Eye of the Storm – Churning to $17 Trillion in National Debt

US National Debt

America is churning ever so fast to a whopping $17 Trillion in national debt. Politicians in Washington aren't worried, their only concerning is how and when they vote on raising the debt-ceiling while selling it out of both sides of their mouths.

In bed with the DC establishment government is the Washington Post who claims “the national debt is no longer growing out of control.” If you believe that farce I have a nice bridge to sell you now residing in the Arizona desert.

Washington won't stop spending and your currently on the hook, as a legal American citizen for $53,308 and running.

As spending and taxes burdens go up your personal income will forever be going down. Want to move to a nicer neighborhood or maybe send your children to college? You're losing up to $11,000 per year.

Their are fewer jobs as wages are going down. Higher spending, debt cruising upwards higher and higher is stopping job creation, business expansion and opportunities for expanding current careers.

Want to borrow some money? New home, repairs on your existing home, new car or other important things you'd like to take care of? With interest rates rising affordability is fast becoming a thing of the past. Starting a new business or expanding a current enterprise is becoming very difficult.

A runaway national debt and more spending will not fix the US economy. Don't buy what the mainstream media is selling, particularly when it comes to the Obama regime, DC status-quo and the debt.

We don't have no stinkin' economic growth. Lower debt countries have better economies compared to the United States and its high-debt economy which as grown by less than one-third.

Someone has to eventually pay the US debt. You, as a citizen and taxpayer are nominated along with your future taxpayers now residing in your family.

What about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Actually these three things are the main drivers of the US debt. Although Congress keeps spending and the Obama regime want's more spending the establishment has done nothing to reform these debt drivers to make them affordable and sustainable over the very long-term

DC collected $2.4 Trillion in 2012 which equates to $20,000 per US household. Unfortunately, the government was busy spending $3.5 Trillion during the same period. Do the math!

Your children without a future. Don't you care what lies ahead as your kids grow older and will faced a life of less than they have now? Ask yourself, what future? Then write your Congressman and demand they do something or face defeat in the next election.

Politicians love the perks and power that go with their self-appointed "elite" status. These folks forget quickly how they got to Washington and what is expected of them. Only you, by voting, can make them relinquish power.

This isn't a temporary phenomena, it's a permanent cycle with a permanent outcome. When your life-style slides it's not coming back under current debt cycle conditions. High debt is an enormous drag on the economy and it pulls you down with it.

An unsustainable, growing national debt is dangerous to our national security, it's biggest threat. Barack Obama's former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said so.

“Growing federal debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis.” That statement came in 2012 from the Congressional Budget Office discussing the long-term budget outlook. It's not going away without real fiscal reform.

United States of America and it's responsibilities to the US Constitution thwarts the principles and foundation of our freedom and liberty.

United States debt limit explained below. A satirical short film taking a look at the national debt and how it applies to just one family. Watch this and please pass it on.

 

 

In reality, this is no laughing matter. Remember the debt! That $17 trillion problem! Some in Washington seem to think it’s gone away. It's not so as a concerned citizen you need to get active, get involved and stop this churning debt hurricane.

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Posted by Don Anastas - June 18, 2013 at 2:57 pm

Categories: Economics, National Security, Politics, Taxes, U.S. Constitution   Tags:

A White Male Immigrant – Becoming an American – Father’s Day Tribute

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PLEASE NOTE: This post was previously published concerning the nomination of Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) and also serves as a tribute to Fathers', especially mine who has been gone for many years but never gone from my heart.

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“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” ~ Sonia Sotomayor

Here are my comments as well as my Father's Day tribute:

Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Hussein Obama's Supreme Court nominee and now a Supreme Court Associate Justice, made the above comment in 2001 and then backtracked as if she could put those words back into her mouth.

I resent Sotomayor and the many others who use race, minority status and the poor me attitude to move forward in life without sweat equity. Life isn't fair and sometimes hard work doesn't end up as a successful endeavor or riches. Gaming the system isn't fair to anyone, it only creates an unbalanced playing field for all.

Some have attempted to treat the comments of Sotomayor as not racist, not bigoted, not harmful, not prejudice but simply a comment, a slip of the tongue, an analogy. Sotomayor's experience isn't unique to her or to white immigrant men or women only to herself.

In 1913 a white Macedonian male was born in Ohrid, Macedonia to a family of immense poverty. His infancy and very young years were in a war torn country where they had to hide out to survive and barely had food or personal possessions.

