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“You didn’t build this”….
The Florida Patriot July 29th 2012
One of the factors that seems to control the polls are the political gaffe’s made by Romney and Obama, some more damaging than others.A more damaging gaffe that seems to be sticking to President Obama is the recent “You didn’t build this” in referring to small business owners. A small business (like The Florida Patriot and another I previously built and sold for a profit) I did build myself without government loans or involvement. Behind a small business is an inventor, a business person, a person willing to take a chance on being their own boss and staking their own money on a business venture. A person that feels that they can build a better mousetrap, website or widget and is willing to bet their own money, reputation, time, heart and soul on it. This is possibly the worst time for the worst statement our President has ever made. Right now, many small businesses are struggling to make it, having to layoff longtime employees, take less profits, and possibly fail and lose it all. Many, many, small businesses started their planning with husband and wife at their kitchen table and involved leaving full time jobs with the confidence and drive that by working smarter and harder than their competitors they could be their own boss.
The other side of this coin in the election that the middle class will decide (who will decided this election as they are the majority of voters) is Romney a smart businessman or Gordon Gecko? Romney’s time and leadership at Bain Capital can be looked at in many ways depending on who is examining it. Bain Capital was an extremely successful company and made Mitt Romney a very rich man. Will the voters look at Romney as a smart capitalist who succeeded in the business world or will the voters look at the closing of a steel mill for profit as a Gordon Gecko type move? Romney’s choice of words about the readiness of the Olympics in Great Britain in my humble opinion will not be a deciding factor. Romney’s comment that didn’t President Obama get it, we don’t need to hire more Teachers, Firefighters and Police Officers potentially appealed to a segment of Voters, however, I can tell you from knowing a great many of the above it potentially lost more than he gained. I have seen Governor Romney explain these comments as President Obama is trying to explain “You didn’t build this”. Vice President Biden is visiting the Firefighters and Teachers National Conventions, when the Romney campaign was asked about support for the National SAFER Grant extension (this has helped keep approximately 50 or more local firefighters in Lee County Fla alone on the job and their communities protected rather than be laid off) he had no comment.
In examining the words and actions of President Obama and Governor Romney over the past year, as well as the polling data that has been changing on a weekly basis this election will come down to the last vote counted on election night. When examining a candidate’s comments on a particular subject as a voter should we pick it apart word for word or take the whole message during a speech into account? How many debates will be held between Governor Romney and President Obama in the coming months and will these have an effect on the outcome of the election?
How will each candidate handle the National Debt question in the debates, with our country being 15 trillion dollars in debt and gaining millions daily it must be addressed. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire in January 2013 and will also be a hot button issue. How will the candidate’s address social security, national healthcare, medicare and national defense. One thing is for certain, this will not be a slam dunk for either Team Romney or Team Obama.
U.S. National Debt at 15 Trillion $$, time to stop passing it on.
March 18th 2012 The Florida Patriot
According to information straight from various federal government websites on the as of the time I started writing this article our national debt is $15,576,975,635,236.37 or $49,858.47 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Having children of my own it greatly distresses me that my generation and the generations before mine are passing on this huge debt for them to pay. The United States has approximately 312,423,836 people right now so even spreading that debt among all of these people it still adds up to more than most people’s mortgages. The Problem is bi-partisan in that the National Debt has increased by an average of 4.02 billion per day since Sept 28th 2007. Could this be part of the reason that President Obama, the U.S. Senate and especially the U.S. Congress have such low approval ratings lately?
Where does the money go? From searching the Federal Governments budget website I found out that U.S. citizens donated 581,080.40 to help reduce our debt, I wonder if Warren Buffet was one of the people who made a contribution as he talks about raising his taxes a lot. As of 3/15/2012 10.8 trillion of this debt is “The Debt Held by the Public” which includes individuals, corporations, state or local governments among others and the scariest part you hear so much about “Foreign Governments” own a great deal of our debt. How did the greatest country in the world get to the point where we are being loan sharked by foreign countries?
