Hoping for Change
Posted: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:25:19
The following was written by one of the best men I have ever had the privilege to know.
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Hoping for Change
by Michael Marks
I am sickened by politics these days, the entire process has become grotesque. When faced with casting my vote, I must tell you I will look not much farther than my own family and what has happened to us in the last four years. In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on a message of "Hope & Change." He had no plan to offer, just a big, bright promise. Here is what Obama's Hope & Change meant to me.
On Nov 3, 2008 I could buy a gallon of gasoline for $1.72 with some gas stations running a 99-cent promotional deal. After 4 years of Barack Obama that same gallon now costs $3.81 with prices as high as $4.48 in California. Filling the tank on my truck now eats the better part of a hundred bucks.
According to the US Department of Labor, in 2008 the average unemployment rate was 5.8%. Today the official unemployment rate of 8.1% is widely criticized as ignoring millions of additional people who simply gave up trying to find work. We've just lost count. Things are even worse for those just getting started, the official unemployment rate for young adults is 16.8%
According to the FDIC, in the 8 years from 1 January 2000 through the end of 2008, a total of 24 banks failed in the United States. In the four years of the Obama Administration, 461 banks have failed.
Since 2008, millions of Americans have lost their home to foreclosure; every 90 days that number grows by over 250,000. According to the Mortgage Banker's Association, 1 out of every 200 homes will be foreclosed upon. 6 in 10 Americans are delinquent on their mortgage. I know people who have lost their home, and others who see it coming.
When Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 he said that the $4 Trillion debt increase under 8 years of George W. Bush was "Un-American." I had to agree with that one, so you can imagine how I felt when in less than half the time Barack Obama increased that debt to over $16 Trillion dollars. He has out-spent every President back to Roosevelt combined. Now I must confess that trillions of dollars is hard to get my head around so let me tell you what it means to you. If you are one of an estimated 200 million taxpayers in the United States, your personal share of that debt is over $80,000 and growing. Your kids will get their own installment, and your grandkids. To put it another way, under President Obama's stewardship the national debt has grown by more than $4 billion per day, $170 million per hour, $2.8 million per minute and more than $47,000 per second.
In 2008 the US had an estimated 12 million illegal aliens living inside our borders. The current estimate is now over 20 million. That is more than the combined total population of New York city, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. The Obama Administration has uniformly sued or blocked any state attempt to enforce existing immigration law or any efforts to verify US citizenship in order to vote. Courts are terming this active obstruction of valid US law as unconstitutional. Following Obama's lead, California and New Mexico are actively pursuing legislation to give driver's licenses to known illegal aliens. This will invalidate the driver's license as valid proof of citizenship and force actual US citizens to obtain additional credentials.
In 2008 the average college tuition ran $6,600 a year. In 2012 that cost has risen to $21,400 for state college and $42,200 for private college. Following Obama's lead on immigration, schools such as the University of North Carolina are denying in-state tuition to veterans returning from service overseas citing the need to give that rate to illegal aliens.
Beginning in 2008, Barack Obama promised that his "Obamacare" law would cost less than one trillion dollars. As implementation moves forward, that cost has already expanded to over $2.6 Trillion dollars. At three times the advertised price and climbing, government officials are already acknowledging that additional taxes will have to be levied to cover the difference. In addition, bureaucrats administering Obamacare have drafted over 13,000 pages of new regulations that we and our doctors will have to sift through before we can receive care.
From 2003 to 2008, average 401K balances rose at a rate of 7.2% per year. Our savings were growing. Since that time the average 401K has lost over 30% of its total value and earnings are flat. As a result, financial giant AIG explained that for most Americans, retirement age which was at 66 in 2008 will rise to 70 and perhaps 80 as Americans are unable to save enough money to retire before that.
The Obama Administration has openly held discussions with the United Nations to allow the UN to impose taxes on US citizens in order to "redistribute our wealth" to Third World nations. For those unfamiliar with that term, it is a lawyer's word for stealing; taking money under threat of force. We earn it, they get it. It is that simple. Proposed mechanisms for this include additional taxes on all financial transactions, on tobacco products and airline fares, as well as a tax on internet usage that will hit every minute you spend online. At the same time, Barack Obama has cut offshore oil drilling permits by 62%, greatly increasing our dependence on Muslim oil-producing nations.
Prior to Barack Obama, a Secret Service team had never been yanked from a foreign country under the weight of a prostitution scandal. His Government Services Administration, a watchdog to protect the American public, made history blowing millions of taxpayer dollars on lavish Las Vegas parties. The Obama Administration is the first in history to have a seated Attorney General held in contempt by Congress. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has patently stonewalled a Congressional investigation into the Fast & Furious operation that put hundreds of automatic weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including school kids, as well as US law enforcement personnel. To date the White House has made every effort to look the other way as Holder continues to defy a direct order from Congress to explain what happened.
