Background: Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is being asked by President Obama to accept the Cabinet position of Commerce Secretary.

Great…Except that New Hampshire has a Democratic Governor, who would likely appoint a Democratic Senator, or at best a very weak RINO.

With the current balance in the Senate being 59-41 there is just enough to eek out a filibuster if needed to stop a run-away Democrat bill from passing - replace Senator Gregg with a Dem and that goes to 60-40, essentialy filibuster-proof.

We would be powerless to stop any Democratic legislation from passing…

and they’d know it.

YES WE CAN do something about it, sort of.

We can contact Senator Gregg and ask him to not accept the offer.

DMobile Political Filibuster, Obama, Senator

Many Americans, and nearly all conservatives, are growing weary of all the hype and publicity revolving around the Obama presidency and upcoming inauguration.  In a book store recently I, from the doorway, could see his picture on the cover of a book or Magazine eleven, yes eleven times without even fully walking into the store.  Even some that voted for him agree that the “Obama dinner plate collection” is a bit overboard.

While I’m well past annoyed by all the press & publicity, I can actually see a great potential for this celebrity status to be put to good use.

There’s a role that a US President plays that isn’t in the constitution, or in any piece of legislature, or probably even written anywhere – it’s the role of Leader.  By that I don’t just mean Commander-in-chief or Chief Executive Officer, I mean the intangible Leader.

Most of my US readers are somewhat fans of football so I’ll use a football analogy:  Parallel the US President with the quarterback.  Most of the QB’s responsibility is to call the right play, and execute his part of that play.   Same as the President, he has to have a good plan, and successfully execute his role in said plan.

The quarterback, like the US President, also have a very large intangible role that accounts for, I’d say nearly half, of his value to the team.  And that is the role of Inspirational leader.  The QB and POTUS have to not just call the best play for the situation, execute their role in the play, but also must inspire the team to believe in three things:  The play he just called, his ability to execute the play and, most importantly- themselves.

For example, let’s look at President Bush2 post 9/11.  While many people didn’t support (or even want to acknowledge) his presidency, you can’t deny that he gave everyone a feeling of comfort.  In troubled times, nearly everyone looks to the leader.  And he didn’t let us down (at least not right away). 

He gave us confidence in 1. the idea that America would retaliate and seek justice, 2.  His ability to get us there and 3.  our ability as Americans to come together and overcome tragedy.

And that brings us to the point of this article.  Soon-to-be President Obama may be a Marxist, a product of corrupt Illinois politics, a glutton for political celebrity, a manufactured by the DNC, or all or none.  But one thing he is for sure, is an inspirational leader.

In our current economic situation, not only do we need a good plan, and sound execution, but we need belief & confidence.  Much of the US condition is based on “consumer confidence”.  And while the real permanent solution is fiscal responsibility, we also need a big dose of individual belief, and here’s why Obama might be the guy to help:

From: “Obama can save us!”

According to a survey published last night, 71 per cent of Americans believe the economy will improve during the first year of the Obama presidency and 65 per cent said they think unemployment will drop.

Asked about cash-strapped Wall Street, 72 per cent said they thought the stock market would recover.

Some 63 per cent were confident that their personal financial situation would improve.

So he’s doing what he does best, in fact possibly the only thing he’s actually good at, inspiring people to believe.

HOWEVER:

(and this is a big however)

The problem with Obama’s inspiration?

1.

He’s inspiring people to believe in the government, and not in themselves.

Admittedly yes it’s good that they’re being inspired to something, we really need a leader who will inspire people to believe in themselves.  Since its individuals that actually make up America and her economy.

2.

He’s inspired much of America yes, but some of the most important facets of the Economy, the “rich” – business owners, producers, and job providers, are not onboard with his plan, and therefore still quite uninspired.

I’m thankful that the economy is still good for me and my family - for now.  As for the future, I sway bettwen somewhat concerned, and really concerned.  I guess we’ll see.

DMobile Economic, Policies, Political Economy, Obama, Obamamania

We’ve all heard about fair tax or “consumption” based tax as a tax vehicle preferred over our current income tax system, and there are great arguments both for and against such tax methods.

However, the concept of a consumption tax is being twisted and perverted into a “discouragement” tax. Take tobacco for example; politicians claim that taxing this harmful product is a way to discourage us from using it. (For the record, I haven’t used tobacco products since about age 23). They’ve made similar proposals for Alcohol and most recently, gasoline.

Here’s the problem with this type of tax: what if it works?

I’ll use some simple numbers to demonstrate. Say there are 100,000 people that smoke, and a tax is levied to discourage smoking.

Let’s suppose that this tax costs the smokers $100,000 per month, about 1$ per smoker, generating an additional $100K per month of tax revenue.

The government, now basking in the additional revenue creates a program, or hires some workers or initiates an improvement project, or something that costs $100K per month to sustain. No problem, the new tax revenues are paying for it

But what if it works? Let’s say that a small amount of these smokers, 10%, fed up with the extra $1 per month decide they’re going to quit smoking.

Well now we have only 90,000 smokers, paying $90,000 per month. Great, it’s working; we’re a healthier society with 10% fewer smokers.

But wait!

What about the new parks, teachers, roads or whatever else we were doing with that $100K per month?

You got it, budget shortfall = more taxes.

And that’s my point, be it tobacco, gasoline, alcohol, carbon or what-ever – the truth is that taxing something to make us use it less may work temporarily, but it can’t be sustained…because the government spends the money.