Some folks blame President Bush so I fact checked this with the federal treasury website and on January 22nd 2001 the national debt was 01/22/2001 5,728,195,796,181.57 and on January 20th 2009 at the end of his term it was 10,626,877,048,913.08. Some folks blame President Obama so I looked at the figures and on January 20th 2009 as referenced the debt was 10,626,877,048,913.08 and as of March 15th 2012 it was 15,564,809,891,767.99. The more startling fact is that on January 20th 1993 the national debt was 4,188,092,107,183.60. Where did we start to go so wrong and what were the catalysts to this growing tsunami? Way back in 1945 at the end of World War II the debt stood at 258,682,187,409.93 so it seems we have carried some debt for a very long time.
Let’s take a look at what we are spending our hard earned tax dollars on. Taking a look at the year 2011 we have Social Security at 780 billion, Medicare at 497 Billion, Defense at 928 billion, Education at 140 billion, Welfare at 471 billion (including unemployment, housing, Social exclusion n.e.c.) and to be fair 44.1 billion of defense spending is foreign aid. Now for the really bad news, we spent 250 billion on just the interest on this debt and are projected to spend 571 billion on interest in 2015 if we do not make some serious changes in our use of the government credit card.
So how do we fix this debt that we have gotten ourselves into? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending, do we cut Social Security and Medicare or all of the above. There is no easy fix to this problem and it will take many, many years to get out of this mess. The other questions raised are now that unemployment is finally going down and the stock market going up if we raise taxes and cut spending will we kill our gradual economic improvement? One of the main questions that seems simple is why are we giving out so much foreign aid when our country itself is in so much debt? Doesn’t charity start at home and why in the world would we be giving foreign aid to Pakistan still when they were hiding Osama Bin Laden? These staggering figures cannot be ignored as we have passed the buck for far too many years. As parents and grandparents the time to fix our deficit is finally upon us. It will take bi-partisan support and great leadership to do so, we as Americans must do our research on candidates, ignore the 30 second TV ads and Vote for great leaders in 2012.
Afghanistan, Is it time for the United States to leave?
March 16th 2012 The Florida Patriot
The War in Afghanistan started for the United States in October 2001 as the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom along with our allies. The primary motivation for the war in Afghanistan was the September 11th 2001 attacks which left thousands of Americans dead including 343 firefighters trying to rescue as many as they could from the burning World Trade Center. The goal was to dismantle the al-Queda terrorist organization that had been using Afghanistan as a base. The United States also planned to remove the Taliban from power and bring in a democratic state. A decade later we continue to battle a widespread Taliban that has expanded into Pakistan (who the US still gives Billions of dollars in foreign aid to even after finding out they were hiding Osama Bin Laden) and have even had attacks on US soil by those supportive of their efforts.
I remember cheering the day that American Forces attacked Afghanistan seeking out those that caused the 9/11 attacks and hoping that we would indeed kill Osama Bin Laden and stop terrorism in it’s tracks. Approval ratings among Americans for this attack was indeed very high as benefit after benefit was held for the victims of 9/11’s families. This article is not meant to question President Bush’s decision to invade and fight terrorism, it is meant to ask the question “Is it time for US to leave”? The Afghanistan War is now the second longest only the Vietnam War lasted longer. According to icasualties.org the US total in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war is now 1912 American Soldiers killed in action. Add to that the Billions of US tax dollars supporting a war that has taken so many lives.
On June 22, 2011, President Obama announced that 10,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011. An additional 23,000 troops will leave the country by the summer of 2012. After the withdrawal of 10,000 U.S. troops, 80,000 are left participating in the war . President Obama and Congress due to their inability to perform their jobs of balancing the budget and reducing the national deficit of 15 trillion dollars will be cutting defense spending by 450 billion dollars. Right now we are spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan, while our own bridges and infrastructure crumble. Under the current plan 80,000 troops will be left in Afghanistan, however, our United States/Mexico border goes unprotected with the amount of drug cartel murders in the United States rises. The serious question needs to be asked “Is it time for the United States to leave Afghanistan”?
The Florida Patriot salutes our active duty and retired military and hopes to see more corporations pledge to hire more of our returning veterans.
