Creason Family

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
-Thomas Sowell

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this conference report on the War Supplemental Appropriations. I wonder what happened to all of my colleagues who said they were opposed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder what happened to my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration. It seems, with very few exceptions, they have changed their position on the war now that the White House has changed hands. I find this troubling. As I have said while opposing previous war funding requests, a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse.

This conference report, being a Washington-style compromise, reflects one thing Congress agrees on: spending money we do not have. So this “compromise” bill spends 15 percent more than the president requested, which is $9 billion more than in the original House bill and $14.6 billion more than the original Senate version. Included in this final version -- in addition to the $106 billion to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is a $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund, allowing that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt elites and promote harmful economic policies overseas.

As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends billions of dollars overseas as foreign aid. Included in this appropriation is $660 million for Gaza, $555 million for Israel, $310 million for Egypt, $300 million for Jordan, and $420 million for Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for “peacekeeping” missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders and nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a “potential pandemic flu.”

Mr. Speaker, I continue to believe that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home from Iraq and Afghanistan. If one looks at the original authorization for the use of force in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ongoing and expanding nation-building mission there has nothing to do with our goal of capturing and bringing to justice those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact it undermines our national security. I urge my colleagues to defeat this reckless conference report.

This article has some good points, and some really funny ones too :-) My favorite is this:

"And it's unlikely that all the pseudo-hipsters who buy their Che T-shirts at Urban Outfitters will stop wearing them. No. These T-shirts send a message, which effectively boils down to this: I have vague left-wing sympathies but don't read history. I am educated enough to want nonconformity but not intelligent enough to avoid conformity. I believe in supporting the wretched of the earth but happily purchase products from multinational corporations."

Read the whole thing here.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.

* FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.
* FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
* FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

President Obama promised to sign this, he has a radically pro-abortion bias. See http://www.fightfoca.com/

I'd stop posting these, but they just make so much sense...

Party like it's 1234567890!! This is awesome, mainly because I'm a computer programmer and I use Unix Time frequently, but others may appreciate it as well!

http://www.1234567890day.com/

This is kinda neat. Google created a website with a few tools which allow you check your internet connection and see if your ISP is messing with you or not. It's obviously more technical than that, but read this PC World article; Google, Partners Release Net Neutrality Tools.

One interesting excerpt from the article:
"If you believe that network neutrality government regulation is not needed, if you believe that the market will handle this ... then you should also welcome Measurement Labs," Felten said. "What you are appealing to is a process of public discussion ... in which consumers move to the ISP [Internet service provider] that gives them the best performance. It's a market that's facilitated by better information."

Mom, I suggest you try this tool, although I haven't yet even reached the page... Ironically, it seems to be down right now...

This is taken from: http://www.house.gov/list/speech/tx14_paul/Living_Beneath_Means.shtml

It has been said, and all too often ignored, if you live beyond your means, you will be forced to live beneath your means.
Living and consuming on borrowed money always end. Lenders, even in an age of inflation, have their limits.
When living extravagantly, it seems the good times will continue forever. But when the bills come due and the debt, with interest, needs to be repaid, the good times end. The fiction that the appreciating prices of houses, stocks and other assets serve as savings is always self-limited and ends with pain.
Without a source of newly borrowed funds, once the values of stocks and houses depreciate, the individual comes to the realization that hard work and effort are required to produce sustained wealth.
Working minimally is replaced with working maximally to survive, as well as to pay for the extravagance of previous years.
The consequence is more work and a diminished standard of living.
A nation that has lived beyond its means for a long period of time must go through a similar process. Once the national debt grows to an extreme proportion, as ours has, there’s no possibility of its being paid off in the conventional sense.
Default and liquidation are required. But sovereign states that enjoy the ruthless power to tax and create new money always resort to paying their bills by deliberately depreciating the currency. This makes it hard to identify the victims and the beneficiaries.
Today’s middle class and poor are suffering and the elite are being bailed out, and all the while, the Federal Reserve refuses to tell the Congress exactly who has benefited by its largesse. The beneficial corrections that come with a recession, of debt liquidation and removing the mal-investment, are delayed by government bailouts. This strategy proved in the 1930s to transform a recession into a Great Depression and will surely do so again.
We have become the greatest debtor nation in the world. The borrowed money was not used to build our industries but was used mainly for consumption. The fact that the world trusted the dollar as the reserve currency significantly contributed to the imbalances of the world financial system.
The fiat dollar standard that evolved after the breakdown of Bretton Woods in 1971 has ended. This is a consequence of our privileged position of living way beyond our means for too many years.
At present, all efforts worldwide are directed toward salvaging a financial system that cannot be revived. The only tool the economic planners have is the creation of trillions of dollars of new money out of thin air. All this does is delay the inevitable and magnify the future danger.
Central bank cooperation in the scheme will not make it work. Pretending the dollar is maintaining real value by manipulating the price of gold—the historic mechanism for measuring a currency’s value—will work no better than the effort of the 1960s to keep gold at $35 an ounce. Nevertheless, Bretton Woods failed in 1971 as was predicted by the free-market economists, despite these efforts.
This crisis we’re in is destined to get much worse, because the real cause is not acknowledged. Not only are the corrections delayed and distorted, additional problems are yet to be dealt with—the commercial property bubble, the insolvent retirement funds, both private and public, state finances, and the university trust funds. For all these problems, only massive currency inflation is offered by the Fed.
The real concern ought to be for a dollar crisis which will come if we don’t change our ways.
Even massive bailouts cannot work! If they did, no person in the United States would ever have to work again.
We need to wake up and recognize the importance of sound money. We need to reintroduce the work ethic. We must once again cherish savings over consumption. We must recognize that an overextended foreign policy has been the downfall of all great nations.
Above all else, we need to simply believe once again in the free society that made America great.