It creates the following situation: we’ll tax you to make you use it less, but the less you use the less money we get, but if you actually use more, we’d get more money….

Note: we feel that in general, a usage based tax in replacement of, not addition to, income tax could actually work. (But would NEVER be enacted)

DMobile Economic Government waste, Taxes

Welcome to the Bizarro Universe, also known as present day America.

Forget what you thought you knew, we already live in a world where high achievement is ridiculed and mediocrity is rewarded.

We live in a land where many think we can spend our way out of debt.

And don’t forget, in mortgage land we plan to reward the irresponsible as well.

Now finally, a renewed effort to punish the responsible In a letter to Michelle Malkin from one of her readers:

I want to share this story with you, and you may share it with your readers if you wish. I ask only that my name be left out.

5 years ago while we were in the middle of putting an addition on our home - the final step in our remodeling - my wife was forced to leave her job on long term disability due to very serious back issues. She had been having back problems - including two surgeries prior to this so when she began her job at a nearby university we purchased disability insurance. Even with the insurance, we lost 40% of her income. We went from things being a little tight but comfortably manageable to mortgaged over our heads instantly. For five years we have managed to bootstrap our way from month to month by drawing down savings to cover whatever we were short on the mortgage and putting any extra that came our way back into the savings account.

After four more surgeries and little relief it is quite clear that my wife will not be returning to work, and the savings well is nearly dry.

We recently contacted our mortgage lender, WAMU/JP Morgan and outlined the situation for them. Explaining that while we had never been even a minute late, in about five to six months we would likely be unable to make a payment. We weren’t looking to get out of our debt, but to hopefully restructure it to take some of the pressure off, and hopefully keep our home. We thought we were doing the right thing by being proactive. We thought they would be happy to work with us before we defaulted.

We thought wrong.

They took all of our financial information to review, but the person we were working with explained that they really didn’t have anything in place to help people like us.

Repeat: “they didn’t have anything in place to help people like us”  That’s right, nothing in place to help actual responsible people who want, and are willing to work, to do the right thing.

He recommended that we stop paying the loan because once we were in default it would be easier for them to work with us. I have to admit that I thought about the benefit of saving a couple of months worth of our mortgage. I thought about it for about ten seconds. Then I sat down and took another look at what we squeeze out of our budget. Just tightening the belt further would buy us a month or two. So I started taking on extra work on the side.

They actually told them to STOP PAYING THE LOAN because they could only help them if in default.

translation: “sorry but you currently qualify as a producer with some semblance of ambition and personal responsibility and therefore don’t qualify for our socialist program”

Seriously, how far have we come that we can’t/won’t help someone who is actually working but needs help, but we can help someone once they pass the fail threshold?  That’s the equivilent of not offering any preventative medicine saying “come back when you’re really sick and we can treat you”.

Read the author’s last line below:

I don’t know if we will be able to restructure our loan, but I [am] damn certain we will never miss a payment. You can count me proudly among the chumps.

 This is someone I would gladly help to pay their mortgage.

DMobile Economic, Values

Here’s my personal Top 3 list of groups that you’d expect them to vote conservative yet seem to vote predominantly liberal.  Now of course there are exceptions to all of these, and I didn’t exactly do a scientific study, it’s really just an observation, but enough of the disclaimer – onward:

3.  Punk Rockers.

What’s the whole message of Punk Rock anyway?  DIY!  We don’t need your F***ing help, we’ll do it ourselves.  Sounds like liberty and free market economics to me.  Know how many 70s punks are now business owners, executives, and well over the $65,000 per year mark? Lots.  I think the whole Punk=Liberal thing really stems from the “Moral Majority” attacks from the 80s & Nancy Regan etc.  However PMRC and music censorship efforts have almost always been driven from the left.  I would bet that most punks really are Libertarian, if they took the time to think about it.  Oh, and for a group that prides itself on not following the crowd or doing the popular thing – there sure were a lot of Obama votes there…

2.  Blacks.

Yup, I said it.  Now I know how historic the election of Barrack Obama was so I’ll leave that out.  Let’s just talk in general.  Most blacks are church goers and live by at least somewhat Christian standards, want equal treatment regardless of race, voted in droves against gay marriage, believe in a strong national defense and personal liberty.  Yet the numbers there are staggering in favor of liberal candidates.  I understand this is a result of blacks creating a common community to stand vs. early racism and I can certainly respect that but I think the Liberal politicians are now merely exploiting that by pretending to offer escape from racism and unequal treatment, while actually perpetuating it.  Isn’t it time to think as an individual?

1.  Jews.

This one baffles me the most.  One would think that after the holocaust Jews would be in strong support of the 2^nd amendment and the average Jewish family would want to own as many guns as possible.  Also, if Jews are so industrious and wealth-magnets like the stereotype would lead us to believe, wouldn’t that also land them on the free market, low income tax side of an election?  Still, year after year, somewhere around 85% of Jews vote democrat.  Why?  Best I can figure it’s because someone, somewhere, at sometime projected that extreme right wing = fascist.  Now I’m not sure how you connect the dots and get from free market, individual liberty and low taxes over to white supremacy, secret police and kill the Jews, but someone did, and apparently it keeps them voting democrat every year.

PS I generally don’t apologize so I wont.  I’m not trying to offend anyone with this post, in fact, I identify with two of these groups, can you guess which ones?

DMobile Patriotism, Values