 

Other Latinos haven’t had that much trouble.  They are from all the other South American Latino countries and territories.       

Black Americans

Angry black Americans are not eve liked by their families, but either are angry white Americans.  The smartest people I ever met or worked with were black.  Too many black Americans remain disenfranchised and unprepared.  I would like to send them all to private church-based schools, close to home, with proactive teachers.  That suggests the urgency for vouchers. 

The Disenfranchised

Runaway adolescents, whether rebellious or abused, sociopaths, who blame everyone but themselves, criminals and psychopaths going through the revolving doors of our prisons, deranged individuals who eventually murder innocent people and the alcoholic and drug addicted,  come in all shapes, sizes and colors.

The Unprepared

Those who are not the best spouses, not the best parents, not the best providers, not the best employees, not the best students and are incapable of self-support come in all shapes, sizes and colors.

Real Diversity

The divide exists between the disenfranchised and unprepared and the rest of us Americans.  Families and churches have always been the primary groups capable of saving those in trouble, when they are ready to be saved.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader 

Apartment Rental Dream

Obama Pursues Apartment Rental Dream to Connect with Soviet Past

Communists are such dreamers.  They can hardly wait to impose their vision of paradise on us.  But…..timing is everything.

Medvedev Pursues Russian Home-Ownership `Dream' To Break With Soviet Past

By Anastasia Ustinova - Jun 9, 2010

President Dmitry Medvedev’s government has acquired almost 2.5 million acres, an area larger than Cyprus, to promote construction of single-family homes and move Russians out of Soviet-style apartment blocks, the official in charge of the effort said.

To achieve that goal, the government will have to change the way people think about housing, said Alexander Braverman, general director of the property fund Medvedev created in 2008 to help developers build homes.

 “For a long time our people were trained to live in high- rise apartment buildings, and we have to admit openly that this habit remains,” Braverman said this week in an interview in Moscow. “We’ll have to create a program to stimulate demand, and we’ll begin this work in the near future. Call it the Russian dream. I think we can make this dream come true.”

Medvedev says ownership of single-family homes is the best way to expand Russia’s middle class, creating an engine for economic and demographic expansion. Billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev’s  Mospromstroi  and Alexander Lebedev’s National Housing Corp. are lining up to profit from the boom if the president succeeds in creating a market.

‘Cooped Up’ in Apartments

Seventy-seven percent of Russia’s 142 million people are “cooped up” in apartments, a legacy of Soviet policies that “excluded everything oriented toward the individual,” Medvedev said in April 2008 as he unveiled his home-building program. In the U.S., 67 percent of homes are owner-occupied, according to the Census Bureau.

At least 14 million square meters of housing will be under construction next year on land owned by the Federal Fund for the Promotion of Housing Construction Development, Braverman said. That will rise to 20 million square meters in 2012, or about 30 percent of residential construction volume.

“We think that people who have their own homes, driveways and careers are fundamentally different than those who don’t have these things,” Braverman said. “The person who has something to defend is a different kind of person.”

To overcome the legacy of Soviet collectivism, the fund plans an advertising blitz including TV, print and billboards to persuade Russians of the advantages of home ownership, he said.

Subsidized Mortgages

Medvedev’s plan looks like the “American dream” of home ownership turned upside-down, said Nadezhda Kosareva, president of the Institute of Urban Economics, a research group in Moscow.

“In the U.S. in the 1960s, the demand for homes came first and the government provided the rest, while in Russia the government is trying to push the idea from above,” she said.

Medvedev’s home-ownership drive has been hampered by mortgage rates that averaged 13.8 percent on 83.7 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) of loans since the start of the year, central bank data show.

To spur borrowing, the government is providing 11 percent home loans subsidized by the federal mortgage agency, Braverman said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in February that rates are too high for many potential borrowers and the government will spend 250 billion rubles this year to reduce them.

Medvedev insisted the homes built under the program be affordable, naming a figure of 20,000 rubles ($631) a square meter. Braverman later quoted a price of 30,000 rubles. The average May residential property price on Moscow’s secondary market was $4,406 per square meter, according to the Indicators of Property Market.

‘Terrible Need’

“There’s a terrible need for affordable housing in Russia,” said Nuri Katz, chief executive officer of Century 21 Russia. “The question is how much money the government can afford to give out to support the mortgage business.”  The government incentives aren’t likely to spur lending on a big scale, Katz said.

