The Best Offense is a Great...Opposition?

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Mike Tate needs to keep talking to help further advance the prospects of Scott Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. Here are bits of Tate’s brilliance over the past several days since the recent TEA party at Milwaukee’s Lakefront, presented in three movements:

I. Attack Attendees

"These are extremist elements pulling together, distinct vocal minorities
that frankly don't believe in this country," Tate said. "They don't want to see
more people have access to quality affordable health care; they don't want clean
air and water. They fundamentally don't understand how the American government,
economy and capitalism work." (Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

II. Attack Scott Walker (emphasis mine)

Scott Walker joined right-wing extremists in
Milwaukee on Saturday to participate in a hateful, fear-based
rally aimed at preventing progress for Wisconsin families. Walker was
joined by right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin and known tax cheat Joe
“The Plumber” Wurzelbacher at the rally, which was sponsored by corporate-backed Americans for Prosperity.

“Scott Walker’s open association with radical,
right-wing extremists further demonstrates the divisiveness of his
politics,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate. “While Democrats
in Wisconsin and across the country have debated important issues in a civil
manner, Walker and others on the right have attempted to turn the debate into a
shouting match.”

Although organizers claimed the protest was peaceful, one man
was injured and taken to the hospital [Editor's note: the man was injured
and taken into custody after attempting to assault an officer]. Other
protestors used scare tactics, name-calling and false claims of socialism to get
their point across. “Wisconsin has a history of open and honest debate,” said
Tate. “The fact that Scott Walker would endorse this behavior should be a clear
sign to voters across Wisconsin that Walker is too extreme to represent
them.”

III. Beg For Money

Fellow Democrats,

Over the weekend I was asked to comment on the self described
“tea baggers” who held an angry mob gathering in Milwaukee.

Here is what I said: "These are extremist elements
pulling together, distinct vocal minorities that frankly don't believe in this
country. They don't want to see more people have access to quality affordable
health care; they don't want clean air and water. They fundamentally don't
understand how the American government, economy and capitalism work."

I meant what I said, and I'm not afraid to say it
again.

Just because you throw the biggest temper tantrum doesn't mean
you can silence the majority of Americans who want fundamental change in this
country.

History is riddled with examples of vocal fringe groups that
have risen to oppose progress and success. From the red-baiting McCartyhyites to
the Know-Nothings and the KKK, we have seen this story unfold many times in the
past. Fueled by ignorance, racism and intolerance, these groups have done
everything in their power to obstruct progress – often resorting to intimidation
and violence.

We will not be intimidated, and we won't back
down.

This moment is too important. The American people voted for
change in November, and our President is fighting to implement that change. We
will not sit idly by while these extremists pretend to be mainstream Americans.
Their views couldn't be any more out of touch with average, working
people.

One sign at the protest in Milwaukee over the weekend
read “Obama, Osama: Both bombed the American people,” while
right-wing, anti-worker pundit Michelle Malkin told those gathered “I've never
been so proud in my lifetime to be part of this angry mob.”

What do Wisconsin Republicans think of this extremist
rhetoric? As Republican candidate for Governor Scott Walker said over the
weekend, “I'm with them.”

I have a message for Scott Walker and his extremist
allies: You will find out soon enough that Wisconsin is not with
you.

You and I know that hate speech and misinformation isn't what
Wisconsin families need, and it's not what America needs.

We need fundamental change in this country. And with your help
the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will continue to fight back against this
right-wing extremism.

Your gift of $5, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you can afford
will help us cut through the incendiary rhetoric and move Wisconsin
forward.

Together, we can rise above the scare tactics, temper
tantrums, name-calling, and false claims to bring about the change we
need.

Sincerely,

Mike Tate

Chair, Democratic Party of Wisconsin

……….

Please keep talking, Mike. Please? The best part is the sophomoric use of “tea baggers” as if he is not giggling like a middle-school aged boy. Then again, he is 30, and in Democrat years, that’s about the equivalent.

Paying for our own Healthcare?

John Stossel (who works for ABC, of all places) put together one of the best segments on the current debate over healthcare and insurance coverage:





Stossel raises a few interesting points:

1) If an insurance carrier covers more things, then people will not really care what those services cost (why would anyone care if one place charged $50 more for a flu shot if he or she is not paying for it anyway?). This then reduces the competitive market and the buying power of the individual.

2) It is impossible to cover more people for more services for less money.

3) Insurance is a safety umbrella to protect against the staggering costs of medical emergencies.

The first two points are the two absolute daggers in idea of a public option that covers everyone will be less expensive to Americans. The phantom number of uninsured people thrown around by the powers that be used to be 46 or 47 million people (now it is 30 or 31 million, depending on the source). How can all of these people be added to insurance coverage that has reduced co-pays, reduced deductibles, and additional services that would be covered?

The average person can likely estimate with pretty good accuracy what college tuition would cost. This is true also for a car or smaller things like a TV or a kitchen appliance. Who outside of an insurance agent or actuary would be able to accurately predict what a physical would cost (both on the low end and on the high end)?

Insurance companies already cover too much which artificially raises insurance premiums. As an aside, I previously had a prescription for taking medication for my persistent heartburn. The medication I was taking, omeprazole, is available over-the-counter, but my insurance was covering all but $5 of the cost. My prescription gave me a course of 30 tablets of 20 mg of the treatment. The final time I was going to pick up my prescription, I found that since my insurance had changed, I would have to cover it out-of-pocket. The pharmacist calculated the cost minus the insurance coverage I previously had and it came to about $75 for the one month course.

My jaw just about dropped. I excused myself from the counter and picked up a box of the same omeprazole (also known as Prilosec), which also has 20 mg of the active drug per tablet. It, at the time, ran for about $35 for 42 days of treatment. I asked the pharmacist if there was any difference between the omeprazole in the bottle that she had on the counter and the omeprazole I had in the box of Prilosec tablets. She told me there was no difference. I asked her why my previous insurer was paying for such a high markup. She shrugged and said that she honestly had no idea. I thanked her for her information and said I would be using the over-the-counter option. I can now get 42 tablets of the same treatment for just over $20.

I remember walking out of the pharmacy that day wondering why the insurance I had covered something that was that unnecessarily expensive. I viewed and still view it as a microcosm for the problems relating to healthcare.

Changes in healthcare and insurance coverage do need to occur, but the current plan is only going to make things worse and more expensive because it is only expanding the existing flaws in healthcare and insurance.

