Metro Atlanta Mayhem I

Road Problems: Visitors Beware

Atlanta Metro has a number of problems with its streets and roads. If you are new to town, just passing through or visiting here, you need to read this:

1.Street numbers go up and then down; try to find the 3400 block of Buford Highway; you will find it twice, once inside the perimeter and again way out in Gwinnett County.

2.Roads change names several times, everywhere.

3.Roads turn left and right without telling you.

4.Roads stop and then continue several blocks down from where they dead-ended.

5.All verbal directions require that you drive to the Big Chicken before you can find your way to your destination.

6.All office building have three to five names for their complex thanks to the marketing people. Try finding the Palladium by Greenway at the Ponds from the Big Chicken.

7.Few addresses are visible from the street. Many addresses are not on their buildings at all. You really can’t slow down enough to catch an address; the minimum traffic speed on our roads is 45 mph.

8.Hotels change hands faster than a hot Rolex watch. Restaurants go up and down even faster.

9.Left turns are only allowed on 3 downtown streets. Everyone else continues to turn right.

10.The I-75 North exit out of downtown no longer means I-75 / I-85 North. You may want to go to Gwinnett, but you will end up in Chattanooga.

11.There are never any cars on the big 17th Street overpass. I go there just to clear my head.

12.The exhaust from line of cars idling at the GA-400 toll booth caused the EPA to ban road building in Atlanta for decades due to poor air quality. The people who don’t want you to drive were ecstatic.

13.Coming up I-75 / I-85 North through downtown Atlanta, you need to get into one of the 3 left lanes to go right to I-85 or into one of the 3 right lanes to go left to I-75. Nashville has you switch lanes like that 5 times. Nashville needs a 17th Street overpass where you can go to have your nervous breakdown.

14.Some roads can suddenly turn into highway entrance ramps. If you go south on Buford Highway, the entire road becomes an entrance ramp to I-85 South. Nobody knows what they did with the rest of Buford Highway or how to get there.

15.The Interstate highways we use, I-85, I-75 and I-285 require some warnings:

The minimum traffic speed on our highways is always the posted speed plus 20. If you try to drive the posted speed on I-85 South from the Williams Street Exit to the Hwy
20 Exit, you will cause a huge pile-up, multi-car accident. Just pick a center lane and hope for the best.

It is common to lose your lane as the highway narrows. That’s because your right lane has become an exit ramp and you must cut over to the next lane on your left. This can be difficult and harrowing, but it is a good idea. If you don’t and you take the exit ramp, you will probably not be able to get back on to the highway, ever.

The worst entry ramp was from the airport to I-85 N. You had to accelerate from zero to 80 miles per hour in 4 seconds to cut left through 5 lanes of on-coming traffic to get to your ramp way over on the left. Otherwise, you couldn’t get on to I-85, ever.

Our Exit Ahead signs are designed to stun and confuse you. They are very large and cover the entire highway. They announce the coming exits for the tangled plethora of roads and highways you may want to take. There are no through-lane signs, so it’s hard to know if you’re still on the highway you started on. Just pick a middle lane and hope it’s not an exit lane.

We have HOV Lanes for car pools and buses. No one knows what HOV means. If you have two or more people in your car or bus, you can use them. Our HOV Lanes are on the left and so are their exit ramps; you may be required to exit and then you won’t be able to get back on the highway, ever, and you may not know where you are. Our HOV Exits are designed to hide what is ahead, so you really don’t know where they will take you. It’s the GDOT’s way of making your driving experience exciting.

You may notice the placement of traffic lights on entrance ramps to our highways. These are really fun. Until they added these unnecessary traffic lights we were able to form a single lane before reaching the highway entrance lane. We all took turns shuffling our cars. We did that all by ourselves and it worked fine. But the Georgia DOT did not think we could handle this shuffling on our own, so they put stop signs on the entrance ramps. They go Red, Green, Red Green alternately and very fast. You have got to see this. It creates a huge line of cars that back up on the road that leads up to the entrance ramp. They are not always on; nobody knows why. The best time to catch them is rush hour. You can pack a picnic lunch, and sit on the grass across from the entrance ramp for the best view. You won’t believe it.

You may notice that some parts of some highways have signs with people’s names on them. These are not the names of people who died there; these are the names of well connected, retired Georgia politicians who are not currently incarcerated.

