Tag Archives: Harry Reid

Apr 10 2012

Lawbreaker

 

We are a nation of laws.  It is how we maintain the public peace.  Our businesses rely on laws to validate and insure the contracts in which they operate.  Law is the means to hold the members of a civil society accountable to decency and responsibility.

I would suspect that a majority of Americans have at one time or another found themselves crossways to some rule or regulation.  While we all may grouse and grumble at the results of our negligence or maybe just plain rebellion, oftentimes it soon becomes clear that some laws were put there for the protection of the public.  So we respectfully submit to the repercussions of our actions.

Not so for the members of the Democrat Party, who forage the halls of Washington D.C. in search of more slush funds to consume.  The Federal government is supposed to pass a budget each year.  It’s the law.  Senate President, Harry Reid, has refused to even allow budgets, passed by the House of Representatives, to come to the floor to be voted on and now the Federal government has not had an operating budget for three years.  The “Honorable” Mr. Reid claims that the Republican led House has not put forth a budget to vote on.  Yet the House has repeatedly put forth bi-partisan budgets, passed in the House, that Reid will not acknowledge for a vote.  The Senate President seems more content to break the law than to honor the legislation of a duly elected House of Representatives, the laws that govern him and responsibilities required of him that are vested in the position and authority he currently retains.

Perhaps Mr. Reid is pouting in frustration that the budgets presented by President Obama cannot make it out of the House with a single positive vote.  Yes, the House of Representatives have voted unanimously against the executive budget proposals on multiple occasions.  Barack Obama has proven to be so inept on matters of budget that both Democrats and Republicans have refused to have the President’s fiscal disaster on their hands and have voted a resounding bi-partisan “no”.  That’s zero, Z.E.R.O, zero votes for the President.  Strapped with a leader in the Oval Office that is feckless at best on matters of economy, Harry Reid has decided that perhaps it is best if the law does not apply to him.  Better no budget, than a balanced budget.  Sadly, Mr. Reid, even the nation of Mexico has an operating budget.  Shouldn’t we at least try?

But Mr. Reid is not the most notable lawbreaker amongst Democrat leaders.  President Obama now finds the signature act of his administration in direct challenge to the Law of the Land, the Constitution.  As ObamaCare weighs before the Justices of the Supreme Court, the President has taken the unprecedented tact of threatening the highest court of the United States while it is in deliberation.  The President challenged the court’s authority to judge the constitutional merit of a law, which is one of the primary purposes of the Supreme Court.  This outraged the American people and rightly so.  The President has spent the week trying to “walk back” his words, but curiously, trying to couch his words in such a way as to leave his threat on the table.

This leaves the citizens of the United States with these questions.  If the President is the Constitutional lawyer he claims to be, then is he simply an inept, incompetent lawyer or is he someone who fundamentally disdains the system of checks and balances that founding fathers established?  If you were a Party who believed the government should rule the people, not the people rule the government, wouldn’t you view laws that held you accountable and checked your actions as frustrating encumbrances or barriers to the advance of your agenda?  Something to think about.  What is certain is this. When we the citizens break a law, we pay a fine or face incarceration.  When our leaders in Washington break the law and are exposed, they, by their actions, tell we the people to simply go to Hades.

Oct 26 2011

Means nothing to you, means something to me.

Means nothing to you, means something to me.

 

What is fair?  How do you establish a government that gives every individual an opportunity for success?  Can you possibly protect the interests and hopes of every person?  Our founding fathers wrestled with these questions and more when they set out to lay the foundation of a new fledgling nation.  Not far removed from the violent travail, which gave birth to this new freedom, these wise men knew they could not take lightly the solemn responsibility to guard the future of a newborn nation, whose hopes they now held in their hands.

Fresh in their minds was the horrors of war and the stench of blood-soaked battlefields.  Stamped into their memories was the ultimate price so many had paid for the hope and dream of freedom.  Our Founding Fathers knew they had to get it right or this would be another bloody revolution that simply shifted the power of tyranny from one faction to another.

So they started with this basic premise; all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with basic unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It didn’t matter whether you were the majority or the minority, these basic rights could not be taken from you.  Next, the Founders grappled with how to insure this premise would be honored and protected.