Gee, What Could go Wrong Here?

The United States is facing a potential overhaul of the health care system that would take a step toward a single-payer system that many in Congress have supported in the past (as has President Obama, by the way). To ignore that a single-payer system is not the goal is to ignore virtually every signal given by Democratic leadership concerning health care in the past.

This bill is to be written by a committee that has Charlie Rangel (who suggested to an inquisitive visitor to D.C.: “Why don’t you mind your own G**d***ed business?” when questioned about his tax problems) as its chair, signed into law by a president who smokes, bankrolled by an IRS headed by a tax cheat (Timothy Geithner), and enforced by an administration that has this to its credit in staffing:

1) Timothy Geithner: Secretary of the Treasury - Failed to pay about $40,000 in payroll taxes…oh Timothy!
2) Bill Richardson: Secretary of Commerce Nominee - Evidence of pay-to-play politics…doh!
3) Hillary Clinton: Secretary of State - Husband’s foundation has received donations from a wide variety of international sources…oopsie
4) Tom Daschle: Secretary of Health and Human Services Nominee - Failed to disclose more than $300,000 in income in addition to a car and driver for three years…aw, shucks, Tom!
5) Kathleen Sibelius: Secretary of Health and Human Services - A list of “unintentional errors” led to a tally of nearly $7,000 being owed in back taxes over a space of three years…whoops!
6) Hilda Solis: Secretary of Labor Nominee - Nearly $6,400 tax lien for failure of husband paying for taxes relating to his business…doh!
7) Nancy Killefer: Chief Performance Officer Nominee - Nearly $950 tax lien for failure to pay property taxes from back in 2005…doh!

What could go wrong with this? If Cash for Clunkers is any indication, then the estimates of this plan may have to be tripled and the staffing may have to be tripled in order to accommodate this new program.

No problems here, though. No reason to debate it, just pass it and worry about it later!

Ha-Ha

Apparently Joe Wilson has raised over $1 million for a seat in the House of Representatives that has not elected a Democrat since 1964, when the Democrats steamrolled that election cycle in a similar way to the mid-term election of 2006 and the most recent 2008 election. Wilson’s biggest challenge was the aforementioned 2008 election, where he defeated Democrat Rob Miller 54% to 46%. While Rob Miller may have raised more money to date (he broke $1 million this past Friday), it has not been the insurmountable slew of contributions that some would like to believe.

Wilson eclipsed $1 million in contributions as of Saturday. A source in his campaign revealed that Wilson had received $1,005,021 from 18,859 contributions. He has also toughened his stance among rising criticisms of his actions. While he does not condone his outburst during the President’s speech, he has already apologized for his breach of Congressional decorum and has stated he will not apologize to Pelosi or to Congress (even as they threaten with a censure).

Further reading:

Rep. Joe Wilson won't apologize again. No way, no how.
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/19923

Source: Wilson breaks $1 million
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Wilson_campaign_Fundraising_breaks_1_million_passes_Miller.html

Remembering 9/11: Personal Reflections

I must beg your pardon for a little personal reflection. I was a high school senior when the 9/11 attacks took place. I was on the cross country team and since all athletic practices were cancelled; my teammate and best friend in high school went for a run at his place on our own. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense. It was something normal on an extremely abnormal day. It was a beautiful day outside as well. I made my trip home from his place listening to the various stations that were tracking some of the events of the day and what President Bush’s location was. As I got close to home, President Bush was just getting back to Washington and according to the commentator (I’ve long since forgotten who it was), he looked not morose or depressed, but determined and serious. I felt better knowing that he was back in Washington because I knew he could help. I didn’t have any true political bearings at that age, but I knew that President Bush would protect us.

My parents were both very upset and shaken as well when I got home. I was hearing grisly details of the attacks’ aftermath bit by bit and I was amazed at the difference between the relative tranquility of where I was compared with the hell occurring in New York City and at the Pentagon. I had been watching from the comfort of my classroom when the second tower (the first one struck) fell. It was a sick feeling watching hundreds of people die like that and I, in my second hour Chaucer class, cried with my head in my hands.

Getting home that quiet night, I had the people of Washington and New York City in my thoughts and many fervent prayers (along with countless other Americans and others around the world). I did not know anyone that died in the attacks and did not have any relatives or friends living in New York City or Washington. But as I went to bed I thought of the night setting in on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ashes, mortar, steel, bricks, flying papers, and burning fuselage dominated their night while I heard crickets outside my bedroom window. It was only 24 hours ago that the buildings still stood and the now deceased were sleeping in preparation for going to work that Tuesday morning.

I thought of the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, and the emergency responders in Washington. Most of the responders had never met any of the victims and were working well past their normal hours. They kept going because Americans could still be saved. I felt incredibly weak and helpless in my bed that night. I still do today from time to time.

Tonight I remember how awful that night must have been in New York City and in Washington. I was and still am incredibly thankful for the police, firefighters, and emergency responders. Be thankful that they are in your respective communities. They are protecting us every day and night. I felt a little safer that night knowing that. This along with knowing that President Bush would do everything in his power to protect us helped me and many Americans sleep that night.

September 11, 2009: Time heals all Wounds

Gallons of ink no doubt have been dedicated to the attacks on September 11, 2001. That attack eight years ago marked one of the darkest days in American history along with December 7, 1941. However, that day also marked one of the brightest days in American history in that people were, quite simply, Americans. American flags were everywhere. The national anthem, God Bless America, and many other patriotic musical settings were played, sung, and performed by people of all colors, creeds, sexual orientations, occupations, etc. in the days following the attacks.

Americans felt vulnerable and very scared. It was a sickening day where the disturbing visuals were on television all day and tears were shed by millions of Americans, this writer included. Airports were closed, sporting events, concerts, and even outdoor sports practices were cancelled. AM radio was not the only place to find in-depth news coverage on the radio. Most of the FM stations also went to affiliates that were covering the developments. When Americans were frightened, they turned to their leaders. Two men rose to this occasion and did not blink when staring directly into the eyes of those that hated them and wanted the death of even more Americans. These men were Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush.

In the face of these attacks, Mayor Giuliani could have been panicked and disorganized in what was an unprecedented event for New York City. Instead, he assisted the Fire Department of New York and the New York Police Department in some of the most daring and valiant rescues in American history. Giuliani took action and worked the problem.