Send me an email to march with us in the Dunwoody July 4th parade. Go to TheTeaparty.net website and join the Dunwoody GA Tea Party. Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party, ntl@mindspring.com NTL Conservative Blog 770-394-1284

Government Gone Wild

We may be voting to let government sink further into debt this November under a load of Bond Issues serviced with tax increases. The Dunwoody City Council may have us vote on a $65 million Parks & Transportation travesty. The Atlanta Regional Planning Commission may have us vote on a $125 billion transportation boondoggle. The State of Georgia is scheduled to increase its Bond debt service from $25 million a year to over $1 billion a year.

The Federal government wants to spend another $2 trillion to buy the world a Coke. Georgia just spent $29 million on Okey Woods, 10,000 acre “wildlife preserve” and plans to spend more. Atlanta Regional wants to spend $125 billion for a train hub, MARTA bailout and schemes to make our roads worse. DeKalb County wants a 4.5 mil increase. Property tax revenue fell and they want to raise our rates, just like they did with the water rate during the drought. Sandy Springs wants to spend $50 million to buy a strip mall. Dunwoody wants to spend $65 million on parks and bike lanes. They want Bond Issues and Tax Increases. Way too much money will be spent on low use items like Afghan elementary schools, low use transit infrastructure, city halls, parks and wildlife preserves, places you go every day.

Bond Issues are a particularly expensive way to run a government. The debt a 30 year Bond creates is roughly double the face amount of the Bond. The CPI is currently 3.2% The Bonds will need to deliver a return at least as high as the CPI. Over 30 years a return of 3.2% costs 96% of the face amount (30 years x 3.2% = 96%) As the CPI goes up, the Bond values go down. Smart governments pile up surpluses to pay for big projects.

The Atlanta Regional Plan to spend $125 billion includes lots of MARTA funding. MARTA’s income from customers is $100 million a year, but it’s cost of operations, maintenance and expansion is $700 million a year. Their operations are subsidized by the Federal, State and Local government covering 86% of their costs. Why would we expand this ?

The Federal government is on a spending spree Congress can’t seem to stop. They loaded up their departments with extra cash and these departments are offering transportation “earmarks”. To get these, States, Regions and Cities must agree to go into debt and raise local taxes money and spend it on uneconomical public transit, very expensive light rail, biking, walking and green space. This is a bribe we can’t afford to take. The Federal government is waging a mythical war with their imaginary CO2 problem. They hate cars, roads, suburbs, America, the Constitution and the free enterprise system.

Apoplexy Now !

Apoplexy produces a state of unconsciousness. That could explain why government thinks it can borrow its way to prosperity without being aware of the consequences. Governments, at all levels, are in a feeding frenzy to borrow money. Interest rates are low and inflation is upon us and low rates won’t last, so government wants to lock in that mortgage rate and hope for the best.

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates artificially low and under market for over a decade. The Fed also prints U.S. dollars out of thin air whenever the Federal Government needs them. The Federal Government has been on a spending binge for over a decade. This particular form of apoplexy is contagious, but isolated to government officials, so it probably resides in the selective unconscious. (Why hasn’t the CDC warned us ?)

Government spending and debt have caused free markets to atrophy. Our home, land values and stocks are falling, commodity prices are rising, consumer demand is stalling, small business is struggling and stagflation is ascending and government is complaining that we won’t give them enough money. So, we started this Tea Party group to ask the hard questions.

Send me an email to march with us in the Dunwoody July 4th parade. Go to TheTeaparty.net website and join the Dunwoody GA Tea Party. Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party, ntl@mindspring.com NTL Conservative Blog 770-394-1284

Dunwoody GA Tea Party Begins

I registered with theteaparty.net to form a Dunwoody Tea Party group to give voice to those citizens who don’t want the City Council to raise taxes or go into debt.

We want the City of Dunwoody to:
1. Recognize that the economy is not improving enough to spend big bucks.
2. Scale back spending plans and adopt a “debt free”, no tax increase plan.
3. Prioritize spending based on utilization; fix the main roads and intersections.

Our Focus
We represent the average citizen. We want the Dunwoody City Council to prioritize all expenditures based on utilization. We all drive on the roads, but not many of us need a field to play baseball. We formed to lend a conservative voice to Dunwoody City politics.

Our Plan
Our first task is to invite our Tea Partiers to march in the Dunwoody July 4th parade. We need simple, light weight continental militia clothing, a fife and drum and some Betsy Ross flags.

Our next task is to identify families who will host a “meet the candidate” party for their neighbors in their homes or at their swimming pools. We have all Summer to do these and it will be fun.

Then we vote NO on the Bond Issue, if there is one, in November and elect conservative City Council Reps. After that, we are free to do whatever we want to do.

Tea Party Autonomy
Dunwoody Tea Party members don’t have to participate in other Tea Party events. There are no dues. We can join or be members of other Tea Party groups if we want to. We can focus on wherever we think will be helpful. Most of my thoughts are on NTL Conservative Blog, where I will be adding these posts.