When this young boy reached the age of eight his parents managed to put him on a ship to America to join his two older brothers in Gary, Indiana, who left Ohrid a few years earlier and sent tickets to allow him passage. Imagine this young white male who could not speak English, had very little formal education crossing the Atlantic and going through immigration at Ellis Island. He must have had fear running through his veins but his intestinal fortitude helped him survive.

At age fourteen his brother's forced him to use his second oldest brothers birth certificate to get a job at United States Steel in Gary. It's hard to believe the employer's and supervisors didn't know. Gainfully employed inside this massive industrial complex the young man labored sweeping floors, cleaning out grease pits and doing whatever was demanded of him. He was eventually promoted working his way up the ladder to modest success.

This young man handed over each paycheck to his family helping one brother attend Purdue University to earn an Engineering degree and the other brother to start a dry cleaning and tailoring business.

The young man earned his high school diploma at night and learned to speak and write English at a school for immigrants. He was so proud to be American and so proud of his accomplishments.

In 1935 this young man married, helped bring two boys and one girl into the world. He continued to help his brothers and provide for his immediate family by working shift work in the mills.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 this young man immediately volunteered for the US Navy. He was told to go home, take care of his family and continue to help make steel for the ensuing war that America would engage in. He was told his contribution to any war effort was needed at home producing finished steel as much as fighting on the front or high seas.

As this young man worked, never missing a day, he compiled 36 years of service at United States Steel's Sheet and Tin Division in Gary. He enjoyed hunting, fishing and was a family legend for enacting huge family picnics each summer complete with fishing, swimming and boating.

Through hard work and tenacity this gentleman and his wife raised their family, now only two boys as the young daughter met with a tragic accident at age 4 in 1948. They had a tiny brick home, a medium sized boat, 1953 Mercury and a 1960 Ford Fairlane. Their life was modest but the sweat equity and dedication of that white male immigrant allowed for good food, decent clothing, a few vacations and a good environment to grow up in.

In 1964, just short of his 51st birthday the white male immigrant dropped dead on his modest, well manicured front lawn leaving his family devastated. This day was the first day of his 13-week vacation and fishing trip to Kentucky Lake. His three-year old grandson was visiting that afternoon and a granddaughter would be born in 3 months. Three more grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren would never know this wonderful, hard working self-made man's man.

This towering and massively built gentle giant left the world we know while his meek and wealthy older brothers lived into their nineties. Life isn't fair but the young immigrant made the most of his shortened life and made permanent positive marks on everyone that knew him.

Death sometimes brings about answers to questions people never bother to ask. The funeral of this middle aged white male immigrant brought forth hundreds of people leaving his family wondering how so many visibly grieving people knew this man. Who were they, where did they all come from? What mark or influence did this man leave on the people who lingered and cried profusely? Who sent the hundreds of flowers? Why did they stand for three hours to enter the funeral home to pay their respects? The family was perplexed and amazed at the immense outpouring of condolence. Inside the church one would think it was a holiday as the people filled the pews and balcony. It was standing room only. This was a hardworking steel worker, a simple person not a public figure well known to the masses.

It later became known that seven plaques honoring a steel rolling crew at United States Steel Sheet and Tin division were riveted in a place of honor near the production line with the white male immigrants name stamped in bold letters signifying how this leader set records in production that would never be equaled or surpassed. There was no formal presentation, no parade, nothing in the local newspapers, no fanfare.

In fact, one person familiar with the production facility said orders today aren't even as high as the production numbers on the plaques and if they did receive requests for those quantities they couldn't be met in time if at all nor would the quality come close.

From a terrified eight-year old boy who grew up surrounded by poverty and war to a foreign land of promise and the mills of a steel giant this young giant among men was a white male immigrant who never let his thick Macedonian accent stop him from the prejudice he faced or a middle class life for himself and his family.

Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Hussein Obama and others who want redistribution of wealth, affirmative action and resent the white American male, including immigrants, couldn't carry water for the white immigrant male in this story or others like him, who helped build the American industrial revolution and a way of life through sweat and hard work with no complaints and never asking for a shortcut.

This white male immigrant left a simple legacy that too few today understand or are willing to follow. His family was taught to get an education, work hard and don't ask for something but to go out and earn it. Live free and take personal advantage of the opportunities that exist in a free and law abiding nation where people take pride in individualism.

This man was unique to me only as my father (pictured at age 21) not as a white male immigrant. The United States of America is full of them, all unique in their own way.

My father, born in Macedonia, self-made in America with no entitlements and no free lunch, only free to choose. Indeed!