George W. Bush was reading to a group of schoolchildren when the attacks occurred. He finished reading to them before being briefed on exactly what was occurring and then issued a brief statement before leaving Florida on Air Force One. All of America looked to the White House in one of America’s darkest hours. President Bush also did not blink. He did not panic. He denounced the attackers as cowards and vowed to bring them justice or to bring justice to them. He visited the rescuers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and organized the efforts to hunt down and get rid of the people that wanted to kill Americans. His approval rating was nearly 90%.

Time tells an interesting story. Eight years ago, who would have cried foul at enhanced interrogation techniques used against terror suspects who may have been involved in the 9/11 attacks or planning another one? Who would have been opposed to tracking the bank records and tapping the phones of suspected terrorists that wanted to create another 9/11? Who would have wanted to prosecute CIA officials that used enhanced interrogation to gain information that would thwart future attacks? Who would want to apologize for American actions of the past to the very people that either approved or did not disapprove of the 9/11 attacks?

Rudy Giuliani did not make it out of the 2008 Republican primaries. When President Bush heard “Hail to the Chief” the final time as the president at Barack Obama’s inauguration, he was booed. President Bush became unpopular while doing exactly what he said he was going to do: protect Americans from another attack. His domestic policies alienated both liberals and conservatives while his foreign policies alienated liberals who soon forgot the horrific attacks of 9/11.

Time tells an interesting story. Many other attacks have been thwarted as a result of policies enacted during President Bush’s administration both in the United States and abroad. Al Qaeda has been severely weakened because of the unrelenting determination the administration had in finishing the fight in Iraq. Al Qaeda may not have been in Iraq when America went in, but they came in later and were beaten to a pulp. The Taliban no longer controls Afghanistan, although the war has changed since the beginning of the year with the unrest in neighboring Pakistan. Bush’s anti-terror policies grew to be unpopular, but they worked. When it came to protecting his countrymen from fanatics that wanted to murder them, Bush succeeded and never relented, no matter how unpopular it was.

Who would have thought that the men that were there when we needed them are demonized today? Bush was even called a war criminal and a terrorist himself.

It is said that time heals all wounds. Apparently, for some, this is true even for something as awful as 9/11. Others believe it to be a myth. George W. Bush believed it to be a myth. The current president and Congress believe time has healed this wound.

"You Lie!"

Last night during President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress, South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson had two choice words to say to Obama, “You lie!” Those that have read HR 3200 could not agree more.

This was after President Obama had attempted to quell points of harsh contention that he labeled as untrue:

“The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple. There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

“You lie!” yelled Joe Wilson. Given the context of this comment where The One had been calling his political opponents liars and irresponsible, one cannot necessarily fault Rep. Wilson for being disgusted with the President’s finger-pointing. In the text of HR 3200 as it existed, there was no airtight safeguard to prevent illegal immigrants from reaping public option benefits. Two amendments were proposed to ensure that illegal immigrants would not be able to receive these benefits, but both were rejected on a party line vote. If one is in Wilson’s position and is unjustly called a liar by the nation’s highest public official on national television in front of a joint session of Congress, he or she would be justifiably annoyed.

Joe Wilson is currently being raked over the coals for disrupting The One’s speech. Apparently, both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress as well as media figures, commentators, and bloggers alike have short memories:

George W. Bush was speaking to a joint session of Congress for the 2005 State of the Union Address on February 2, 2005. During this address, President Bush noted the increasing concerns regarding the potential demise of Social Security:

“By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be drastically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs.”





President Bush’s statement was met with boos from many on the left side of the aisle. This must have been out of order as well. No doubt many of the same Congressmen and women are the ones crying foul at Joe Wilson’s outburst last night.

Some other thoughts on the address last night:

Notice the change of language regarding the insurance coverage regarding employers. He now says that employers and individuals will not be “required” to switch to the public plan. What if the employer switches plans to the public option even though the individual likes the current plan? Then that worker will have to, in effect, buy two plans (one through taxes, the other on his/her own).

Obama is obsessed with throwing bricks at the Bush Administration. He had to blame the Bush Administration for the trillion dollar deficit he inherited. He cited the Iraq war (that he is still fighting) as well as Bush’s “tax breaks for the wealthy” (which will expire next year) as some of the factors for his disadvantages in crusading against deficit spending. He then added that the cost of this “plan” (which still does not exist) is estimated at $900 billion, less than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (again, which he is still fighting) and the “tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.” President Obama, this is your term. You are in charge now. Bush is not in office anymore, you are. You have a Democratic House and Senate. Your party controls everything. Are you still blaming Bush because it is convenient and easy to do so? It worked when you were a senator, but that does not work when you are the president.

Another observation: there is no bill. Obama’s details were very scant. Where is this bill?

Also, Obama stated that he is directing his Secretary of Health and Human Services to look into state demonstration initiatives for tort reform to protect doctors against frivolous malpractice suits. The very mention of tort reform was met with enthusiastic approval from House and Senate Republicans. Few Democrats rose to join them. The Democrats will write the bill because they control the House and the Senate. President Obama has not met with Republicans since April regarding health care and the Democrats do not need to meet with Republicans in the drafting process. The bill will not include tort reform because the Democrats are funded by the deep pockets of the trial lawyers that would be hurt by restrictions on malpractice suits filed against physicians.

Finally, many on the left have criticized Republicans and conservatives for criticizing the plan without presenting a viable alternative. This is not true. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has sent his proposed legislation, The Patients’ Choice Act, to the President and has been virtually ignored by the White House. Tort reform along with allowing insurance companies from other states to compete with each other will decrease insurance costs. Providing a tax incentive (such as not taxing the income used by an individual to purchase his/her own insurance) would also lower the prices of insurance coverage and health care as a whole.

The Republicans are “the party of no?” Joe Wilson may be taking a beating today, but he voiced what many informed observers have been thinking all along. He was right, President Obama. “You lie!"

The 2009 Liberal Scorecard

One of the problems conservatives face in the coming election is that the electorate is largely uninterested in lengthy explanations detailing the nation or state’s current problems. The general populace is much happier with short sound bytes rather than the details. This is one of the areas the American left has mastered. They have for years been able to articulate their talking points in attractive ways that sound good. Conservatives find themselves in the difficult position of going through detail-oriented explanations to counter very vulnerable arguments from their liberal counterparts. A glossy, polished speech that is low on details trumps the less dynamic speech rich with substance. It is a sad fact of contemporary American politics.