These great men were keenly aware of the failure of government throughout history to be fair to every man.  So how could our government succeed were others had failed?  It couldn’t.  No government can.  The hopes, beliefs, and dreams of so many individuals offer a myriad of goals and intents that no government could ever guarantee.  Someone’s dreams inevitably would be set aside for others the government deemed more worthy of attention.  Perhaps the idea of government based on the belief that all men were created equal was simply folly.

Unless, that government was marginalized.  What if that government were confined and constrained to a small specific purpose?  What if that government feared the people because it feared the Creator of the people?  What if that government simply protected the nation from the threat of the invasion of a new tyranny?  What if that government was too small to provide an impediment to anyone’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?  Then, perhaps, the aspirations of all American’s could have a hope of realization.

Government cannot understand the passions of the individual.  It simply cannot.  The human desire is a multi-faceted expression.  What matters little to you many be of utmost importance to another.  But each must be afforded an opportunity to pursue that passion.  This is the responsibility of the individual.  He or she alone knows what they value and desire.

Big government holds people helpless to its decisions.  The more it fails the more government reminds its people that it can’t please everyone.  Our Forefathers never intended Americans to look to government for answers.  It was not intended to please anyone, just function in its limited role.  They believed that every individual knew his own dream and that was none of government’s business.

Since the President and his Party have taken power, the private sector has lost 1.6 million jobs.  The government has grown by at least 105,000 jobs.  Senator Harry Reid has said the private sector is “doing just fine”.  He believes government jobs need to be protected.  If Mr. Reid were not a public servant, he would be entitled to his beliefs.  But while the loss of 1.6 million jobs is “just fine” with Democrats, the private sector does not agree.  Government is deciding whose hopes and futures are worth preserving.  Government is now right where our Founding Fathers did not want it to be, in the way.  Big government needs to be, once again, marginalized.  This government needs to be told that the “means nothing to you” means something to me and it is really none of your business, so get out of it.

Aug 7 2011

THE UNFIXABLE

THE UNFIXABLE

 

And they thought the Governor was joking.  At the recent Piscataquis “Capital for a Day”, Governor LePage and Treasurer Poliquin both explained the dire fiscal picture they found painted on the books of the accounts in Augusta.  They revealed to us that one of the first hurdles for the duo to overcome was convincing the S&P not to downgrade the credit rating of the State of Maine, which they had learned was imminent.  Those of the “People are Merely Percentage Points” ers crowd scoffed at this revelation.  It was unthinkable that we would receive a credit downgrade.  Just scare tactics, stuff and nonsense.

Yes, thankfully the strength of leadership shown by the Governor and the Treasurer has saved Maine from such an embarrassment; in fact, a recent listing of the worst States to do business did not even mention the State of Maine.  It is quite a turnaround in seven months to go from a “top of the list regular” to a “no show”.  There is some recognition we’d rather not have.

Not so good though for the President and his merry band of obstructionists.  While the “Hope and Change messiah” has yet to lower the sea level, he has succeeded in lowering our credit rating for the first time in the history of this great Nation.  It was simple really.  Standard and Poor’s wanted 4 trillion in deficit reduction.  Paul Ryan and the Republicans wanted 4 trillion in spending cuts.

Enter Harry Reid.  Nevada must be so proud.  Smugly preening his arrogance before any microphone and camera he could find, Harry, no he’s not a Prince, promised that he would kill such a plan in the Senate.  He did.  Nevada must be so proud.

The President and the Senate President balked and stonewalled until they were forced into a desperate last minute anemic $2.4 trillion compromise that still raised the debt ceiling.  The S&P was not bluffing.  They lowered the credit rating of the United States for the first time in its history.  They have also warned in no uncertain terms that if remaining cuts are not found to reach the $4 trillion mark, where have we heard that before, they will downgrade our credit rating once again.

So the unthinkable has happened.  This begs the question- is Washington fixable?  I think not.  As we watch all the posturing, playacting and nonsensical behavior, it becomes more apparent the Federal government is a delinquent who is completely out of control beyond the reaches of reason.  Our Governor calls their actions “antics”.  Treasure Poliquin aptly calls them “poison”.  The restoration of this great nation to its once proud glory will not come through the Federal government.  We the people must look to our several States and local Counties to apply pressure upon our state officials to be fiscally prudent in their approach to governing.  As we strengthen the might of our States from the Counties up and wean them from their dependence upon the Federal government, we will find that the pathetic behavior of our Federal officials will have much less the detrimental effect on our lives.  Perhaps if those in Washington come to realize that they have thought of themselves more highly than they ought, they may start to behave better.