“It’s a simple real estate rule: Without the widespread availability of affordable mortgages, there will be no widespread availability of affordable housing,” Katz said.

Braverman’s fund has auctioned off the rights to develop 29 parcels of land nationwide, and plans 46 more this year. To attract developers, the fund guarantees it will buy as much as 35 percent of the homes built,

Braverman said.“We have no problem with demand” from developers, he said. “We strive to reduce risks on our properties, but the rate of return remains the same, so investors are interested. The enormous volume and potential of the market also makes us attractive.”

Billionaire Builders

The fund is “absolutely open” to foreign investors, Braverman said.

Mospromstroi, the builder controlled by the Gutseriev family’s BIN Group, according to Forbes magazine, won auctions to develop more than 36 hectares near Moscow. Gutseriev’s fortune is estimated at $2.2 billion by Forbes.

National Housing Corp. has 10 plants with a capacity to make 20,000 prefabricated homes a year. Even so, Lebedev says he needs state aid.

“People can’t buy houses because they don’t have enough money,” Lebedev said in an interview. “I want to lower the price to make it affordable for them, but the company has to generate profit. I can’t do it alone.”

The number of middle-class Russians, those with monthly disposable incomes of more than $1,000, fell about 48 percent last year to about 13.6 million people, or roughly 9.6 percent of the population, Vladimir Osakovsky, an economist at UniCredit SpA, said on May 20. The middle class will recover to its “pre- crisis peak” in 2011 and double by 2013, according to Osakovsky.

Lebedev, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $2 billion, said he has invested more than 200 million euros ($239 million) in the factories, and is looking for partners, including the state.

The fund “would be happy to work with him, but under the general guidelines” for all developers, Braverman said. “Our basic position is that we don’t build.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Anastasia Ustinova in St. Petersburg at austinova@bloomberg.net

Comments: 

I can see it now… happy Russian renters being drug off to Siberia and being forced to buy a government subsidized house shouting,  “but I don’t want to shovel snow or cut grass. ….comrade.    This was written in 2010.  I bet these Russian billionaires are with 

Soros placing hedge fund bets against J.P. Morgan.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

The North American Union

The plan to implement the North American Union cancels our national sovereignty by merging Canada, the United States and Mexico and establishing the Amero as its currency.  Watch the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5XbOvaceRA&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Also, Google, North American Union.  You will be amazed at the absence of this information in the media.

Replacing the form of government we established as a Constitutional Republic has been in process since 1913, with the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, the federal income tax and World War I.   Over time, our Constitution and its Amendments and our Bill of Rights have been eroded by a small group of bipartisan “Progressives”, working to destroy our freedom.  The global economic crises we face today are directly traceable to the activities of this group. 

These “Progressives” are well entrenched in government, education and business.  Their endgame is global socialism and includes their control over our food, water, energy and economy and includes no private property rights, no free speech and no freedom to worship.   It produces a slave and master society based on tyranny. 

Futuristic movies like a Clockwork Orange and Mad Max show the disintegration of law and order. 1984, Farenheit  451, Logan’s Run,  Soylent Green and countless other movies that show what loss of freedom means.

The problem they are having is that they may have sown the seeds of their own destruction.  The system they built to game our economy has destabilized.  If we recognize that these “Progressives” need to be purged from their posts, they will fail and we will be able to restore our free economy, our freedom and our prosperity.   This will require replacing Obama with Romney.   But that alone won’t restore our economy until we begin to dismantle the “Progressive” powerbase.  

To ensure that this cannot happen again we must force the federal government to comply with the Constitution as written.  We will also need to abolish the Federal Reserve, cancel all Executive Orders since 1913 and quit the U.N.  We will also need to repeal most current federal laws.  States will inherit the responsibilities previously held by the federal government.  The federal budget will balance itself, but cities, counties and states will need to assume the responsibilities ceded by the federal government to the States and the People.  They will need to cede some responsibilities to the private sector. 

We will need to increase our productivity to stabilize our economy.  The removal of federal regulations will help, but we need to increase production of everything in demand; that means coal, oil and natural gas.  We also need to resume timber harvesting and mining.  The removal of subsidies to large monopolies will create opportunities for private businesses to become established and grow.  We should curtail immigration until our real unemployment falls to under 4%.   

States should take over all land now owned by the federal government.  That is over 33% of the land mass, mostly in the western states.  States should sell this land to U.S. citizens to put it to productive use and return it to the tax base. 