If one were to transcribe the liberal demagoguery to golf, liberals would not keep score in a tournament, but would decide on a winner by who hit the coolest shots, who was best dressed, or who was the most charismatic during the round.

The conservative keeps score. On a federal and state level, this has been a disastrous six months. Here are the scores that the conservative can use to prove his or her point.

Federal:
1) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Remember when the new administration promised transparency? There were earmarks upon earmarks in the bill ranging from additional funding for STD prevention (as if people don’t know where babies come from or how gonorrhea is spread) to $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (because that will put people right to work). This bill along with the Obama budget also increased federal deficit spending from 3% to 12-13% according to the Congressional Budget Office.
2) Gitmo is still open. Didn’t General O. promise to close it? Even many Democrats saw the peril in doing this and blocked this from happening.
3) Nancy Pelosi vs. the CIA. Yeah, she lied…and then disappeared to China. Nothing to see here…carry on! After all, people will forget that she knew about the waterboarding and then lied about knowing it despite ripping Big Bad Bush for waterboarding terror suspects.





4) Cap and Trade. Gee, here’s an idea…how about we try to lower the global temperature by ourselves by imposing higher taxes on manufacturers and energy producers? No, no…they won’t choose to manufacture in China instead. China and India are not bound by Kyoto, so there is no way that American companies would look to lower costs by outsourcing to China. Nah. Silly conservatives…the United States can easily cool the earth down from its fever on its own…stick it those Big Bad Oil Companies! Just because heating and cooling homes is going to be exponentially more expensive under this plan doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do something to combat a problem that has not been proven to even exits. But don’t take the evil conservatives’ word for it, take The One’s word for it…





5) The AIG tax. Who would have known that the person who introduced language into the stimulus allowing AIG to award bonuses was a Democrat at the blessing of the tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? Remember how angry those guys were at AIG and how they proposed a 95% tax on them? It was as if they did not know about it beforehand…they act well.
6) Nationalization of GM. But wait, Chairman, I mean, President Obama does not want to run GM, but will tell them to keep their headquarters in Detroit. How is the government taking over the nation’s largest auto company not socialism?
7) Proposal of nationalized healthcare. Wow! Free healthcare! Sounds good, right? It does…until the taxpayers get stuck with the bill, patients are excluded from planning their own medical care, and all profit-driven incentive is removed from pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals to practice any kind of innovative experimentation…
8) Iraq. Wasn’t General Barry going to cut and run? U.S. troops are still in Iraq. Maybe Bush wasn’t so crazy…
9) Oh, there’s more (disarmament when North Korea is testing nuclear missiles, sitting and watching instead of taking any stand on Iran, surging the military in Afghanistan when the Taliban is running amok in Pakistan, apologizing to the Arabs and Europeans about American arrogance…), but for the sake of sparing the details, this will have to do.

State:
1) The Wisconsin State Budget. Jim Doyle signed a budget that increased the garbage tax, eliminated the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) for public educators, released “non-violent” felons early, provided in-state tuition to illegal immigrants (don’t worry, they can’t get drivers licenses), extended domestic partners of state workers to be eligible for the state insurance plan (not just the gay ones, either), increased fees on cell phones, established a new income tax bracket, lowered the enrollment cap on school choice, increased the hospital tax four months after it was implemented, increased the cigarette tax, increased the capital gains tax, etc. The Joint Finance Committee (composed by a 12-2 Democratic majority) inserted many provisions behind closed doors in the middle of the night and the budget passed the Senate and Assembly before the “little people” (a.k.a. the public) even became aware of it. Remember when Jim Doyle promised not to raise taxes?
2) State smoking ban. Remember when if someone did not like a restaurant or bar, he or she would go to a different one? That was not good enough for the state legislature or the governor. Apparently, private restaurants and bars cannot decide for themselves whether or not to allow smoking.

This is only a partial scorecard. The Obama Administration has been in power for not even six months and look what is happening.

The problem the conservative faces is presenting the disastrous public policy decisions above to a populace that gives Obama a 60% approval rating while the Congress (run by the Democrats) has an approval rating in the 30s. This is a populace that has 40% of people that believe that the government has its own money (that is not paid for by the public).

But then, Obama and his teleprompter sure give good speeches. It is really a shame about those pesky little conservatives busting apart his platitudes and fluff with facts and figures.

Ode to Wisconsin

What a bad day for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is a state known for its extremes in its seasons. Winters often see temperatures drop well below zero and the summers can sometimes rival Floridian heat and humidity. As a result of this, rarely do Wisconsinites have a time of the year where they are not running the air conditioning or their heat. After all, winter is the best seven months of the year in Wisconsin.

For some reason, out of the eight people representing Wisconsin in the House of Representatives, only three of them had the sense to vote against the toxic American Clean Energy and Security Act, which is riddled with all kinds of tax increases and fees that most people do not even know exist.

Some of the number crunching has led some actuarial tables to calculate a staggering 171% increase in natural gas prices due to the new legislation. That it bad news for Wisconsin since it does not have so-called "clean energy" in any great amount such as nuclear power plants. Wisconsin is expanding its wind power capacity which is akin to filling a swimming pool with a dixie cup.

The summers will not be much of a bargain for Wisconsinites either as they are now faced with the possibility that the purely evil coal industry is staring directly into the face of another tax increase.

Are these legislators that out of touch that they cannot see that these costs will be passed on to the people that pay their utility bills? Can they not see that they just dramatically raised prices on their constituents should this legislation pass through the Senate?

Here in Wisconsin, the neighbor immediately to the south has nuclear power plants. That just may convince more Wisconsin-based companies to leave.

The Kyoto Protocol does not include China and India. Many more Wisconsin jobs will likely continue to move abroad to get out of this state and nation's toxic tax environments.

And then there is the 2009 Wisconsin State Budget.

Here are just a few of the tax and fee increases: garbage tax, elimination of QEO for state teachers, in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, increased capital gains taxes, cell-phone tax, digital downloads tax, cigarette tax, work permit fee, increased auto insurance coverage requirement, etc.

This budget is toxic and is increasing taxes, fees, and spending in a recession.

The two combined are a major blow to anyone living in Wisconsin for any prolonged amount of time.

Both bills are major fiscal blunders. The Senate can stop "Cap and Trade," but it is unlikely. The unintended consequences could lead to this bill being one of the top five worst public policy blunders ever made.

