2006 Elections

The elections of 2006 were not about the economy.  People wearied of the Mideast war.  The atrocity of 9/11/01 was more and more becoming a distant memory.  The culprits responsible were routed from their perceived safe haven in Afghanistan and sent packing into Iraq.  The “Butcher of Baghdad” was smoked out of his rat hole and brought to justice and people had all the satisfaction they needed and wanted our men home.  I did too - for reasons that may not have been most often being voiced.  In my view there is nothing we’ll ever do for any Muslim country that will endear them to us.  And so, a new regime came into power.  But these weren’t John F. Kennedy Democrats that I had great admiration for.  No, many of them had more of a Marxist philosophy than being champions of the unique free market system that made this nation the greatest in the world. 

The press could shower all the deserving accolades they wanted on Kennedy and his family.  He genuinely wanted to inspire people to achieve greater things and self-sufficiency and build on this country’s greatness.  This was a true American family that was unapologetically proud of this country.   

Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House and gone was the theme, “Ask not what your country can do for you…..” but, “Come and live in a TV furnished cage on my plantation and I will take care of all your needs.  I’ll even keep you supplied with all the contraceptives you need so you can spend your leisure time living your life style to the full.   I’ll make sure those greedy capitalists and fools that are working for a living and paying taxes give you unlimited unemployment benefits.”  Unsaid, but thought would be, “I can only control you if you’re dependent on me.”  The idea was to build a dependency class of people that would support her and her cronies on Election Day and perpetuate them in power rather than give people a leg up to advance and learn to be independent and enjoy the blessings of liberty.  Now we have almost half the country on unemployment insurance and food stamps, with no encouragement to find jobs while we see companies with their help wanted signs out all over the place.  The number of people now living below the poverty line is the highest it has been in the past 50 years.  Thirty five percent of the populace is now living on public assistance.  In 1962 it was six percent.  When Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin required the recipients of unemployment benefits do community service for those benefits and the ranks of the unemployed dwindled when some of them took the jobs that were available, the Feds stepped in and told everyone that they were going to let people have a waiver from the need to work for those unemployment benefits.  We all want to help those who are making use of the benefits responsibly and those who are genuinely trapped in a state of poverty but we shouldn’t want to be electing politicians that are encouraging people to remain in a state of dependency so they can control them.       

As I motored to the beautiful city of Newport, Rhode Island with family members while on vacation in Cape Cod a few days ago, we passed a pickup truck brandishing this bumper sticker:  “Work harder – millions on welfare depend on you.”  I thought it was very timely considering that I was working on this Face Book post at the time. 

If the 8/10/10 issue of the Wall Street Journal is available in the WSJ archives there’s an article in that issue that states there are five million jobs going begging to be filled.  They’re positions that require special skills that employers are willing to train people for and are willing to pay them while they’re in training.  These are obviously not minimum pay jobs.  It stated that if these positions could be filled the unemployment rate would be reduced to 6.5%.  Timely as it was, the paper I rarely read was left on my table in a coffee shop in Frankfort Airport while I was waiting for my flight back to Newark.   Considering that the unemployment rate is still 8.2 percent, those job offers are probably still there for the taking.

In January of 2007 a vetoproof Democrat Congress was seated with the help of a RINO Senator from Maine.  They had unencumbered, interference proof control of the purse strings.  This is the true time that the Democrats came into their “inheritance” and it was a good one.  The unemployment rate was 4.6%.  Fifty four months of economic growth would soon be coming to an end.  Borrowing, spending and printing money would now be going on steroids and the national debt would skyrocket.  From January of 2008 till January of 2009, when President Obama took office, the unemployment rate jumped from 5.0% to 7.8%.  That was mainly because of the economic war OPEC declared on us in 2008 when they took advantage of our need to place our reliance on them for our oil needs rather than use our own vast resources and gradually raised the price of their oil to $147.00 a barrel.  They only backed off when they realized they were destroying their own market.  The price of gasoline and the cost of energy for every industry skyrocketed, putting a strain on every family budget and every industry, especially shipping and transportation.  People were finding it more and more difficult to pay their bills and make their mortgage payments.

Once again I say the 2006 elections were not about the economy but that we wanted our men home.  For every Muslim that may have been grateful for us being there there were numerous others that were deadly enemies, including military mingling with our troops that were supposed to be our allies.