This pattern is consistent with Obama's default response to any difficult question. He retained lawyers to seal his records when asked about his birth certificate, social security number and his college records. This response seems an incomprehensible course of action if in fact he had valid answers. To date, nobody from the Obama administration has explained why he responds in this manner. The trend persists to this day; in a recent debate, Obama claimed to have stated that the Libya Embassy Massacre of 9-11 was an act of terrorism the morning after the attack. If we take that at face value, why did he, the Secretary of State and the US Ambassador to the UN say otherwise on public television for the next two weeks?
This election is not about fads or celebrity glitz, we can no longer afford the luxury of fashionable stupidity. Economists around the world warn that our country hangs on the edge of the same financial abyss that is devouring Greece and much of the EU; if the USA slides into that abyss it will drag our homes and futures with it. We are faced with a simple choice:
On one hand we have the guy with no real experience at anything outside politics who has pushed us into record-breaking debt and shown complete inability to estimate a cost or pick a working investment. Barack Obama has never launched a business; he did invest $535 million of taxpayer money into solar company Solyndra which promptly went bankrupt. He gave an additional $249 million to battery-maker A123 Systems, which also went bankrupt.
On the other hand we have Mitt Romney, a guy who helped launch many of the most successful businesses in the world, such as AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin' Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys "R" Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel. Nobody has ever challenged the fact that Mitt Romney has created untold thousands of jobs and built wealth at every turn.The worst allegation offered by the Obama camp is that Romney is smart enough to earn millions of dollars while paying very low taxes. I can tell you I wish I was that smart. Between the two, Romney is certainly the guy I want running things when my future is hanging by a thread. Let's get down to brass tacks, our personal fortunes are tied to the success of this nation - given the ugliest representations of both men put forth, I'd take a business shark empire-builder over an idealistic and untrustworthy socialist with an unblemished record of failure.
A sobering statistic caught my eye as I looked back at the last four years. According to the American Society for Suicide Prevention, the suicide rate at the end of 2008 stood at 11.8 percent. By 2012 that number had climbed to over 12.4 percent, a fifteen-year high. Apparently four years of Barack Obama brought lots of change, but left many of us with no hope at all.
On November 6th, put party aside and cast your vote for your future, for your family and home. Look at what the last for years has brought you -- or taken from you. Ask yourself if you can survive four more years on the same track.
I can tell you, this year I am hoping for change.
-----------------------------------------------
Hoping for Change
by Michael Marks
I am sickened by politics these days, the entire process has become grotesque. When faced with casting my vote, I must tell you I will look not much farther than my own family and what has happened to us in the last four years. In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on a message of "Hope & Change." He had no plan to offer, just a big, bright promise. Here is what Obama's Hope & Change meant to me.
On Nov 3, 2008 I could buy a gallon of gasoline for $1.72 with some gas stations running a 99-cent promotional deal. After 4 years of Barack Obama that same gallon now costs $3.81 with prices as high as $4.48 in California. Filling the tank on my truck now eats the better part of a hundred bucks.
According to the US Department of Labor, in 2008 the average unemployment rate was 5.8%. Today the official unemployment rate of 8.1% is widely criticized as ignoring millions of additional people who simply gave up trying to find work. We've just lost count. Things are even worse for those just getting started, the official unemployment rate for young adults is 16.8%
According to the FDIC, in the 8 years from 1 January 2000 through the end of 2008, a total of 24 banks failed in the United States. In the four years of the Obama Administration, 461 banks have failed.
Since 2008, millions of Americans have lost their home to foreclosure; every 90 days that number grows by over 250,000. According to the Mortgage Banker's Association, 1 out of every 200 homes will be foreclosed upon. 6 in 10 Americans are delinquent on their mortgage. I know people who have lost their home, and others who see it coming.
When Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 he said that the $4 Trillion debt increase under 8 years of George W. Bush was "Un-American." I had to agree with that one, so you can imagine how I felt when in less than half the time Barack Obama increased that debt to over $16 Trillion dollars. He has out-spent every President back to Roosevelt combined. Now I must confess that trillions of dollars is hard to get my head around so let me tell you what it means to you. If you are one of an estimated 200 million taxpayers in the United States, your personal share of that debt is over $80,000 and growing. Your kids will get their own installment, and your grandkids. To put it another way, under President Obama's stewardship the national debt has grown by more than $4 billion per day, $170 million per hour, $2.8 million per minute and more than $47,000 per second.
In 2008 the US had an estimated 12 million illegal aliens living inside our borders. The current estimate is now over 20 million. That is more than the combined total population of New York city, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. The Obama Administration has uniformly sued or blocked any state attempt to enforce existing immigration law or any efforts to verify US citizenship in order to vote. Courts are terming this active obstruction of valid US law as unconstitutional. Following Obama's lead, California and New Mexico are actively pursuing legislation to give driver's licenses to known illegal aliens. This will invalidate the driver's license as valid proof of citizenship and force actual US citizens to obtain additional credentials.