Walking Toward a Better Wisconsin

“Whimsically Persnickety” is not a partisan blog. Instead, it is a blog that examines public policy in the interest of the people that pay for the public officials and benefit from their decisions. “Whimsically Persnickety” is not a fulltime or daily blog, but a common observer of local politics of southeast Wisconsin, the state of Wisconsin, and the United States.

After seeing the Wisconsin state deficit spiral out of control to the tune of nearly $7 billion, the bureaucracy of the local and state governments expand obscenely, and the tax levies increase in several communities on the local level as well as statewide, “Whimsically Persnickety” endorses Scott Walker for governor of Wisconsin.

Scott Walker’s leadership of Milwaukee County has been a bright spot in a state that has become a tax hell. Walker has been able to avoid raising taxes and has been able to effectively cut unnecessary items from the Milwaukee County budget. He has done this despite working with a Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors that has been rather hostile toward most of his proposed budget cuts. Its chairman, Lee Holloway, has been one of Walker’s most consistent critics.

Walker’s combination of refusing to increase taxes, accept temporary federal stimulus money, and add unnecessary items to the county budget have enabled Milwaukee County to run a budget surplus in a state that has consistently seen its fiscal number run in the red.

Walker has left the option of school choice as one to be pursued with greater vigor. This has not made him friends within WEAC, but instead offers an alternative for families of students that live within sub-par school districts. This position offers a choice to people that previously did not have a choice when it came to education.

Scott Walker will have a difficult time should he win election in 2010, but he inherited a bloated Milwaukee County bureaucracy and has managed it superiorly. The state of Wisconsin needs this management in order to raise and exceed the existing standards and credibility set by the current administration.

Ryan's Voting Record Shows Inconsistencies

Paul Ryan has been representing Wisconsin’s first congressional district since his election to the House of Representatives on November 3, 1998. Since then, he has championed fiscal conservatism by emphasizing the need for limited government, limited spending, tax cuts, and limited regulation over American trade. He is currently the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and has been an eloquent voice in favor of what he has coined as his “Roadmap for America’s Future.”

He is young and is considered by many to be one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party that has taken severe beatings in the last two election cycles – losing control of the House and the Senate in 2006 and then sustaining further losses in both houses of Congress as well as losing the White House in 2008. Many of the established names of the Republican Party have become more moderate over time, much to the frustration of the conservative base, but several younger politicians have emerged to reestablish conservatism into the Republican Party. Ryan has gained much notoriety since his party’s debacles of 2006 and 2008. He frequently is seen on CNBC and has had editorials published numerous times in the Wall Street Journal.

It may come as a surprise to several conservatives that Ryan appears to have moderated his fiscal conservatism. Starting in September of 2008, Ryan voted in favor of the first bailout to the tune of $700 billion to rescue AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and several other lending institutions that were in danger of going bankrupt. He then voted in favor of the $14 billion bailout in December of 2008. Some speculated that this was due to troubles within his constituency where there happens to be a major GM manufacturing plant in Janesville. Finally, on March 18 of this year, Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 1586: a 90% tax levied on the bonuses awarded to AIG executives. AIG had received TARP money in the original bailout of the previous fall. This bill has since been shelved in the Senate.

Ryan represents a very diverse district where it is likely that the automakers had some pull on his decision for the so-called “Big 3 Bailout.” Ryan also stated publicly that the TARP vote was going to hurt him politically and that it went against his own political and fiscal principles. He followed that by saying that if something was not done, the economy may suffer dire consequences. Ryan was quoted as saying “It sucks, but it has to pass…The easiest thing would be to vote no and go hide in my office and watch the markets collapse. I will suffer politically for this, but I will sleep at night.” With regard to his most recent surprising vote, only one member of his home state’s delegation had voted against the AIG tax. James Sensenbrenner voted against it saying it was unconstitutional and would be thrown out in court.

Paul Ryan spoke to a rally in Madison on April 15 and indicated that the Democrats just “want you to pay up and shut up” and said the Democrats’ view of the American public’s duty is “to pay more and more taxes, because our government is smarter than you are.” His voting record has been very conservative as well save the three major exceptions of the past year. This would make him far from being what many conservatives refer to as a Republican in Name Only (RINO). The question of whether or not this will come back to undermine Ryan’s credibility as a fiscal conservative remains unknown, but is a worthy question.

In Over Their Heads

Apparently Earth has joined Chris Matthews in that President Obama sends chills up its legs too. President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, is proposing an option of “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.” This would be funny if it was not true.

The story: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SCI_OBAMA_SCIENCE_ADVISER?SITE=WTMJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Video:



The solution to man-made global warming (or is it now climate change?) is to introduce man-made global cooling by adding pollutants?

Does Mr. Holdren know how many particles it would take to reflect that amount of the sun’s rays to affect the temperature? The earth’s surface area is over 500 million square kilometers, not to mention the increase in the surface area at the upper atmospheric level.

What is the global temperature supposed to be? Mark Belling touched on this during his afternoon broadcast on April 8, but when this story first came out in the morning on April 8, it made this observer contemplate the same question.

Are the actions of one nation (the United States) going to cause the earth to cool?

Grapes grew on Greenland at one point, but then glaciers formed the beautiful topography in the Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin. The climate changes over time.

First it was “global warming.” Then “climate change” when the earth ceased warming. Holdren likes the term “global climate disruption,” whatever that means.

This is yet another illustration that the administration has too many rookies that are over their heads.

The AIG Hypocrisy

AIG has now become a pejorative. AIG has now become the example of how “big business” has ruined the American economy. AIG received bailout money and then awarded bonuses to some of its executives in its financial products division. This division, especially in its departments of equities and commodities, had proven to be very sound financially. Jake DeSantis, the now noteworthy former executive VP in AIG’s financial products division, cited his own frustration over the misrepresentation of his and many of his colleagues’ work. He and many others working for AIG expressed concerns about the increase in sub-prime mortgages which had been given the green light by Congress’s Financial Services Committee (the chairman being none other than Rep. Barney Frank).

Undeniably, AIG made a large timing blunder in awarding the bonuses. However, the outrage was especially due to the fact that public money had been given to AIG while bailout-mania swept through American economic policy. Now that AIG had received public money, they had to know that they may not be able to make their own decisions since the federal government would now be looking over their shoulders.