We are total free-enterprisers. We want the free market to rule. We encourage self-reliance. We are watch-dogs when it comes to government. We believe in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, as it was written. We believe government is broke, because it has overreached its authority. We want government to stop spending our tax dollars for things individuals and free enterprise could do and live within its means.

Our Issues
We are in the 3rd year of the 2nd Great Depression and government wants to double down on its spending spree. We don’t think maybe this is such a good idea.

Send me an email to sign up to march with us in the Dunwoody July 4th Parade or host a candidate meeting. Go to TheTeaparty.net website and join the Dunwoody GA Tea Party. Norb Leahy Dunwoody GA Tea Party, ntl@mindspring.com NTL Conservative Blog 770-394-1284

Real Government Reform

There are big changes that need to be made in how government operates. These are changes that most elected officials would not want to hear about, much less support. Before any of this, borders should be closed and all illegal aliens deported. Governments loose respect when they don’t enforce their own laws. Government overspent and is broke. Between the pending $20 trillion National Debt and the $80 trillion in unfunded liabilities, government is bankrupt. If we allow government to print their way out of this, inflation will eat us alive, again. The incestuous relationship between government and big money got us here. It’s time to separate them. Government and Education are dominated by communists who deserve to be laid off.

First is real campaign finance reform.
This is the kind of reform that voters would support, special interests will fight against to the death and most elected officials know would make things better. This campaign finance law would make registered voters in the candidates’ city, county, district or state the only ones who could make legal campaign contributions only to those candidates who would appear on their ballot. This would work for Primaries, Run-offs and General Elections. It would redefine the role of lobbyists to remove campaign contributions as a means to legally bribe elected officials.

Candidates would need a website with their resume and position on issues posted and yard signs. They would be forced to develop relationships with voters rather than special interests.

Free speech would be preserved as special interests, lobbyists, corporations, unions and government employees could buy their own ads to support their own causes. I would hope that their customers, stockholders and members would receive an accounting of these activities along with their marketing and contributions budgets and vote on these to keep them in check. Even special interests must be held accountable to their constituents.

Liberals would fight this change to the death. They invented the corrupt system we are attempting to reform. When John Kerry resigns, you’ll know we’re making progress. Like unions and the mafia, liberals cannot operate without deal making, intimidation, coercion, corruption, divisiveness, bribery and extortion. George Soros’ strategy is to get big spending politicians elected to ensure the decline in the value of their currency and then short-sell the currency. He did this in the UK and he is doing it now in the US. Unions are unnecessary and damaging and they know it, so they’re desperate. Liberals get ugly when cornered.

This will need to be passed by State Legislatures and recognized by Federal Legislatures before any of these changes could occur. This is the only solution left to states like California, where government employee unions control the legislature.

Second is a return to the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.
We need to stop electing “welfare state Marxists”, those who say they want to “help” people. Helping people is the peoples’ job and it must be done without the government. The Federal Government’s powers must be stripped back to be consistent with the 10th Amendment; this will save needed dollars the Federal Government doesn’t have, but continues to spend.

The Federal Government must retreat from controlling and funding Education, Healthcare and Welfare Systems; the States do these anyway, but I would cut all federal subsidies and let the States scale these back to fit their budgets. This would involve the repeal of decades of Federal Laws.

The congress must assume responsibility for monetary policy to ensure that inflation is kept to under 1% a year. The Fed can present its analysis and get approval from congress before it prints more money. The dollar devaluation must stop. The 1913 dollar is now worth 3 cents. The Fed has failed. A stable dollar is the answer to increasing U.S. savings rates. Retirement accounts should be free from the kind of risk we have endured in the stock market.

Counties should shoulder the burden of this reduction in funding. I would hope that schools would use internet and home schooling as much as possible to reduce expenses.

Third is real legislative process reform.
For years, legislators made their own rules, allowing for legalized bribery and extortion. This has resulted in wasting over half of the tax revenues spent since the founding of our country.

House and Senate Rules should not allow unrelated, tacked-on amendments to be added to Bills. Start by banning any other items from being added to military and government operations appropriations Bills. Earmarks would be eliminated and “for other purposes” should be removed.

House and Senate Resolutions should be eliminated; they are trite and a waste of time.

It’s time to reform the rules used to pass legislation. Current rules allow unrelated issues and expenditures to be bundled with necessary legislation. The only intelligent decision is to vote NO. This should not be allowed. It’s a formula that allows really bad legislation and expenditures to hide in the corners of benign legislation and be passed.