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Posted by Don Anastas - June 16, 2013 at 12:05 am

Categories: Historical, Immigration, Law & Justice, Politics, SCOTUS, U.S. Constitution   Tags: , , ,

Farming for Food Stamps

Farm Bill Food Stamps

Your US Senate has already passed a farm bill with quite a few Republicans on board. Now Speaker of the House John Boehner says he's all in too.

There is a problem with a bill related to farming that is 80-percent for food stamps.

Senator Thad Cochran (R–MS), ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, recently told the North American Agricultural Journalists group that food stamps should continue to be included in the farm bill “purely from a political perspective. It helps get the farm bill passed.”

This is how Congress operates, they use earmarks and amendments to fill legislation with pork in agreement to vote for this nonsense.

Since Barack Obama has entered the White House food stamp usage has doubled. Why you ask?

The welfare reform of 1996 requires that after three months on food stamps, recipients be engaged in some kind of work activity for at least 20 hours a week. Tucked away in the mammoth 2009 so-called “stimulus” spending bill was the suspension of this requirement for able-bodied adults with no children.

Yes, "tucked away" quietly until the numbers appear and the bloat overflows. As the US gets closer to 50 million people on food stamps with no requirement to seek employment the national debt is steaming towards $17 Trillion.

In addition, this so-called farm bill taxes Christmas trees. This "food stamp bill" has become a catch all for anything the political class wishes to load it with for a vote. Have a look at 20 items tucked neatly away in this alleged farm bill:

  1. Income limitation for commodity and conservation programs. Allows the wealthy (annual adjusted gross income up to $950,000) to collect agriculture subsidies. So much for “family farmers.”
  2. Demonstration projects on Acceptance of Benefits of Mobile Transactions. Enables needy food stamp recipients to use their iPhones to make grocery purchases.
  3. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) pilot program for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Expands food stamp benefits among the 58,000 inhabitants of 15 islands in the western Pacific Ocean.
  4. Rural Business Investment Program. Provides $20 million annually to create government-subsidized businesses in places evidently inhospitable to private business investment.
  5. Policy research centers. Authorizes $5 million annually for grants to politically favored think tanks to do the same type of work as the Congressional Research Service and the Office of Management and Budget.
  6. Special import quota for upland cotton. Imposes a trade restriction to ensure that American consumers pay more for the fabric of our lives.
  7. Natural Stone Research and Promotion Board. Creates a quasi-government entity to spend the revenue generated by a new tax on rocks.
  8. Farmers’ Market and Local Food Promotion Program. Provides $40 million annually to redecorate farmers’ market stalls and roadside stands in a manner befitting their yuppie customers.
  9. SNAP Nutrition Education Program. Budgets a whopping $375 million for 2015 to teach food stamp recipients that candy, soda, and chips do not constitute a well-rounded diet.
  10. Weather radio transmitters. Authorizes $1 million annually for radio equipment that falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Commerce (National Weather Service), not the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
  11. Agriculture research and development (also known as the “No Commodity Left Behind” provision). Designates research priorities to be specialty crops, sorghum, peanuts, and sugarcane. But what about heirloom tomatoes and organic pineapple?
  12. National Sheep Industry Improvement Center. Subsidizes modern shepherds and herders who evidently need government assistance to market their sheep and goats.
  13. National Clean Plant Network. A lot of green—$137.5 million—to promote the use of healthy plants (as opposed to farmers using diseased and pest-ridden ones).
  14. Honey Report. Requires the Department of Agriculture to consider a federal standard that would inevitably make honey more expensive.
  15. Olive oil import control. Imposes import controls on olive oil (to drive up prices).
  16. Rural Energy for America Program. Provides subsidies to farmers and rural businesses for “renewable” energy systems so they, too, can have costly and inefficient energy.
  17. Community Wood Energy Program. Grants to state and local governments to return their communities to the good ol’ days of burning trees for heat.
  18. Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program. Provides grants to communities and Indian tribes to establish local forests (since there would be none without the federal government).
  19. Christmas tree tax. Allows the government to collect a new tax on Christmas trees for promotion (because otherwise we might forget to buy one for December 25).
  20. Price-loss coverage for peanuts. Guarantees the incomes of peanut farmers, because they have a very strong lobby in Washington, D.C.

Call your Congressman and ask why. I'm sure whoever answers the phone will be glad to provide you with an answer. Not what you would expect, but nonetheless, an answer.

Source: Heritage Foundation

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Posted by Don Anastas - June 13, 2013 at 12:10 pm

Categories: Business, Economics, Politics, Taxes   Tags: ,

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