The time for rescuing our country is quickly closing. Our debt is climbing at a hundred thousand dollars every 3.5 seconds, the load is, as I write this, per citizen is $42,328. And its going up by a dollar every 40 minutes. Thats $36 a day every citizen is owing that much in their fair share of the national debt.

We dont have a Liberal President, he is an unabashed Socialist. He has openly acclaimed his distain for private business, and favors taxing the rich until they are rich no more. If you and your spouse are making $50,000+ each per year, guess what? Youre rich.

Our illustrious President is an integral part of the corrupt Chicago political machine, where union thugs are used to enforce the will of those in charge, namely President Obama. But you have to wonder, whos on the other end of his Blackberry? Obama fought hard to keep it, and as the most powerful man in the world, you dont need email, you have dozens of staffers doing mundane tasks as that. Unless you want to keep the man behind the curtain back there. President Obama is communicating with somebody, and it is likely outside of a .gov email address.

The expansion of Federal (and personal Presidential) power is growing by leaps and bounds, all be Executive order, or by union force. Obama has taken over personal control of the banking industry, the auto industry, and the health care industry. Unless he is stopped, he will have enforced massive and detailed governmental control over every large industry on American soil.

Remember these things when it comes Election Day. Everyone says Throw the bums out! except for their Congressman, hes okay. If he voted for the bailout(s) and the health care bill, hes not okay, he needs to go, and your vote, when applied to his opposing candidate, counts towards getting rid of him. Dont sit home and think everyone else will vote him out, YOU HAVE TO.

Remember what Conservatives stand for. Smaller government, Cutting Federal spending. Having a surplus, not deficit. Paying off, not expanding the debt. Lower taxes. Helping those who cannot help themselves. Giving a hand up, not a hand out to those who can help themselves.

These are not mutually exclusive things. Lower taxes means more economic growth, which results in more tax revenues, not less. With cutting spending, increased tax revenues mans we can start paying off our debt. Helping those who are disabled is Gods work, and is a necessary duty of government. It is understood there is times when a family or a citizen falls on hard times and cannot support themselves. This is when a hand up should be offered. Retraining, or other temporary help is dictated at this point. However, those who existing for years on food stamps or give birth to child after child to increase income from the government do not deserve this help.

For those of you who might think Im a hypocrite, Let me explain a few things. I became disabled in January 1999. And I remained on that disability until December 2008. That disability money went to my family because I could not support them. I was working, part time the first moment I could. I worked continuously from that point until I was able to be hired at a job that paid enough so that I could support myself and my family. Thats when my disability stopped. This is the definition of a hand up, not a hand out. I did not sit on my butt waiting for the Welfare check to come, I was out there humping it as best I could, every second I could.

Some people, due to their mental illness, developmental disability or physical disability will never be able to work. Those who will never be able to work deserve help. Those who can work, but who are illiterate because they chose to be by dropping out of school to join a gang, or have a baby, they need to live with the consequences of their actions.

As an additional disclosure, when I bought my home, I took part in that $8,000 first time home buyers program. This is another instance of a hand up, not hand out. I would have bought this home without that tax credit, but it enabled me to purchase better appliances, and hold on to more savings for those expenses that a homeowner inevitably has. I did not buy a home that I could not reasonably afford, on a note that Im paying off early. I have been a good steward of the money entrusted to me by the government.

Back to our original point. There are hands up, and there are hands out. Know the difference.

Cutting the budget back is going to hurt everybody. It will quite possibly cause a lot of chaos for a period of time. But when we, as a people, come out of that time realizing that we have been living on credit cards for too long, we will be a stronger country.

The first step is we have to get rid of the entitlement mentality. We have to restore a sense of the rugged individualism that this country was founded upon. Once we get on that road, we will be moving toward greatness again.

I have told my son multiple times, when faced with a decision, the hard choice is the right choice at least 99% of the time. We have taken the easy choice for far too long.

Cowboy up, America.

This has got me hot under the collar: Randy Haspel’s The Rant. Now, the Memphis Flyer routinely mocks Conservativeism, and I accept that. After all, freedom means other people will do things that you don’t like. And they certainly have the freedom to make fools of themselves. And they do, to anybody who can think for themselves.

This “article,” appropriately titled, attempts to make fun of The Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan. Like I said, anybody with a modicum of free thought can see that the author is way off in Left field.

President Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.” This was his response to the expansion of the government in prior years. The federal government has and had no business in “helping” individual citizens. Perhaps he was thinking of this James Madison quote:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” – Federalist Papers, No. 45, January 26, 1788

In other words, “promote the general walfare” does not mean “PROVIDE for the general welfare,” which is where Liberals interested in “helping” the poor hung their provberial hat on the Constitution. And after 50 years, trillions of dollars spent on social programs, transfer payments and so on, what has it really changed? Other than to create a perpetual underclass, barely surviving and totally dependent on the trickle of money coming out of Washington.

Don’t get me wrong, there are people who do need help, like those who are unable to provide for themselves. But those should not be confused with those who won’t provide for themselves. Or they made extremely stupid decisions, like getting pregnant at 16, or not finishing school. Those actions do not have the negative consequences that they should.

Back to The Rant. Reagans “trickle-down” economics worked. Just like when JFK did it. And Dubya. In all three cases, when tax rates were cut, there was a long sustained growth in the economy and taxes collected outstripped the forecasts. Too bad Congress, not the President, spends the money. So Reagan getting the blame for the enormous deficits are not his fault to a large degree.  There was an agreement between President Reagan and the Congress to cut tax rates and cut spending. Well, the taxes were cut, and when the Congress saw all of this extra money coming in, they broke the agreement and spent it all and then some. This is also when the Congress broke open the Social Security piggy bank and added the money from there into the general fund.

Then you have this quote:

Even Reagan’s “aw shucks” speeches were a construction to burnish his uber-patriot image. “The shining city on a hill” and “It’s morning in America” weren’t Reagan’s words. They were speechwriter Peggy Noonan’s.

Well, what President doesn’t have a speechwrter? Does Barack have the time to craft his own speeches? If he does, he’s not doing the job he was hired to do. The best presidents delegate authority to his staff and advisors. But while you delegate authority, you can never delegate responsibility. That was something I learned in the Navy. So again, President Reagan received the blame due to the actions of those who were under his responsibility, but acted on their own authority.

Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest presidents of not only the 20th Century, but in the history of this nation. He stood fast on his principles even when they were unpopular. I guess he did a pretty good job during his first term, after all, he got a 49 state landslide in 1984. (Extra credit, what state didn’t Reagan win?)

You can’t say that about any of the sleazeballs that the Democrats have offered up, or even elected since.

With the exception of a Jewish carpenter some 2,000 years ago, no one is perfect. To demand such a standard is unrealistic. I just hope whenever the President makes a bad call, he does his best to make it right and not sweep it under the rug in the name of “keeping his poll numbers up.”