Carve-outs should be removed. If it’s good enough for everybody else, it’s good enough for your biggest campaign contributors. Exempting favored states, industries and companies from regulations should not be allowed.

Many regulations codify dumb policies cooked up by unions and liberals and adopted by big dumb companies and they want to impose these on the rest of us. The big dumb companies support these to increase their smaller competitors’ costs.

Fourth, we need the Legislatures to reverse Court and Executive Order errors
Congress must define “Life” to include the unborn, define “Born” and revoke citizenship from ‘Anchor Babies” and should reverse the Supreme Court ruling on school prayer and end the attack on references to God by the ACLU.

We must roll back all “favored minority” regulations to end the Gay Rights movement. If we don’t, we will encourage pedophiles and terrorists to begin their own Rights Movements.

Social engineering must end. All of it should be repealed.
EPA rules should be pared back; CO2 is not a pollutant and doesn’t cause global anything.

Fifth, we are broke. We need to pay off the debt.
We must cut half of the Federal budget to match revenue. We need to reduce government employment from the current 25 million to 15 million. We can’t afford them. We need to cut 10 million government jobs, so the most humane approach would be to start a government hiring freeze now. We also need to freeze pay and benefits and convert government pensions to defined contribution plans. It could take several years of pay freezes before government pay packages settle back in closer parody with private sector compensation. Governments must limit their borrowing to 3 times their annual revenue.

We must pay off the debt. Government must cut spending to match revenue. Next government must set up principle and interest payments to begin to pay down the debt. That means the Federal Government must cut the functions that are ‘reserved for the states and for the people’. Annual spending is roughly $4 trillion a year vs. annual revenue of $2 trillion a year. If we need to spend $1 trillion a year to pay off the debt, the government will have to function on $1 trillion a year. The Federal government must withdraw from funding and controlling Education, R&D except defense, Healthcare and Welfare. States need to push these responsibilities back to the counties and cities’ this should take 3 years of pull-back spending reductions. These monsters will necessarily shrink.

Federal parks and unused land should revert to the States. The Tax Code and the Income tax should be eliminated and replaced by a 10% national sales tax. All Departments except Defense, State and Interior should be eliminated. Functions from the eliminated Departments should be reconsolidated under the Interior.

We must phase out Medicaid which is now less effective and many times more expensive than the old county hospital and neighborhood clinic model we need to return to.
We must phase out Medicare and Social Security. They are unsustainable and unconstitutional. If we had paid our 17% to our own lock-box accounts, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

We must remember that any responsibilities assumed by the Federal government will cost 10 times more than it’s worth and will result in disaster, without exception. Most laws enacted since 1913 should be repealed.

Sixth, we need to stop being the world’s policeman.
We need to close most of our 700 overseas military bases and put those bases on the Mexican border to fight the drug cartel war and replace the border patrol. Border guarding should be a military responsibility.

Focus on Iran. Stop kicking the can down the road. If we deal with Iran, our other problems will go away, so deal with Iran, harshly. We should do this by freezing Iranian assets. If we need military action we should do it with drones, air attacks and Special Operations forces, not occupying armies. We need to stop Iran and all others who would fund terrorism and be done with it.

We will waste $2 trillion in nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like most things government does, it was not a good deal. We don’t have to do this. We can take out the poppy fields every year with napalm.

Colonialism should die a natural death. It results in extinction events for empires and creates top down country creating that causes problems forever. Our record of inserting ourselves in every world conflict that arises hasn’t bought us much. In most cases we end up creating a monster we have to fight a decade later.

Seventh, we need to redefine terms and establish priorities.
U.S. interests must be redefined as U.S. voters’ interests and would not necessarily include U.S industry, business or globalist interests. We no longer need a large footprint around the world beyond what businesses do for themselves, if they are responsible vendors who deliver value.

Social engineering has to go. It is not in the interests of the U.S. voter to have a government engage in social engineering or funding special interest activities or funding and adopting junk science and using it to create regulations that double our energy bills.

Foreign aid and involvement must be curtailed. We can’t afford to buy the world a coke. There is a long established principle in Ethics that attaches proximity and personal charity to the moral imperative. The good Samaritan became responsible for the injured man who was beaten and robbed when he happened upon him. It is not in the U.S. voters’ interest to ship billions of tax dollars overseas. It is the decision of each voter to give to all charitable causes personally.

