HARRY REID STILL DOESN’T GET IT

Did you see “Meet the Press” on NBC this past Sunday? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was one of the guests. He was interviewed by David Gregory, the host of the show.

One of the questions had to do with the Tea Party. No, they were not talking about the little play party that the Obama girls had the other day. And no, they were not talking about the Colonists throwing barrels of tea in Boston Harbor several hundred years ago.

So, unless you have been living in Outer Mongolia for a couple years, you know that the Tea Party Movement had a profound political effect on the makeup of our Congress in our recent elections. It had a big part in making the Republicans the majority in the House of Representatives and getting closer to majority in the Senate.

Old Harry was shaking in his boots as he was in a very close election and barely won, as was the case with many incumbents. But many other incumbents went down to defeat. Many of these defeated Congress people were Democrats but some were Republican as well.

The question put to him was: do you think the Tea Party will be a lasting part of our politics in this country? Reid’s answer was that the Tea Party emerged because of the country’s economic problems. He went on to say that the Tea Party will no longer exist when the economy improves and that it is getting better every day.

Harry, you are not listening to the people. You are not paying attention to what just happened. Are you so senile that you can’t see what is going on?

This is the point. The Tea Party is neither Republican nor Democrat. It is American! This is the point that Harry Reid is missing. The people are tired of their Congress people not listening to them. They are angry that their Congress people do not have the same rules as they do. For example, they don’t have the same health care plans, they don’t have to abide by insider trading rules (nor does their staff), they get a full pension after working in Congress for only 4 years, they vote themselves raises when they want to, they take advantage of overseas travel for themselves, their spouses and their staff, etc.

This is why so many incumbents went down to defeat and why it will happen again in the next election. If the incumbents don’t get the message, then someone new will take their place. The people want to be heard and they want to be really represented by their Congress people.

It is not just an economic issue. The Tea Party will be here as long as our Congress people do not listen to their constituents!

This is the point Harry, do you now get it?

WHO CAN WE BLAME FOR THE OIL SPILL?

Yes, we have a major disaster going on the Gulf of Mexico, other wise known as the Gulf of Oil!
Yes, it is the result of an accident and or negligence or acts of ignorance.
Maybe it is the result of criminal activity in the form of willful ignorance of safety regulations.
Probably not is it the result of someone purposefully trying to cause an oil spill such as this.

However, our U.S. Attorney wants to prosecute someone or some entity for criminal and civil activity. In a press conference, U. S. Attorney Eric Holder said there is “a wide range of possible violations”. He also said authorities aren’t “clear on who should be ultimately be held liable”.

What? So we think that there might have been some criminal activity and we don’t know who did it but think someone might have?

So, the government is on a witch hunt to find the perpetrators! What do I think?

Well, one of the main things you do in business as a good leader is to solve the problem before you start assigning blame! Think about it. If you have a problem, you need to fix the problem and in order to that, you need everyone’s focus to be on fixing the problem not on trying to evade blame.

Sure there probably is some blame to go around. Might even be some non compliance with government regulations and even with BP’s self imposed rules. However, doesn’t it make more sense to get everyone focused on stopping the oil leak before diverting attention to assigning blame?

Yes, we know that the Obama administration is quick to hand out blame and not take responsibility for anything. I did hear Obama, in a speech, take responsibility for this disaster. Wow! Should Attorney Holder go after Obama? I don’t think that is going to happen.

Yes, let’s get this leak stopped. Let’s use all our resources to get this done. Then, we can find out who and what might have caused this disaster. That is what good leadership would do. We haven’t really had a good leader as President since Ronald Reagan, is my opinion.

What do you think?

STOP THE OVER-TAXING OF PROFITS!

Everywhere you look, there is talk of taxing profits! From Barack Obama, from Nancy Pelosi, from Barney Frank (two of the most farcical and stupid members of Congress), from most of the Democrats; all they can see with their greedy eyes is taxing and regulating their way to prosperity.

Are you kidding me? Did they ever take ANY economics courses in College? Did they ever look at the historical patterns of surpluses and deficits in this country?

With the exception of war years, we have had surpluses most of the Republican years and deficits during the Democratic years. We need to make an exception for the George W Bush years however. The cost of his wars in combination with the recession has resulted in huge deficits. Now these deficits are being grown by the Obama administration.