When AIG awarded the bonuses according to the contracts the executives within the company had signed, President Obama himself expressed his own disgust for the bonuses along with Chris Dodd, one of the Senators who had changed language within the stimulus bill that ensured the bonuses would be awarded. The stimulus bill had the language? Chris Dodd got caught in a lie. He then blames Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for pressuring him to put this condition into the bill.



That means that if Dodd is right, Geithner obviously knew about the bonuses and that, in turn, the Obama Administration knew about the bonuses in this amendment of the stimulus bill. Does this mean that their outrage was about something they knew perfectly well was going to happen?

This debacle has since led other banks and lending institutions to reconsider taking government money since they are aware of the strings attached to it. AIG’s new CEO, Edward Liddy, was pilloried for these bonuses that he did not create and AIG’s reputation has been severely tainted.

This just tells of the hypocrisy and completely phony outrage of the current administration and Congress. The punitive tax that was being discussed did not pass, but that would have taxed the bonuses at a rate of 95%. Just because Congress does not like how much money someone has, they now have the power to tax whoever they want? Some may think that is a disturbing proposition.

AIG may have timed these bonuses at a bad time. They are learning the hard lesson that goes along with accepting the government’s money.

Where is the outrage over a government that is looking to run a federal deficit that is 13% of its gross national product? Again, this would be like spending $113 per day when only making $100 per day. If this is done for a year, the person making $100 per day makes $36,500 per year, but then spends $41,245 per year. This makes a deficit of $4,745 per year. This is a small scale model of the Obama Administration’s budget.

Does this not sound dangerous? Yet they are lecturing AIG for wasting taxpayer money. A tax cheat (the Secretary of the Treasury) and the Congress presiding over a massive deficit lectures someone for mismanaging money. If it was not true, this would be funny.

Bernie Madoff and the Federal Government

By now, people all across America has heard of the curious, perplexing, and devastating story about the Bernie Madoff scheme that lost money for many investors that had been giving Mr. Madoff their trust with their funds. They were intrigued by Mr. Madoff’s advertisement that he could provide ten percent returns on their investments. Many high-profile people sought to invest in these terms only to find that Mr. Madoff was merely putting on a front.

Mr. Madoff did not have the money behind the investments to give back to his clients. If they had all cashed out at once even a year ago, he would not have had enough money. Sure, he was sending them statements on their earnings, but it was simply a piece of paper. When the bottom of the housing market dropped out this past fall, Mr. Madoff’s clients wanted to cash out and take back their money. There was one little problem: he did not have it and he had been lying to his clients for years that he did have it. Now Mr. Madoff is awaiting trial.

The federal government is now taking quite an investment from the taxpayers and from foreign nations buying American bonds. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, after calculating the interest that goes along with the spending in the bill itself, will cost approximately $1.3 trillion. Under the Bush Administration, the federal budget transitioned from running a surplus to running a deficit where the government was spending between three and four percent of its GDP in red figures. In other words, if one were to make $10 a day, it would be comparable to spending $10.30 to $10.40 per day. It does not sound like a big deal in that context, but take it to what the 2008 figures were: $2.9 trillion in spending versus $2.5 trillion in revenue. That is about $400 billion in deficit for just that one year.

Under President Obama’s new proposed budget and after the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has been signed into law, federal deficit spending will increase to about 13 percent of the American GDP. This does not include the new idea of federal assistance in refinancing sub prime mortgages to protect homeowners from foreclosure. Going back to the $10 per day example: that would be like spending $11.30 per day and running $1.30 in the red every single day.

So the federal government is somehow going to convince Americans to continue to give Uncle Sam more money and convince other nations such as China to buy American bonds to help bankroll these new programs with the guarantee that Americans and foreign investors will see a return in their investments.

Does this not sound a little too similar to the Bernie Madoff story? Is this not like a poker player trying to bluff a pair of sixes to appear as four of a kind? The current administration and Congress will try to sell this as a temporary deficit that promises to yield returns that will increase the GDP and cure the federal deficit.

Will the federal government have a sealed indictment if they have to turn to its clients and say they do not have the money to return the investment?

Really?

One Bad Economy, Two Solutions

The economy has suffered a very serious recession. The housing crisis that resulted in the meltdown was only the beginning of some of the losses the American public has seen as of late. The federal government has responded to this by cutting interest rates, printing more money, and by bailing out several lending institutions and private industries. The government would not have reacted with such urgency had this been a minor concern. President Obama is now several weeks into his term and is pushing one solution to the economy along with his Democratic colleagues. His political opponents in the House and Senate are rallying around another solution. To arrive at an informed conclusion regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, one must consider both arguments.

1) Argument for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

To stimulate the American economy, people who are currently out of work must be put to work in order to generate an income. To help generate increased employment, federal tax money can be put to use in employing private citizens in long-term jobs with steady incomes. This money can go toward infrastructure projects for American schools, roads, bridges, and many other areas that need to be addressed given the difficult economy.

Additional money needs to be dedicated to educational needs for public schools that are overburdened and currently struggling to meet the needs of a modern education. Children will then be the direct beneficiaries of the stimulus by having proper and efficient school buildings in which to learn. Teachers will have the facilities available in order to provide the best possible education.

Building new schools, improving roads, and exploring energy alternatives are all ways in which qualified citizens will maintain work and also benefit their communities and nation. Alternative energy sources including wind, solar, and hydrogen power are vital in the future of the nation; therefore action must be taken to put people to work to develop these technologies.

When the people who have lost their jobs and seen their investments become depleted once again have a steady income, they will be more likely to invest again as the economy stabilizes. Banks will be more likely to give loans for first time homebuyers. The stock market will see an increase in investors’ collective confidence. The average citizen’s discretionary income will increase, which will allow them to spend it and benefit other places of business that are currently hurting. While the funding will be public funding, this will ultimately be an investment that will lead to long-term benefits. In order to stimulate the economy, the government must make an investment that will reap great rewards and set the economy on the right path toward a better future.

2) Argument Against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

The federal budget is already running a deficit, inflation is rampant, the value of the U.S. dollar is decreasing, and unemployment is on the rise. Given these circumstances, stimulating the American economy may seem to be an appropriate response. What does stimulating the economy mean? If the stimulus comes from the federal government, it must be from public tax dollars or from borrowing money from other nations. In the case of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it could very well contain tax money, borrowing money from the Chinese, and then if not enough can be borrowed from the Chinese, the Federal Reserve will need to print more money. The money that would be printed would lead to a devaluation of the dollar.