We need lower unemployment. We have 20 million illegal aliens and 20 million unemployed. Is this hard ? Illegal aliens must be deported. When our government ignores our citizens living in Arizona in the middle of a war zone, but sends past Presidents to raise millions for overseas relief, voters’ interests are not served.
Eighth, we need to get government out of unconstitutional, dangerous, unsustainable and wasteful activities

Education, funded and controlled by government is a recipe for tyranny. It’s dangerous and pollutes the subject matter. The communist ideological indoctrination taking place in our schools will ruin the country. It’s the Hitler Youth on steroids and a black hole for funding. The curriculum has declined to be dominated by “useless studies” as the predominant major. These degrees do not prepare us for anything. These graduates cannot find jobs. We fill our engineering classes with foreigners. Let’s pull the plug and start over. Giving loans to students to study this stuff is criminal. Communist ideology must be surgically removed from all education. Starving it into oblivion is a good start. All education can now be done on the internet.

Healthcare, funded and controlled by government is unsustainable because it is a black hole for funding. We treat everything and cure nothing. Most cancer patients die from the side-effects of chemotherapy and radiation. We are spending way more than these drugs and medical treatments are worth and it’s time to get back to basics. Healthcare is a scandal. I predict that the abandonment of healthcare by government would usher in its salvation, leaving healthcare to providers and patients.

Health Insurance should be optional. Companies should flip whatever they are spending on health insurance into pay raises and allow employees to find their own insurance, or not.

Illegal Aliens are an economic drag. If we could lose 20 million illegal aliens and send indigents to county health, healthcare could survive, so could schools and the legal system.

Earmarks are wasteful and should be banned. These are projects local voters won’t fund. Sometimes they are very expensive like “the bridge to no-where”. Mostly they are low priority city and county projects that could be funded by donations, like bike-paths and landscaping.

Grants are wasteful in all departments and should be eliminated. If somebody has a project that has merit, they can figure out how to turn it into a commercial success. If not, voters shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Government funding of studies are wasteful. Research should be funded privately.

The Arts should be funded privately. They’d none of them be missed.

The EPA should be rolled back and left to the states. They do more harm than good. CO2 is not a pollutant.

The Department of Labor should be closed and left to the states. Unions should be left on their own to sink or swim without government help.

Social Security should be exposed for the Ponzie scheme it is and should be privatized over time, but first, investment vehicles that are impervious to wild swings in value must be established. This would have been debt equity, but social engineering wrecked it.

FDA functions should be left to the states where their charter can be limited and met. Drugs should be tested for safety and side effects by a designated non-governmental lab at pharmaceutical company expense.
The department of Agriculture should be closed, subsidies ended and functions returned to the states.

The department of Health and Human Services should be closed and its functions left to the states and counties.
The department of Transportation should stop subsidizing light rail and Amtrak and stick to maintaining Interstate Highways.

Oil and gas are needed. Congress must open up drilling for gas and oil everywhere, with no exceptions. The Interior department needs to learn about how to avoid oil spills and ensure, in person, that these standards are followed.

Ninth, regulations and red tape should be value stream process mapped and continuously improved to remove non-value-added activities and barriers.
We need to make it easier to do business in the U.S., not harder. India’s economy was in gridlock before they streamlined their business license maze. It’s impossible to do business in government controlled socialist republics, which is what we now have.

Most of our legislation misses the mark. It punishes the innocent and lets the guilty go free. Large companies are squandering resources to comply with laws and regulations that are unnecessary and stem from government initiated social engineering.

Large companies are the last place I would look for an illegal alien workforce. They need English speaking employees. Yet they maintain Affirmative Action Plans, I-9 Forms and use E-Verify. Small landscapers, large and small farming operations, construction companies, drug cartels, tree removal companies, retail, fast food operations and grocery stores have all the illegal aliens working there, but somehow, they are never discovered, arrested or deported. What were you thinking ?

Tenth, goods producing jobs must return to the U.S.
We need a viable U.S. economy to dig our way out of our government debt hole. The Federal government needs to remove legislative obstacles and let the states do the job.

Goods Producing employment, including manufacturing, mining, logging and drilling must double from the current 18 million jobs to 36 million jobs. We need to make manufacturing in the U.S. competitive with the rest of the world through automation and regulatory and tax reform. Companies in various industries can tell you the cost of manufacturing overseas vs. in the U.S.

Foreign governments have actively recruited our manufacturing industries to locate plants in their countries. Incentives include long-term tax holidays, free land or rent and all manner of bribes. The end result has been that our companies, realizing that they could cut their costs by 50%, have relocated to these other countries. In many cases, these companies have no unions, less stringent regulations and more freedom to operate efficiently. We will not get some of these industries back, ever.

Elected Officials should be actively engaged in gathering facts and numbers from industries we could entice to return manufacturing operations to the U.S.
Unions must be recognized as the job killers they are. They ruin companies. There are industries who would return their manufacturing operations to the U.S. but for exposure to re-unionization.