In 2008 the average college tuition ran $6,600 a year. In 2012 that cost has risen to $21,400 for state college and $42,200 for private college. Following Obama's lead on immigration, schools such as the University of North Carolina are denying in-state tuition to veterans returning from service overseas citing the need to give that rate to illegal aliens.
Beginning in 2008, Barack Obama promised that his "Obamacare" law would cost less than one trillion dollars. As implementation moves forward, that cost has already expanded to over $2.6 Trillion dollars. At three times the advertised price and climbing, government officials are already acknowledging that additional taxes will have to be levied to cover the difference. In addition, bureaucrats administering Obamacare have drafted over 13,000 pages of new regulations that we and our doctors will have to sift through before we can receive care.
From 2003 to 2008, average 401K balances rose at a rate of 7.2% per year. Our savings were growing. Since that time the average 401K has lost over 30% of its total value and earnings are flat. As a result, financial giant AIG explained that for most Americans, retirement age which was at 66 in 2008 will rise to 70 and perhaps 80 as Americans are unable to save enough money to retire before that.
The Obama Administration has openly held discussions with the United Nations to allow the UN to impose taxes on US citizens in order to "redistribute our wealth" to Third World nations. For those unfamiliar with that term, it is a lawyer's word for stealing; taking money under threat of force. We earn it, they get it. It is that simple. Proposed mechanisms for this include additional taxes on all financial transactions, on tobacco products and airline fares, as well as a tax on internet usage that will hit every minute you spend online. At the same time, Barack Obama has cut offshore oil drilling permits by 62%, greatly increasing our dependence on Muslim oil-producing nations.
Prior to Barack Obama, a Secret Service team had never been yanked from a foreign country under the weight of a prostitution scandal. His Government Services Administration, a watchdog to protect the American public, made history blowing millions of taxpayer dollars on lavish Las Vegas parties. The Obama Administration is the first in history to have a seated Attorney General held in contempt by Congress. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has patently stonewalled a Congressional investigation into the Fast & Furious operation that put hundreds of automatic weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including school kids, as well as US law enforcement personnel. To date the White House has made every effort to look the other way as Holder continues to defy a direct order from Congress to explain what happened.
This pattern is consistent with Obama's default response to any difficult question. He retained lawyers to seal his records when asked about his birth certificate, social security number and his college records. This response seems an incomprehensible course of action if in fact he had valid answers. To date, nobody from the Obama administration has explained why he responds in this manner. The trend persists to this day; in a recent debate, Obama claimed to have stated that the Libya Embassy Massacre of 9-11 was an act of terrorism the morning after the attack. If we take that at face value, why did he, the Secretary of State and the US Ambassador to the UN say otherwise on public television for the next two weeks?
This election is not about fads or celebrity glitz, we can no longer afford the luxury of fashionable stupidity. Economists around the world warn that our country hangs on the edge of the same financial abyss that is devouring Greece and much of the EU; if the USA slides into that abyss it will drag our homes and futures with it. We are faced with a simple choice:
On one hand we have the guy with no real experience at anything outside politics who has pushed us into record-breaking debt and shown complete inability to estimate a cost or pick a working investment. Barack Obama has never launched a business; he did invest $535 million of taxpayer money into solar company Solyndra which promptly went bankrupt. He gave an additional $249 million to battery-maker A123 Systems, which also went bankrupt.
On the other hand we have Mitt Romney, a guy who helped launch many of the most successful businesses in the world, such as AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin' Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys "R" Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel. Nobody has ever challenged the fact that Mitt Romney has created untold thousands of jobs and built wealth at every turn.The worst allegation offered by the Obama camp is that Romney is smart enough to earn millions of dollars while paying very low taxes. I can tell you I wish I was that smart. Between the two, Romney is certainly the guy I want running things when my future is hanging by a thread. Let's get down to brass tacks, our personal fortunes are tied to the success of this nation - given the ugliest representations of both men put forth, I'd take a business shark empire-builder over an idealistic and untrustworthy socialist with an unblemished record of failure.
A sobering statistic caught my eye as I looked back at the last four years. According to the American Society for Suicide Prevention, the suicide rate at the end of 2008 stood at 11.8 percent. By 2012 that number had climbed to over 12.4 percent, a fifteen-year high. Apparently four years of Barack Obama brought lots of change, but left many of us with no hope at all.
On November 6th, put party aside and cast your vote for your future, for your family and home. Look at what the last for years has brought you -- or taken from you. Ask yourself if you can survive four more years on the same track.
I can tell you, this year I am hoping for change.
