Citizen Tom

I just received an email from Delegate Bob Marshall.  Before you read it, you may need a little background.  What is is the problem?  Because the Virginia Commonwealth and the United States government cannot properly manage our money, they want to mothball 18 rest stops.  This post here at SWAC Girl provides the details.

Manassas, VA- Delegate Robert G. “Bob” Marshall (R-13th District) today sent a letter (Click Here to View Letter) to Congressman Frank Wolf and Senator Mark Warner requesting that they introduce an amendment to the Transportation Appropriations Bill to suspend the federal law for one year which prohibits Virginia and other states from contracting with private restaurants or gas stations to operate at state owned rest stops on Interstates.  This would give Virginia a way to get the large number of rest stops which will close on July 21, 2009 reopened as quickly as possible.

Marshall believes that the $8.6 million needed to keep these rest stops open could have been found in Virginia’s $78 billion two-year budget.  However, since Governor Tim Kaine decided to cut this service from Virginia’s budget, Marshall is trying to find an alternative way to keep the rest stops open. These services are the public face of the government of Virginia that citizens and visitors see and feel in their daily lives,” said Marshall.  “Public safety and practical necessity require that these Virginia Interstate rest stops and welcome centers stay open. I think that allowing these public/private partnerships would be a great way to get these rest stops reopened as soon as possible.”

Marshall noted in his letter to Wolf that the closing of these facilities will negativly affect Virginia’s economy in several ways including negative impacts to tourism and the loss of jobs associated with the rest stops. “In this economy that is unacceptable,” said Marshall.  He also mentioned the negative safety impacts as a result of these closures.  “In many areas of Virginia these rest stops are the only place for a drowsy driver to safely stop and rest.  We need to get these stops reopened.”

Contact Delegate Marshall at (703) 853-4213.

What amazes me is that Marshall only suggests a one year suspension.  Where do the leaders of our Federal Government get the gall to tell Virginians how to run rest areas?  Why do they think we need such help?  Patrick Henry must be rolling in his grave.

How did we get into this mess?   Why is our country slowly falling apart?  I think the answer is that we have been letting power hungry politicians turn our country into a “socialist paradise.” When you think “socialist paradise,” keep in mind the people who think a “socialist paradise” is a paradise. At first it is the people who don’t pay taxes (or are too dumb to realize how much they do pay in taxes).  These fools love the idea of making the “rich” pay taxes, but they have not got the brains or the diligence to make any such thing happen.   Instead, it is the upper middle class (which they want to join) they see made poorer.  Latter, when their “paradise” has come to full fruition, only the man in charge still thinks it a “paradise.”  Because the government owns everything, and he is the government, everything he surveys he owns, including you and me.

Other Views

Tertium Quids is providing excellent coverage here.

Fisherville Mike has memories (here).

The Richmond Times Dispatch provides the customary official corporate news media view (here).  It’s a crisis, of course.  What is wrong with calling this stupid move stupid?

I got the following in an email from one of my brothers.  When I read it, I cracked up.

Judge for yourself.  How well do you think this little yarn illustrates how foolish we can actually be?

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.  In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers – most of whom are unemployed alcoholics – to drink now but pay later.  In a ledger, she keeps track of the drinks consumed (thereby granting the customers loans).  Word gets around about Heidi’s drink-now-pay-later marketing strategy and as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar and soon she has the largest sale volume for any bar in Detroit.  By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.  Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.  At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS.  These securities are then traded on security markets worldwide.

Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics.  Nevertheless, their prices continuously climb, and the securities become the top-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses, who collect enormous fees on their sales, pay extravagant bonuses to their sales force, who in turn purchase exotic sports cars and multimillion dollar condominiums.

One day, although the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the bank (subsequently fired due to his negativity), decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar.  Heidi demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.  Therefore, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and so claims bankruptcy.  DRINKBONDS and ALKIBONDS drop in price by 90%.  PUKEBONDS perform better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.  The decreased bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar, having granted her generous payment extensions and having invested in the securities, are faced with writing off her debt and losing over 80% on her bonds.  Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, and her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 50 workers.  The bank and brokerage houses are saved by the Government, following dramatic round-the-clock negotiations by leaders from both political parties.  The funds required for this bailout are obtained by a tax levied on employed middle-class non-drinkers.

Finally, an explanation we can understand …

The Cartoons

Perhaps I am wrong. I am no prophet, and I am certainly not able to pierce the veil that hides the future with psychic vision. Yet I am not alone in seeing our nation on the march towards serfdom and slavery. I have two reasons for my concern.