Our economic recovery is totally dependent upon our ability to produce the things everybody will buy.  This includes coal, oil, natural gas, timber and minerals.  Anything restraining this production is treason.  Next we must lower taxes on manufacturing operations and capital parked overseas for tax purposes. 

We must reduce overreaching regulations.  We need to cut the size of government in half.  We need to stop the implementation of Agenda 21, end all carbon mitigation and quit the U.N.   We need to end the Fed and transfer all unconstitutional functions from the federal to the states and the people.

We need to cut all military and other foreign aid almost completely.  We need to replace almost all of our elected officials with those who will accomplish all of the above reforms..

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

The Argument

Free Market vs. Big Government

Is Elected Government possible in the U.S. ?   It appears that our Constitutional Republic has had its Constitution eroded to the point where we resemble a communist dictatorship, where political parties only pretend to exist.  This happened on purpose.

The Democratic party is clearly a globalist, corporate crony, Marxist, socialist party that would destroy any free economy and replace it totally with a big corporation / big government monopoly controlled economy.

The Republican party claims to support U.S. sovereignty, a free market system and small government, but it didn’t work out that way, when they controlled the government.

Both parties have succeeded in bringing our economy to its knees through a combination of disaster producing policies and haplessness. . 

In pushing its big government stimulus, deficit spending, money printing, overreaching regulations and more intitlements,Democrats have failed to restore our private economy.  This is no surprise.  It is clear that continued Democrat control will totally destroy our economy.  We know that it is easier to install a communist government after a country’s economy is destroyed, but we don’t want to go there.

So it looks like the Republicans may have another chance to control the legislature and the white house.  But it is not clear whether or not Republicans will actually reduce government enough to allow an economic recovery, much less institute the kind of reduction that will be necessary to purge government enough to prevent a repeat of this dilemma in the future.  Timid Republicans who only want to tweak the system will surely fail again.

The Government We Deserve

The issues include voter competence, controlled choice of candidates, the money problem, the entrenched elite, gaming and propaganda.  . 

Voter Competence

Are U.S. voters capable of electing representatives who will really work to ensure our freedom and prosperity, or are they easily fooled  ?  A fool and his freedom are soon parted.

Controlled Choice of Candidates

Democrats got a documented Marxist elected to the Presidency in 2008, Republicans offered a polite RINO.  What’s wrong with the Republican National Committee ?  Does it need a “house cleaning” ?

The Money Problem

We are finally catching on to the fact that the worst candidates have the biggest campaign war chests.  So, vote for the candidate who makes the most sense no matter what the media says.  Grassroots campaigns always win over contrived mega-buck campaigns.

No Free Press

The media doesn’t report the really interesting news.  It reports propaganda and fluff.  Its purpose is to distract us.  You need to Google topics on the internet to find out what is really going on.

The Entrenched “Culprits”

Carefully selected, entrenched leadership  composed of government and business leaders and investors have engineered the erosion of our Constitution and our freedom.   They control the media, so it’s easy for them to manipulate the message and create distractions, while their secret plans are being implemented.

The past and current members of the Council on Foreign Relations appear to be part of the “Culprit Gang”  This includes the banking system, all educational institutions,  most industry and business leaders and associations,  most elected officials, most government employees, all labor unions, all socialists, communists and global government promoters.

The Slogans

For some reason, some egghead decided that the U.S. should open the flood-gates to very high levels of immigration, despite the evidence that this will produce higher unemployment and a weaker economy.  It will also destabilize the culture and the rule of law.  The slogan for this mischief was “Diversity”  It isn’t working out so well in Europe or the U.S..  The tip- off was U.S. population projections showing amazing increases in minorities.  1 million immigrants a year are given work visas. 

Prior to “Diversity” was “Tolerance”, which effectively silenced opposition to any crazy scheme social engineers wanted to try.

The Bandwagon

Propaganda always includes a large advertising budget.  Be wary of causes with big advertising budgets.  The propaganda will imply that “everybody” is supporting a particular candidate, bill, plan or tax increase because it’s “for the kids” or it’s “for the trees”. or “we will all perish if we don’t do this right away”.  Beware of the Bandwagon.

The Scams

Usually government starts the scam with a law that sends things in the wrong direction.  The same legislators who started the mess will then announce that the government must fix whatever disaster they created in the first place.  All of this is done without mentioning the causes of the crisis. or even a quiet repeal of the bad laws and regulations   We are about to say: “No thank you”.