Conclusions
The information we got from the “Information Age” wasn’t good. We lost our wealth-producing industries. In the 1990 manufacturing jobs were off-shored and laid-off workers went to retail jobs. In 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, the economy took a tumble along with the airline industry. The lower interest rate response to the down-turn resulted in the 2008 Meltdown. Green jobs have necessarily gone to the Martians. The “unintended” results of government action and inaction have taken their toll. The collapse of the dollar has been long in the making; it isn’t like it’s a surprise we won’t see coming. It will arrive as the result of excessive government spending and excessive government debt.

Aftershock Prep

In Aftershock, the authors cite four reforms that will be necessary after our sovereign debt meltdown and national bankruptcy. These are: 1. campaign finance reform, 2. media reform, 3. lobbying reform and 4. increased government efficiency. It is imperative that we think about what reforms will work before this meltdown occurs, otherwise we will have a banana republic with a military dictator.
One would have to be an idiot, or a Democrat to propose any blueprint other than the original Constitution and Bill of Rights. We will be forced to return to these. If the government is bankrupt, then downsizing to small government is an attractive alternative.

What went wrong and what caused our government bankruptcy are easy to diagnose. Government, by allowing special interests to contribute to campaigns meant that our Representatives would necessarily be “for sale”. If you didn’t own your Representative or a stable of them, you were not a wealthy, successful special interest group. If, on the other hand, you were a registered voter in the city, county, district or state these candidates purport to represent, you have had very little control over the legislation, court rulings or Presidential orders that got us in this mess.

Campaign finance reform should allow only registered voters in the city, county, district or state of these candidates to contribute to their campaigns. This alone would clean up most of the media reform and lobbying reform, as both are special interest segments, who would no longer be allowed to play. If we really want limited government, then we remove Representatives from the payrolls of wealthy special interests; they will get bored with the new arrangement and leave our Representatives alone. Candidates would post their resumes, positions on issues and their world-view on their websites and answer voters email questions. Yes, we voters will have to make campaign contributions and put up more yard signs, but we wouldn’t have to listen to those Attack Ads on TV.

There would be no bail-outs, no favored groups, no social safety nets, no subsidies and very little taxes. Business could no longer use the U.S. Government to intimidate other countries into having anything to do with us. Our prosperity would be in our own hands and we had better be customer and quality oriented. I doubt that we would continue to have an income tax or a Federal Reserve, so much for inflation. Yes, we should really reduce government to the size and scope we maintained before we let the special interest groups screw it up. Our military could come home and win the Mexican border war against the cartels, then build the border wall.

The efficiency we seek already exists. All government business should be done on the internet, even popular votes on issues to be dealt with by our Representatives. House and Senate Resolutions should be judged as a waste of time and done away with. All Bills should be read, studied, understood and explained in detail with email input and questions by the voters before Bills are released from Conference Groups. All Bills should be stand-alone with no riders attached, especially appropriations Bills. All education should take place on the internet and should be the responsibility of local concerns. The new education model should be built by parents’ internet interaction. Much healthcare could be done on the internet as self-care; drugs that really do not require a prescription should be available over-the-counter from anywhere. All trade protection laws could be repealed, including the Jones Act that is keeping foreign oil skimmers from saving our beaches in the gulf. The law allowing government employees to join unions should be repealed, especially in California. All public transportation and utilities should be private, non-union and unsubsidized. All laws giving advantage to any groups should be repealed.

Environmental issues should be subject to thorough scrutiny, conclusive proof and cost-benefit analyses. We should agree that the planet is big enough to take care of itself as long as we don’t dump garbage or chemicals into lakes, rivers and oceans, on the beaches or on the road-side. Consumers and environmentalists should agree on what to do with aluminum cans, plastic bottles and adult-proof packaging via internet discourse and let consumer product businesses know our preferences; no laws should be necessary. Real necessities should receive priority including more than adequate drinking water and crop watering supplies and road expansion and repair. All local and world-wide criminal enterprises that bother us should be found, hunted down and destroyed. Illegal aliens should be deported and Immigration should be reduced to a dribble of geniuses we want to hire.

Aftershock

In Aftershock, the brilliant book by David Wiedemer, Robert Wiedemer and Cindy Spitzer, the authors dissect our “bubble economy” and declare that the bubble machine will turn itself off with the worst meltdown yet. The authors believe our politicians will not prevent the next series of Meltdowns, but I believe they can avoid making it worst with spending and budget cuts. I wrote the following before I read the book:

We’ve experienced the 2008 Meltdown and the artificially sustained recovery based on hype and the Federal government spending spree, but all of that will end soon

The 2008 Meltdown had several causes. The Fed kept interest rates too low, housing prices soared and about half of the people who bought houses in the past 10 years shouldn’t have done so. Now, despite the billions the government is squandering on remediation, home ownership will drift down from 65% to 50% to exclude the working poor and the unemployed.

