I thought it might be interesting to hear what our 3rd President might think about current events.  Here are just a few tidbits...

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson

“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” -Thomas Jefferson

“A government big enough to supply you with everything you need is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.... The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases.” -Thomas Jefferson

by Thomas Craig

The market is currently down almost 400 points.  Do you know why?  It's because of the clusterf*** on Capitol Hill.  Treasury Secretary Geithner is explaining his Plan about how they are forming a plan.  Its the Bank Plan about nothing!  Sen. Shelby (R-AL) seems to be the only one on the Senate Banking Committee who understands this.  Geithner is laying out an idea- an idea that the Banks need to be fixed.  How and when are not currently part of the plan.  This is unbelievable.  The market tanked today because the market has no clue what is going on.  Geithner wants to take troubled assets, sit on them like an egg, and then miraculously they are going to turn into gold.  Even if Geithners magic pixie dust does work, nobody in the private sector knows or understands what exactly is going on.  In the meantime, money is just going to keep being thrown at the problem.  The credit crisis and banking industry are in trouble and need help?  Well thank you Mr. Secretary.  America didn't realize that.  We do thank you for informing us that there is a plan to come up with a plan though.  It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

by: Thomas Craig

Please take a moment to read the excellent article in Newsweek entitled "We are all Socialists Now".  Here is the link We are all Socialists Now.

Unfortunetly, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.  What got us in this current position is the fact that over the last years, Republicans have been acting like Democrats.  We have been growing government, spending and borrowing at ridiculous levels, and turning our backs on our fiscal responsibility.  Sure we seem to be the watchdog now, but can you really protect the herd once the wolves are in the pen?  We invited this situation and now we are heading down a path which was truly feared by the Founding Fathers.  What puzzles me is that Liberals do NOT want government intervening when it comes to physically protecting our lives, yet they are happy to hand over their money, businesses, and economy as a whole to the government.  The truly sad part is that this Socialist Revolution is taking place as a result of Generational Warfare.  It seems pretty unfair being that one side of this conflict is currently wearing diapers.  Let's hope they are a very forgiving bunch.

The primary reason for this website is to encourage the strengthening of the Republican Party and to remind people what exactly a Republican is.  A Republican, at its core, is a person dedicated to government’s fiscal responsibility and individual freedom.  Republicans are for less government and less spending on waste.  We hold dear certain values such as the importance of family and the belief in hard work and a free market.  We could cast stones easily as to why we find ourselves in this current predicament.  We can blame George W Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, etc.  This only sidelines the true problem.  The problem is that we need to communicate to the People and remind them of who we are.  Click here for full article

by: Thomas Craig

So much for President Obama's bipartisan change.  In all fairness, he did show goodwill and met with the GOP to here there concerns.  I even think he honestly took into consideration many of the ideas on the Right.  Pelosi and the Democratic majority has undermined the President's gesture by practically shutting out the Republican input into this stimulus bill.  Republicans on the other hand have taken a huge gamble here by unanimously rejecting it.  They do have good cause to be skeptical though.  As we have seen with Hoover, Roosevelt, Japan, and our recent stimulus in 2008, this is historically bound to not work.  After all, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.  But hey, I'm truly hoping that we are wrong and this does work.  My Country still comes before my Party. 

The scary truth though, and nobody wants to admit it- especially in Washington, is that NOBODY knows if this will work or not.  We are going to spend over $1.1 TRILLION dollars on this (when interest is added in) and nobody can say if this will actually work.  It seems to me that with a gamble that large, they would have taken some extra time to truly go through this bill and take out anything that does not immediately create jobs.  If this fails, I won't be looking forward to explaing to my grandchildren why they must pay 80% of their income to taxes because we messed up big in my day and figured we should throw good money after bad.  As much as the Left is bashing the Conservative call for more tax cuts, it seems to make more sense to give money to the businesses which create and maintain jobs than to give it to someone who doesn't even pay income taxes.  I don't mean to sound harsh, but the person who makes so little he/she doesn't have to pay federal income tax would be much better helped by being given or keeping a job.  In order to do this, companies need to be able to afford to keep employees.  Of course, this here is one of the fundamental differences between the Left and the Right and the backwards thinking of the Democrats is what buys them votes.  They know as well as we do how jobs are created.  What happens if this stimulus fails?  I would say we won't have the money to spend on anything if that happens but hey, we don't have the money for this NOW!  That won't stop the Democrats from promising away the money of our future generations.

The President has quite a task ahead of him.  Today he is meeting with Republican's concerned about the stimulus price tag of almost $1 trillion.  The inclusion of pork spending plus not enough tax cuts has the GOP on edge.  Let's face it, this stimulus is going to go through whether we like it or not.  President Obama is willing to make some concessions and he has urged the Democratic majority to do so as well.  He has already convinced Pelosi to drop her contraception funding project.  I suppose she figures if she can't create new jobs, she can at least stop the creation of new people to later find jobs for.  The President is sitting on a very high approval rating right now and that will prove to be helpful.  His real burden, however, is to get Pelosi and Reid in line.  If this stimulus is filled with ridiculous pork spending, it will be a defeat to the President and a show that he cannot rein in his party leaders.  However, if he can rid the stimulus of these expenses, it will show Washington that the President is in the driving seat.  The President is in a strong position to accomplish this.  You can not misjudge the Democratic Party leaders ambition.  They have been making it quite clear that they will not simply fall in line behind the President.  This is the President's first challenge.  The GOP will be watching carefully as we must do.

In regards to the stimulus itself, President Obama needs to consider the consequences of his actions.  The American People have been quite generous with our money without even having a say.  Our Representatives are writing checks which our children and grandchildren will be paying for.  Of course something must be done and must be done soon.  When this stimulus passes, there will be an uptick in the economy.  If the uptick is sustained and proven to be successful, it will cement the President's legendary status in the minds of Americans and a grateful Nation will most likely reward him with a re-election in four years.  (Of course a lot could happen in four years).  There is, however, a possibility that the uptick will be just that, a temporary uptick, and the spending of nearly $1 TRILLION will not have saved the economy.  If the economy falls to be worse off than it currently is after spending the money, there will be political and I strongly believe social unrest.  I do not think it would be that far-fetched to see a small California town collectively not paying taxes in protest, led by their local government.  Such a move would get so much media attention that the idea would spread to other towns.  Nobody wishes to see this happen but it is understandable if it did.  It is OUR money at risk.  I personally wish Congress would listen to the numerous Economists who insist that the current system is too flawed to endlessly go on.  Perhaps the time is now to consider a Progressive Consumption Tax instead of the current system.  A PCT mixed with a free and transparent market would, in my belief, be the most succesful and truely capitalistic method to addressing our problems.  We will of course have to move forward with our current method of Socialism and unprecedented spending first.  I pray the President is successful because we cannot afford a second chance.  We've committed our future generations to enough.