Everywhere you look you see more and more taxes proposed. Tax the banks because they are now making money. Tax the hedge funds. Tax the options industry. Tax the insurance industry. What the heck, let's raise taxes on those few people who still have jobs and make money by eliminating the Bush tax cuts!

Not only create more taxes, but let’s restrict bonuses! Bonuses make people work harder and figure out how to make even more money for their company; and themselves too! But hey, that is what capitalism is all about. We are not a socialist country yet although that is what the Democrats want us to be.

Let’s give everything to everybody and those that can make the most money can support those that don’t want to work so hard. This seems to be what the Democratic motto is.

What they are trying to do is stifle the creativity in business that results in more people being hired! What? I thought they wanted to hire more people? Only if they will support the rest of us.

Not exactly, what they want to do is to hire more people to make things. Well folks, I have news for you. Our competitive advantage in making things went away a long time ago due to The Labor Unions and due to lower labor costs in other countries. Our competitive advantage is in finance and business services and technology and innovation. If we stifle the ability of our companies to innovate and create and if we remove the financial incentives for them to do so, then we will die. As surely as other fallen societies in history, we will fall from dominance to being dominated.

What can we do? We can defeat every incumbent Congressperson who is running for re-election this fall. We need to get them all out and start over. Especially defeat any Democrats running for re-election. We need to get our country back to running on innovation, initiative and capitalism!

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

Did the see the results of the senatorial election in Massachusetts this past Tuesday? You would have to be on Mars not to know what happened.

Yes, the Republican won in this overwhelming Democratic state. With the heritage of Teddy Kennedy looking from on high, the Dems went down in flames. Somewhat like Teddy driving off a bridge with Mary Jo!

Was this a fluke? Was it a mistake? I don’t think so. It is the people saying that they are tired of the same old stuff; that they are tired of the “political machine” deciding what happens; that they are tired of the Democratic agenda!

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid and every other incumbent take heed. You are on the way out if you don’t listen to what the people are saying. They want more help on the economy, they want their country to quit spending money it doesn’t have, and they don’t want a new health care plan that will bankrupt the country! And they certainly don’t want more or higher taxes! Furthermore, they are wondering why you have such great retirement benefits including healthcare and the average American does not.

Are you listening? You better pay attention to the Mass. Election where a relative unknown Republican won against the Democratic machine. Just this past November Republicans won in Virginia and New Jersey. You better pay attention!

The people are speaking and you better listen!

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Okay, was this really a joke? Barack Obama is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, he really is. It is not a joke.

How can this be? He has been in office since February. What peace accomplishments has he done? What if he had done something in those 8 months? About the only thing that he could have done to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize would be to make peace between the Arabs and the Israelis.

And for sure he is trying but it has not happened.

And really, aren’t these prizes supposed to be for a lifetime of accomplishments? How can this be?

Mother Theresa, Anwar Sadat. Now they were really great examples of Peace Prize recipients. But their accomplishments happened over a number of years; not 8 months!

Now we know that he didn’t ask for this. He was nominated by someone and somehow they decided to give it to him based on the potential of him achieving something. If he had any guts, he would give it back or refuse to accept it. The awards have just been cheapened.

Maybe at some point he will deserve it; but not yet.

What is going to happen next?

DOES SOCIAL SECURITY HAVE RULES OR NOT?

Barack Obama is at it again. He just can’t keep his socialistic tendencies from taking over and making these grandiose pronouncements.

Just in case you have been in outer space, he is proposing to give
$250 to each of about 57 some million Social Security recipients. You can do the math but just in case your calculator is broken that is around 14.25 billion dollars! Not that we have the extra dollars running around somewhere.

The reason for this proposed generosity is that the cost of living formula for Social Security calls for no increase this year. The formula is based on inflation in the economy and there has not been any this year.

Thus, our President thinks he should do something about it. This is akin to someone running for President of their eighth grade class and saying that "if elected, I will eliminate homework!". Now we know that can't happen nor should it happen. There are rules for homework and rules for the cost of living increases in SS.

Are we all forgetting that last year the annual cost of living increase in the SS system was over 5%! How many of you out there got a 5% raise last year? Did all the people crying about no raise this year volunteer to give back some of their excessive 5% raise last year? Not on your life!

Let’s leave the system alone for now. Follow the rules on the annual Cost of Living formula.

Not that it doesn’t need to be fixed! It does but it doesn’t need to have the benefits increased; the system is going broke. We need to find a way to reduce the payouts not increase them!