Federal laws like The Community Reinvestment Act coupled with threats by HUD and ACORN to sue lenders for not accepting non-creditworthy borrowers prompted lenders to temporarily profit from this extortion. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac bought these bad mortgages, bundled them up and sold them off as securities to all kinds of investors. These investors believed the bogus AAA ratings on these securities. They all lived on Fantasy Island until the 2008 Meltdown. When the music stopped, there were no chairs to land on. Toxic security holders had no buyers for their securities and were left holding the bag. This caused a liquidity freeze and the largest financial institutions and insurance companies had lost $20 trillion. When housing prices started to fall, foreclosures followed and borrowers and shareholders lost another $30 trillion in equity.

We should have let these banks, investment houses and insurance companies fail and file for bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve could have stepped in to lend money at 5-7% to the most creditworthy borrowers. The gamblers who went in to bankruptcy would be out of business. Their depositors would have collected their FDIC insurance funds and deposited their funds in a surviving bank or credit union. Other assets, like credit card debt could have been assumed by other surviving lenders. Investors who bought toxic securities would have to sell them at a loss or hold them and deal with recovering the collateral. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac should have filed for bankruptcy and been liquidated.

The Aftershock Meltdown will be worse, will certainly result in even higher unemployment and could last for years (think 2nd Great Depression). The federal government bail-outs, stimulus plans and 30% higher federal budgets will trigger this Debt Meltdown. The federal government panic of 2008 and the multi-trillion dollar government spending spree of 2009 and 2010 has caused this debt bubble to worsen. It includes, $ 14 trillion in U.S. government debt, $80 trillion in U.S. government unfunded liabilities and $ 34 trillion in personal debt. Government debt can crash our economy, like Greece.

To make things worse, federal and state government operations cost structures are 50% too high. Pension plans for government employees, delivering a defined benefit equal to full salary for 20 years of service are unsustainable. These Pension plans can be terminated and replaced by defined contribution plans like the rest of us have. Government must be rolled back to abandon half of what it is attempting to take over and control.

The Aftershock debt crash can’t be far away. Greece is providing us with a preview. U.S. Federal government debt is nearing $14 trillion, the same as our annual GDP, just like Greece. This year the Federal Reserve had to buy U.S. Treasury Notes because we didn’t have enough buyers for these Notes, just like Greece. The inflation this will cause will rival the 1983, 13% mortgage interest rates we paid and the 10% return we got on our fixed income savings and retirement accounts. Government spending will necessarily be lowered to meet expected revenue. The burst of this bubble should end government deficits, bloated operating costs and end the increases we’ve seen in the National Debt. The U.S. Federal Government must cut its spending by $1 trillion per year, now.

With government budgets cut 30-50%, stated unemployment will expand to 15% (30% real unemployment) . The stock market will tank, again, on its own; it is its own bubble. The Aftershock is a multiple bubble burst, not a correction, there will be no upturn until the borrowed, printed, inflated dollars have worked their way through the system. Inflation will be 10% making our dollars worth 10% less every year. Having given away all of our manufacturing, the U.S. will have no economic engine to stop the decade after decade decline in U.S. economic activity. Illegal immigration will decline as government employee layoffs increase, but after Mexico crashes, it will surge, so we better have the border closed. U.S. GDP could stall and slide back to $10 trillion a year. The U.S. government should begin ads for us to buy U.S. Savings Bonds, like it did in World War II as the only way to find enough Treasury Note buyers to fund the National Debt. However, you shouldn’t expect any of us to buy these with less than a 7% annual return. The U.S. government is headed for a BBB rating.

In this environment, it’s unconscionable to consider anything that will increase costs. It’s not a good time to propose the Cap & Trade or Card Check scams or more subsidies for government employees, healthcare, education, foreign aid or anything else. It would be suicide to create a carbon tax that will double our energy bills every year for the next several years. It would be homicide to cripple any more organizations with union parasites. It would be treason to not close the Mexican border and allow illegal immigrants to stay.

Half of our tax dollars have been wasted for decades and now that we don’t have the money to fund that half; it’s time to cut all government budgets by 50%.