To spend this much money at a time when the economy is already in a difficult time is similar to a business that is in the red deciding to expand. Only $47 billion is committed to repairing American infrastructure projects. The vast majority of the money in this bill is either committed to the creation of jobs within the government or to special interest groups such as the $335 million committed to STD prevention.

The risk of this bill being implemented will be to have what occurred during Jimmy Carter’s administration when the American public experienced double-digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates.

The alternative plan is to cut taxes and allow some of the money that would go to the federal government to remain in the hands of the taxpayers. This eliminates borrowing from China, printing more money, and spending more money while the federal budget is running a deficit. Cutting taxes, reducing federal spending, and placing the recovery of the economy on the shoulders of the American people will ultimately lead the United States out of the recession. With additional money and reduced federal spending, people will be more likely to invest their money, expand private businesses, and create jobs independent of public funding. These same private businesses will also develop energy alternatives such as nuclear power, hydrogen power, and hybrid technologies based on the market demands for an alternative energy source.

Such steps, given additional detail, would help reduce the federal budget deficit, strengthen the dollar, and create jobs without reaping a debt that will be felt for generations to come. Instead of compounding the economic crisis, it would instead be absorbed with the chance to recover from it.

A Video Well Worth Watching

While this video certainly takes sides as to who is to blame for the economic recession, it is an interesting look at how the American economy ended in its current state. Watch this video with the preface that while there is plenty of blame to go around regarding this crisis, this will at least break down what happened.

"Burning Down the House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?"

Educational Mediocrity: American Public Schools

Horace Mann (1796-1859) once stated that education is the great equalizer. He believed that a publicly funded education system was necessary in order to provide the chance for everyone to learn, not just those that could afford it. Mann was skillful in convincing the public that this needed to be done in order to provide an assimilated American culture that would be capable in participating in a representative democracy.

Public schools became increasingly popular and offered a taxpayer-funded education while a private school was still available to those that would choose to pay more money. Parents continue to have this choice. A majority of students attend public schools, take advantage of this government service, and exemplify Mann’s dream of education being the great equalizer.

In recent decades, public schools have not enjoyed the success they once did. Graduation rates have tumbled, truancy has risen dramatically, and achievement levels have sagged when compared to those of other nations. Much discussion and billions of dollars of public tax money has been given to address the problem of a declining public education system without substantially positive results.

What is wrong with the public schools? There are many answers, but they are not pleasant.

1) Class Content.
The essential classroom content taught in public schools was originally intended to be language arts and communicative skills, sciences, mathematics, art, music, and social studies. The content of these courses would ideally be relevant to life skills and future jobs. Many students graduate from high school without the knowledge of how to balance a checkbook. Some cannot identify where major nations are on a globe. Others cannot differentiate the difference between “your” and “you’re.” Contemporary classrooms often have multicultural sensitivity training in social studies instead of history and geography. Other examples include how to apply a condom to a banana in health class instead of applying a healthy lifestyle or reading about homosexual, bisexual, and transgender acceptance in literature class instead of reading the works of Melville, Twain, or Hawthorne. This does not stop at the primary or secondary levels. Look at what occurs at American universities. How about a little bit of “Pizza & Porn”? This actually is an activity promoted during “Sexploration Week” at the University of Cincinatti. http://www.newstalk1130.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104673&article=4933616

2) The National Education Association (NEA).
Like many unions, the NEA went above its original intentions of being protective of educational employees to leading an assault on the very concepts its constituents were attempting to uphold. Is a teacher’s strike ever in the best interest of the students of a school? Is a teacher taking accountability for student performance contrary to the very nature of the teaching profession? Is bullying union members who do not back the same politics really protecting the workers? As troubling as it may seem, the original intentions of the NEA are obsolete. Now the NEA literally sells itself out to certain politicians because they know that their influence will not diminish as long as said politicians are still in power.

3) Too Much Building…
Public schools and their districts have nearly become obsessed with building new school buildings citing that the old facilities do not meet the demands of a modern education. A follower of educational research will note that the correlation between student learning and those same students’ learning facilities is very weak. Should a school be large enough and safe enough to accommodate its students’ needs? Absolutely. However, is it necessary to have a new school building constructed in a district with dropping enrollment and buildings that, while dated, are safe? How is this fiscally responsible? Instead of focusing on building palatial school buildings with fancy offices, athletic facilities, and the most advanced computer technology, would it not be more beneficial to address the failings of its schools by analyzing what is going on the classroom?

4) …Not Enough Teaching
Would student learning improve if effective teachers were compensated for their results and ineffective teachers weeded out of the system? If a car salesman does not sell cars, he usually loses his job. On the contrary, a salesman that sells cars is rewarded for his success. If a teacher’s students are not learning, they are often kept since they have tenure after teaching for a number of years. Is there not a problem with this? Why is the public paying a teacher to run off copies of textbook lessons and worksheets instead of developing innovative lessons that teach students the content in a way that fosters effective learning? All too often, public school teachers settle for what is comfortable and do not like people to intrude upon something that is comfortable.

5) Opposition to School Choice
School choice allows public money to be given to low-income families that otherwise would either not be able or less likely to afford sending their kids to private schools. While definitive research has yet to provide irrefutable proof regarding the success of school choice, some themes tend to be present. Students that are the recipients of school choice vouchers have a high graduation rate, the cities that have school choice have seen it expand quickly, and the public schools and teacher’s union hate it. Why? They fear that more people will want to send their students to private schools, thus decreasing student enrollment, thus decreasing the need for bloated staffing. However, school choice may be a good thing for the public schools. They provide competition. For a business to compete with another business, it must offer a product or service that is similar, equal, or better than the other business. Currently, this does not apply to public schools. The recipients of school choice vouchers are beginning to understand this, and the public schools want to kill it rather than improving the product (instruction) they offer.

Education is indeed the great equalizer. Without a proper education, people are not prepared to enter professional lives nor will they be able to function as informed citizens in their society. Since public education has long become a mouthpiece for a very one-sided agenda, many Americans are being fleeced blind by the system they bankroll that produces ill-prepared graduates.

What If...?

During the presidential campaign of the past fall, several commentators, pundits, and politicians criticized President Barack Obama for being naïve in his view of geopolitics. The idea of sitting down with foreign leaders such as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met sharp criticism from the political right as an example of the Democrats’ perceived inexperience with an increasingly dangerous world.

