President Barack Obama fondly uses the phrase, "Let me be perfectly clear. ..."
The president has made a few things crystal clear: (A) His campaign promises were broken shortly after the inauguration, (B) huge appropriations have barely budged the economy, and (C) the nation has plunged deeper into debt.
It defies all logic and common sense to repeat what has failed, but that is exactly what we are doing. Our government will borrow $3.7 trillion by 2011. The Wall Street Journal reports, "That is more than the entire accumulated national debt for the first 225 years of U.S. history."
Our Treasury Department puts our national debt at $13.2 trillion and predicts, under present policies, the debt in 2015 will be $19.6 trillion.
We need not await the December report of Obama's Debt and Deficit Commission - they already have spoken.
Co-chairman Erskine Bowles said at the National Governors Association, "We can't grow our way out of this. ... We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out. ... The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."
The commission said current budgetary trends are "a cancer that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns: "I think that our rising debt levels pose a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interests, and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable and it also sends a message of weakness internationally."
While campaigning, the president repeatedly stressed equality - that all citizens must be treated fairly with no discriminatory policies; everyone should be on a level playing field.
Yet on Jan. 20, 2009, just 10 days after the inauguration, Obama revoked President George W. Bush's executive order which required notice to employees of their rights not to join a union and not pay agency fees for nonrepresentational union expenditures.
Then Obama signed Executive Order 13502, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees.
The president has proposed spending $50 billion to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail and fix or rebuild 150 miles of runway.
About 85 percent of the construction workforce does not belong to a union. Obama needs to clarify whether those workers will have a chance to work on this stimulus program. Or are we winking at the non-discrimination policy?
Obama promised the elimination of wasteful spending. Feb. 24, 2009, Obama, before a joint session of Congress, said, "... we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right."
It is obvious we are failing "to get it right." We have jammed so much stimulus money at our problems that the government cannot keep track of it, making it nearly impossible to guard against waste and fraud.
Reports from Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney, Dan Gordon, head of the Office of Federal Procurement, and Inspector General Gregory Friedman, and Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser, give a horror story concerning how our tax money is being handled:
There are 25,000 overseers of grants and contracts awarded. Obama's 2011 budget includes $158 million to increase the contracting workforce.
Spending on contractors rose 144 percent from 2001 to 2008.
"We have contractors writing contracts for other contractors," Gordon said. "That's not acceptable."
Fewer than 8 percent of grants officers work in agencies with training programs in place.
The Transportation Security Administration needed another 15 people to spend $1 billion.
It's sad, but this is just a portion of the nation's problems. It is even more sad when an administration, the president and the Congress, fail to keep their promises, discard all partisanship, refuses to admit mistakes, and gives priority to politics over the needs of its citizens.
There are some matters the citizens would like to make perfectly clear to Obama: (1) The president and Congress are not the end-all as far as experience and knowledge are concerned (2) the president and Congress work for us - not vice versa, and (3) there are no federal laws prohibiting the firing of the president and Congress.
The president clearly enjoys being the commander-in-chief. Considering the invasion on our southern borders, it is clear Obama flagrantly is violating his oath of office. His primary duty is to protect the country. This isn't a debatable issue!
Leadership, not dictatorship, is what the country yearns for. We expect our government to listen to us regardless of political party or personality. We cherish our traditions of personal freedom, free enterprise, and control of our institutions. We are tired of government meddling unnecessarily in our lives.
Regarding these freedoms, the Declaration of Independence says "... whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new government. ..."
We can't make it any plainer than that!