Make the Case for Republicans

Our overwhelming concern is the pending double-dip next Meltdown to deal with global government insolvency and currency debasement. We believe we are entering a protracted period where unemployment will rise to 30% and inflation and interest rates will reach 15% annually. We believe this will become the new normal and will persist for decades. It will ramp up like 1979 to 1983. Saying our grandchildren will pay for this debt is inaccurate. We will pay for it by 2016. Gee Whiz tax cut proposals will not be enough. We need serious 50% government spending reductions.

If we are successful and we regain control of the House and Senate this November, we will need an immediate aggressive effort to avert financial disaster. We need your foot on the throat of the Fed. 1000% inflation is not an option. We need to make our goals clear and radically conservative, or we will not succeed. We believe government spending, miss-the-mark legislation and the failure to enforce our immigration laws are at the heart of the problem. Ronald Reagan is right again, government is the problem.

Republicans failed to prevent the 2008 Meltdown. How did this happen ? How did Democrats continue to protect Fannie and Freddie prior to 2006, when Republicans held majorities ? How did the Bush Administration fall error to believing that poor families and individuals could and should purchase homes they could not afford ? How did Republicans not know that bad loans were being written ? Why is it that Ron Paul was the only Republican who got it right on excessive government spending ?

It is true that since 2008, Republicans in the House and Senate have opposed the myriad of bad Bail-Outs, useless Stimulus, bad Health Reform, bad Finance Reform, bad Tax Increases, and other schemes that have resulted in this 2nd Great Depression. Republicans continue to reject the global warming hoax, Cap & Trade, Card Check and Amnesty bills pushed by the Democrats.

Bail-Outs were not due to a legitimate liquidity problem, they were due to granting bad home loans. Instead of bail-outs, those large financial institutions should have been left to declared bankruptcy.

Republicans should remind voters that they have voted NO on all the bad, dangerous and disastrous bills the Democrats have proposed and passed, but first, voters need to hear the Republican port-mortem view of errors made and reasons for these errors. We need to know that not just Ron Paul, but all Republicans “get it”.
I have not heard much straight-talk explaining precisely what Republican Politicians believe occurred to produce the 2008 Meltdown and what needs to be done now.
Publish More Republican Bills

Health Reform Repeal and Replacement. We like Ron Paul’s bills. If all Republicans sign on to these and publicize it, we will win more seats in November 2010. If we pass these, we can avert disaster in 2014.

Financial Reform Repeal and Replacement. We need repeal and replace bills for this that is as clear as Ron Paul’s Health Reform plan. We need to close Fannie, Freddie, repeal the Community Reinvestment Act and kill HUD regulations
Cut Government Spending by 50%

1. We need Republican bills that would cut government spending immediately with a 20% reduction of all government budgets for 2010 and beyond.

2. Reset Projected Government Budgets to 2020. Set annual limits on government spending to not exceed actual projected tax revenue income. The projected U.S. government budgets must be limited to $2.6 trillion. Place limits on government spending to treat the National Debt like a home mortgage. Limit it to 28% of projected tax revenue income.

3. Set a target to cut the National Debt in half, from $14 trillion to $7 trillion and set aside $300 billion a year to pay principle. Reduce the Debt Ceiling each year.

4. Immigration Enforce current law. Close the border, tighten visas and deport all illegal aliens. Jobs now held by 16 million illegal aliens should go to unemployed U.S. citizens.

5. Manufacturing. Propose strategies to return manufacturing and product development to the U.S. Without it, we cannot grow our way out of this debacle.

6. Cap & Trade. We must overwhelmingly declare that the global warming theory is a hoax. We must clearly state our opposition to Cap & Trade as a money-making scam. We must promise to oppose it because implementing it will damage our economy. Further, we should declare that carbon is not a pollutant the EPA should try to regulate . Wind and solar need to be able to compete with nuclear and coal at 2 cents/kwh. before we force utilities to invest in it.

7. Audit the Fed. We believe the Fed has purchased that part of our debt we couldn’t sell to the Chinese. We also believe the Fed will debase the currency to pay for the Obama spending spree.

8. U.S. Credit Rating. We believe the U.S. credit rating is already BBB and the dollar is no longer a “safe haven”. We are all scrambling to protect ourselves from your debt default.

9. U.S. Federal Departments will need to be eliminated and consolidated and staffs cut along with their charter. The era of curious, meddling on the fringes and nosey government has ended. Regulations will need to be real and focused, not diffuse and meaningless like we have today. It is not governments’ role to monitor the law-abiding. Look at redoing all the regulations aimed at the real harmful stuff. There is no need for earmarks, funding meaningless academic projects, supporting the arts, foreign countries, unaccountable global groups or terrorists. Foreign aid must be reduced by 80%.