The Democratic platform on social issues also was the subject of much criticism from the political right. Republicans attempted to highlight past failures of social programs that had been the recipients of federal tax money in an effort to show that higher taxes and higher spending was also naïve. The Democrats then countered by arguing that in order to work through the existing socioeconomic problems, that additional government programs would be needed to help alleviate poverty and unemployment.

Liberals do not like their ideals to be trivialized and considered naïve. Liberalism is by its very nature idealistic and hopeful for a better future based on top-down motivated responsibility. Liberalism believes that if a program is sponsored by the government, it will be more effective in motivating the general public than if a set of ideas is generated from the ground-up.

Confessional Christianity has lost any place it ever had in contemporary liberalism. Christianity has beliefs and ideals that are considered by liberals as too divisive and, in some cases, hateful. The sixth commandment is perceived as perhaps the most divisive of the beliefs of Christianity. The sixth commandment states “You shall not commit adultery.” Adultery, as defined in the Bible, is any sexual relation outside of the bonds of marriage. This includes sexual thoughts, words, and actions outside of marriage. Marriage is defined in the Bible as between one man and one woman despite several people in the Old Testament having practiced polygamy.

What if everyone followed the sixth commandment perfectly? At the risk of being naïve, consider the following scenarios that would occur of everyone in the world followed the sixth commandment:

1) Venereal diseases would be virtually eradicated within three generations.
2) No infidelities would occur, thus lowering divorce rates, spousal abuse, and broken homes.
3) Prostitution would be gone.
4) Pornography would be gone.
5) Abortions would decrease substantially as married women do not frequently seek them.
6) Would the Arabian states dislike the west as much?
7) The debate regarding what is and is not marriage would not exist.
8) Teenage pregnancies would be gone (unless they were already married).
9) Fathers would be more likely to be integral in their children’s lives.
10) The government would no longer need to spend taxpayer money on STD prevention.

The concept of following the sixth commandment flawlessly may seem to be too idealistic, too backward, and too divisive for contemporary society, but the effects of its implementation are truly remarkable to consider. This is only one commandment.

Are the intentions and effects of following this "backward" commandment really divisive and hateful?

Would the above scenarios be more restrictive in American lifestyles or more liberating?

Perhaps that is naïve, but at least it is free and does not cost $335 million of public money.

Lessons from the Greatest Generation

In 1994 a book titled The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America written by Phillip K. Howard was published. Howard’s essential point from this book was to describe how bureaucracy and technicalities have grown to dominate the legal profession and public policy. Common sense, he argues, often is jettisoned by lawyers and judges in favor of finding technicalities that are not always in the best interest for all parties involved. He cites many examples throughout his book that illustrate this point of how technicalities and red tape prevented the intervention of common sense.

Common sense is a line of thinking that is generally understood to mean a social norm regarding certain topics. For example, a common sense approach to healing a problem related to sore feet would be to examine whether or not shoes are appropriate for the feet. Along the same line of thinking, in order to purchase a new pair of shoes, one would assume that the consumer making the purchase would do so with money that he or she already has.

The idea of common sense when used to describe such a line of thinking has long since died along with those who grew up understanding this as a way to live life safely and thoughtfully. The area in which this is especially true is economics. In the economic crisis that ballooned in 2008, plenty of blame was assigned to various people and organizations. The reasons for the collapse are very detailed (too long to list in this post), but the overriding theme was one of a lack of common sense.

People of the so-called “Greatest Generation” experienced economic turmoil that dwarfed the current economic strife. While they were in their childhoods and adolescent years, unemployment and inflation were incredibly high. The “Greatest Generation” grew during this era and saw what life was like with the bare essentials. They also saw how the uncertainty of how to pay the next month’s rent affected the daily spending habits of the American public.

People of this generation grew up with a keen understanding of the distinction between what was a “want” and what was a “need.” They carried this principle with them as they grew into adulthood after World War II. In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, they had their own children. This trend of the baby boom was reflective of the economic tide as well. The economy was healthy, jobs were available, and the financial comfort level of the average American household was much higher than it had been when they were younger.

The concept of purchasing a home became much more commonplace. Buying a second car for ease of transporting a household was no longer an absurd purchase. Televisions, additional appliances, bicycles, and other luxury items were rapidly increasing because the people could afford to buy them. The children borne to the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, saw this as they were growing and enjoyed the life of comfort that they had as children.

When the Baby Boomers became adults, a new wave of culture also began to dominate the United States. This culture was a renewed sense of individualism and it leaped from the shoulders of the comfortable 1950s. They had grown up enjoying the comforts of their own home and two cars. This mentality was in part responsible for the idea that they needed to purchase a home. This occurred and people were purchasing first homes at much younger ages than their parents had. The children of the Baby Boomers also grew older with a similar mentality.

The children of the Baby Boomers are the people who are purchasing their first homes now. This appears to be fine on the surface, but it is different from the way the Greatest Generation purchased their homes. The Greatest Generation was full of people who were reluctant to purchase a home until they had the assets to back their purchase. They had grown up in the financial strains of the Great Depression and knew that taking a huge risk for the benefit of owning a home was not worth the cost of possibly not being able to pay for it should difficult times occur again.

This concept of buying a home or car with a loan dominates contemporary society. Considering the environments in which people are raised, this is no surprise. The concept of renting a home as opposed to owning a home raises a disparity in social status. Two people sharing one car is not the social norm. Would it not be more comfortable to just have two cars?

Amongst all the finger-pointing that has occurred in the wake of the current financial crisis, many Americans have neglected to point the fingers at themselves. Did they really need to buy that $220,000 first home when they are in the second year of a career making $45,000 annually? Did they really need to purchase a car with no down payment? Did they really need to buy that new plasma screen television when they were already paying the minimum payment on their credit cards? The concept of “buy now, bill me later” has led to the current economic mess.

Americans will learn from this and hopefully take a lesson from the Greatest Generation. In his Inaugural Address, President Barack Obama stated “In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” This is a worthy sentiment that Americans must embrace. The Greatest Generation understood it. Perhaps instead of pointing the fingers at Wall Street, lending institutions, and the government, people will heed President Obama’s statement that greatness is not given, but earned. Home ownership and the second car should not be a necessity for a 22 year old. Financial responsibility, sound judgment, and a renewal of common sense should instead be a necessity.