The first is the more fundamental. We have this thing we call the Constitution. With it we authorized the men and women we elect to lead us. The Constitution sets out the powers of our leaders, and our leaders take an oath to abide by this document. When our leaders abide by their oath, we have the assurance of being a nation ruled by laws. When our leaders ignore the Constitution — and we let them get away with it — we risk becoming a nation ruled by those without  scruples. 

The second is too much in the news. We are rapidly becoming a socialist state. Much of the nation’s lending industry is now controlled by the Federal Government. Our health care industry is heavily funded by the Federal Government, and the Democratic Party strives now for ever greater dominance in the health care industry. Most recently, our government became the majority owner of GM. For all practical purposes, GM is now Government Motors. Thus the trend is unmistakeably towards government ownership of the economy.

Nothing in our Constitution authorizes our government to run the lending industry (a power our leaders have used to wreck havoc on the economy), the health industry or the automotive industry. That is because the people who wrote the Constitution understood that without the right to own property a man must of necessity become the slave of those who could control property. Without the right to own property, we do not control the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the house that shelters us, or the fruit of our labor. Without the right to own property, we cannot own our bodies. Someone else must let us use their food, clothing, and shelter.

In America, government exist to protect our rights, but government has become the greatest threat to our right to own property. When government begins to gain exclusive control of what we need for our livelihood, instead of us controlling our government, it can control us. And when the people who run our government do not honor their oath of office, we cannot control them. We can only hope to replace such people.

So what should we do? According to the latest news, many think it would be a good idea to boycott Government Motors.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of American adults believe it was a good idea for the federal government to take ownership of General Motors as the auto giant was on the verge of collapse. Nearly as many–17%–say that Americans should protest the bailout by boycotting GM and refusing to buy its cars. Most Americans are somewhere in between. (continued here)

17% does not sound like much, but consider this portion of the poll results.

However, 51% of adults are more likely to buy a car from Ford because it did not any take bailout funding. Just 12% are less likely to buy from Ford.

With some consumers prepared to boycott GM products and others more likely to buy from Ford first, GM will face an interesting marketing challenge as it emerges from bankruptcy.

That may be one reason that most believe that the federal government will pass laws and regulations giving their newest acquisition an unfair advantages over Ford and other automakers.

Ford is viewed favorably by 64% of Americans. Ratings for GM and Chrysler are much lower. (from here)

Because we have received such a lousy education (from the servants of politicians), many of us have a very poor understanding have how our government works. Nonetheless, most of us have enough sense to be suspicious of the bailouts and government ownership of what should be private concerns. What should concern us now the probability that the government will give Government Motors an unfair advantage in the market place. If our government is not forced to divest itself of GM, what is the future of the automobile industry in the United States? What is the future of private industry in the United States? Will you be able to buy what you want or only what Barack Obama tells you that you buy?

Other Views

Thus far From On High seems to be the only Virginia blog (aside from this one) talking about a boycott (here).

I wish it were not so, but it is too easy to underestimate the ability of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party to spend and spend and spend….  Hence in this post, I said the following.

In 2010, Federal spending is projected to be $3.6 trillion, and the deficit will exceed $900 billion.

Wrong!

Thanks to Instapundit, I quickly discovered my error.  Instapundit linked to an interesting column in the Washington Post, Obama’s Risky Debt by Robert J. Samuelson.  Here is an excerpt.

Let’s see. From 2010 to 2019, Obama projects annual deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that’s atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009. By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70 percent, up from 41 percent in 2008. That would be the highest since 1950 (80 percent). The Congressional Budget Office, using less optimistic economic forecasts, raises these estimates. The 2010-19 deficits would total $9.3 trillion; the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 would be 82 percent.

But wait: Even these totals may be understated. By various estimates, Obama’s health plan might cost $1.2 trillion over a decade; Obama has budgeted only $635 billion. Next, the huge deficits occur despite a pronounced squeeze of defense spending. From 2008 to 2019, total federal spending would rise 75 percent, but defense spending would increase only 17 percent. Unless foreign threats recede, military spending and deficits might both grow.

The article provides a link to its source material, The President’s Budget.   Checking the the budget specifically for FY 2010, I found that the predicted deficit is $1,270 billion.

I suggest reading the rest of Samuelson’s column. Samuelson cannot believe the huge debt projections.  He is astonished by the lack of attention.  Once you look at the numbers, it is not hard to see why.

Would you like your own bank?  It seems that President Barack Obama would too.  He is not happy with just our tax dollars or hiring and firing the CEOs of automobile companies.  He now wants the authority appoint bank presidents.

Check the story out here at Leslie Carbone.