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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
US Failure to Enforce Immigration Laws
The new Arizona law concerning enforcement of immigration laws is creating controversy across the country.
What is clear is the US Federal Government has failed to meet its obligations to control the US/Mexican border. US Government
under Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton has failed to enforce our nation's laws. This has been and is today unacceptable.
If the Federal government doesn't like the current law it should be changed. I personally believe that the current law
is fine and we need to enforce the laws in a fair and reasonable manner. This is not a hard task to execute for the
USG. I also believe there are good solutions to immigration reforms that are fair to all concerned. This is not
a hard problem to solve. But there must be resolve by our leaders to solve it.
The Arizona state government
must protect its citizens and their property. The new Arizona law appears to be a very reasonable approach to addressing
the problem. Many in the mainstream media have misrepresented the law to the public. There is very little reporting
today in the media. Almost every story is put in the spin machine to reflect someone's political views.
This
is another reason why the current members of the House and Senate and the Executive Branch must be changed
out as soon as possible through our voting process. Our leaders continue to fail in their leadership role. We
need a lot of new people to serve that can address real problems with real solutions.
One can almost feel
the contempt many people across the country feel for Washington and the political establishment. The contempt is well
deserved from my perspective. One can almost feel our nation coming apart as more and more people come to realize that
our government no longer functions in a manner that is responsive to the majority of its citizens.
TPM
10:37 pm
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Financial Reform
It appears that the Senate Democrats and Republicans will negotiate a compromise financial reform bill that
most of the US Senate can support. This is a good sign. After the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and the 2008
market meltdown we clearly need some level of financial reform. However, the big disappointment was the SEC's failure
to perform its mission under the existing laws. A lot of employees at the SEC need to be replaced, if that hasn't already
happened, so new blood can be brought in to attack the big problems that must be addressed from time to time.
The SEC is now taking on Goldman Sachs and we will see if Goldman Sachs violated any laws or was only involved in a
big legal trade that bet against the US housing market. We know that several Wall Street traders made a lot of
money betting against the US housing market a couple of years ago. I salute the traders for having the guts to
make the big play when it was obvious that the price of housing in many sections of the country didn't make sense and that
mortagages were being taken out by individuals that they could never pay back.
I hope that the Financial Reform
Bill calls for the phase out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These are two government supported companies that were major
contributors to the financial meltdown. It would also help to eliminate FHA supported mortgages. We need to eliminate
all government home mortgage programs that have extremely low equity requirements. If the private financial market
wants to make low equity loans they can do so, but they must also take the loan risk.
The US government and the
Federal Reserve have created a casino environment in all financial markets and the environment is not going to stabilize in
the near future. We will see how the Financial Reform Bill ends up this summer.
TPM
1:59 pm
Thursday, April 8, 2010
States vs Obamacare
Every day the number of states joining the lawsuit against Obamacare increases. The states have figured
out that Obamacare will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in additional Medicaid costs. The states don't
have enough income to support their existing programs and obligations much less the additional costs that Obamacare requires.
Obama and the Democrats misrepresented the total cost of the health care reform bill to the citizens of the US. The
states are now in the process of calculating their cost impact and it is very bad news. Elected state official don't
want to ask their voters for a tax increase to pay for the state portion of Obamacare.
The lawsuit is just getting
started. We should expect this battle to go to the Supreme Court at some point. This is a classic states rights
issue. Many people believe that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional authority with Obamacare.
I hope they are right.
The Democrats are spending money that the USA simply doesn't have. The rumors
of a Democrat sponsored Value Added Tax (VAT) to pay for their increasing expenditures are all over the media. The
Democrats appear to have an unlimited appetite for taxpayers' money. The US must gets its financial act together.
Federal government expenditures continue to be out of control.
Hopefully, the states can stop Obamacare and the
voters will eliminate the Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate in November. We need the Democrat controlled
Congress to end as quickly as possible.
TPM
12:45 am
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