The environmental movement started this latest round of scams.  First it was “save the whales”, followed by “save everything else, except our economy and sovereignty.  The tip-off was reading Agenda 21 on the U.N. website.

The Community Reinvestment Act coupled with some HUD regulations resulted in making bad home loans to folks who couldn’t pay them back. Banks and lenders settled suits out-of-court to save money, made the bad loans, bundled them into mortgage-based securities and sold them.  That created the 2008 Meltdown of the global economy  we are still enjoying.  The below market interest rates set by the Federal reserve created the housing bubble..

The one that brought down education was the public school monopoly. It turned education into babysitting with socialist indoctrination.  We need to pull the plug on this one.  You don’t want your government in charge of your schools…comrade.  

The one currently breaking the governments’ budgets is unionized government employees.  They elect union-friendly candidates who ensure their large salaries and pension plans.   Smart cities will automate, replace those who have left with contractors, make public transit private and reduce their footprint.  The EPA, USDA, Transportation and Interior are  also in the business of ruining cities and counties.

The one that brought down the healthcare industry was the idea that all hospitals had to admit all patients, even if they couldn’t pay their bills. Somehow, the tax subsidized county hospitals and clinics had closed. Regulations and unfettered malpractice suits added to its demise.  Government needs to get out of healthcare completely.  Doctors will need to rebuild it from the ground up, using the home healthcare model..

The one that is destroying our federal government is the global warming scam that allowed the crooks at the U.N. to talk George H.W. Bush into signing Agenda 21.  We’ve spent trillions on its implementation and it will destroy us.  The tip off was that coal and nuclear costs 2 cents per kwh.  Wind and solar costs 10 cents per kwh. 

The one that broke Europe and is breaking us is War.  World War I was unnecessary and destroyed Europe beyond repair.  World War II was the result of World War I, but it was the only necessary war of the 20^th century.  All other wars including Korea, Vietnam, and the rest were actually unnecessary and we wasted trillions on these. 

The one that brought down the global economy was the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.  It has caused rampant inflation, economic upheaval and allowed the U.S. Federal government to spend us into oblivion. It also provided the funding to start our unnecessary wars.

Our current high unemployment was caused by exporting our manufacturing operations and importing 20 million more immigrants over the past 10 years.   Open borders doesn’t work if you have a welfare state.  You can have one, but not both.  This is a scam.

U.N. scams are the most numerous.  The Law of the Sea Treaty that gives the oceans to the U.N. is the latest scam.  It has a big Bandwagon.  The global government plan is large and very quiet and it has all the Bandwagons it needs to redistribute your wealth.

Georgia’s current scam is T-SPLOST.  It has an $8 million advertising budget, a Bandwagon and “Culprits”   The tip-off is a project list that doesn’t relieve traffic congestion and the overcharges on projects are obvious.   It merely panders to special interests with your money.  The worst part of this scam is that it creates a “regional” governance system to undermine city and county sovereignty and effectively remove the voters from their elected officials, just like it says in U.N. Agenda 21.

The next scam is water.  The EPA and the Clean Water Act will soon make our water “undrinkable”, unless we buy solar panels.  This will be caused by EPA Regulations coupled with a scare campaign.  The global warming “scientists” are already working on this one.  Our courts will soon make this undrinkable water unavailable.  We will be there the vet the “facts” when they start the propaganda campaign.

All of these scams have “Culprits” perpetuating the damage They are making money from this.  Perpetuating these scams either keeps them from losing their jobs or actually makes them rich.

Wisdom

The rest of the world will do whatever it wants to do.  All we can change is our own country .and we need to do that, because it’s broken and we are in serious trouble.  We should have smart National Defense, but it shouldn’t include expensive military foreign aid.

Grassroots

Sharing internet gathered information neighbor to neighbor is our current way of coping with manipulation and economy wrecking schemes.  Opposition yard signs and blog posts tell voters that some volunteer, grassroots citizens’ .groups are evaluating the propaganda and sending the message to beware of the Bandwagons

The Bad News

Our current elected officials require supervision by us, otherwise, we will continue on this path to destruction.  So, it will take more time to look up some facts on the internet to see if whatever is being proposed is a scam. We will need to define what government can and cannot do, because they apparently can’t figure this out by themselves.

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader