Saturday, April 10, 2010

Inherited Deficit eh?

I'm really enjoying some of these emails I get. Sometimes they're a hoax, and sometimes they are incorrect, and sometimes they are right on the money.
Like this one I think.
It appears to be lifted almost directly from Hot Air.

Here it is straight from the email:



Sick of hearing "Inherited"??

The Washington Post babbled again recently about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush, blah blah blah.
Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense. So once more, I'll try a short civics lesson.

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that has controlled Congress since January 2007 is the DEMOCRATIC Party.

They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. For FY 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:



If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

WAKE UP, AMERICA , BEFORE ITS TOO LATE


Now the very first reply to the Hot Air piece disputes much of this. I leave it to you to kick over there and read it. I respond to that reply here.

I must admit, Bush and the rest of the party did stray far from proper Republican thought by not decreasing spending, and in fact increasing it. This is one of the main reasons I have so little faith in the party now.

But so few people seem to remember or even admit that, like The One, Bush inherited an economy that was on the decline. When did the Internet bubble burst? When did Bush start his presidency? Nuff said about that.

The writer points out that Bush benefited by a housing bubble, which I believe is true. In true Dem fashion however, he touts the Clinton surplus which was, in my opinion, almost entirely a result of the Internet bubble. Both presidents take credit for things that were not their doing.

This in no way changes the fact that The One helped bring about the very deficit we have now. It also in no way changes the graph. The Repubs on their worst day were less spendhappy than the Dems on their best.

When The One says he inherited a deficit from Bush, he is merely being a standard issue Democrat, as "blame Bush" is their mantra.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Muslim Stamps

Once again, I have to part ways with some of my conservative peers.

I have gotten several emails like the one here:



Muslim Stamps

Apparently they think that putting hearts and butterflies on will
make most people not realize that the rest is Arabic and probably
not something we want to support.


New Stamp - the second one!!!



This image is a larger version of the Eid Custom Postage product.
USPS New 44-Cent Stamp Celebrates a Muslim holiday.
If there is only ONE thing you forward today... let it be this!

President Obama has directed the United States Postal Service to REMEMBER and HONOR the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a new commemorative 44-Cent First Class Holiday Postage Stamp.

REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office.
All you have to say is "No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters!"
To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Military Barracks in Saudi Arabia !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001 !

REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!

Pass this along to every Patriotic American that you know and get the word out!
Honor the United States of America !



For cryin' out loud, we are not having problems with ALL Muslims, just the ones that like to blow up civilians (you know as in "man made disasters," formerly known by its correct name "terrorism").
These stamps have nothing to do with terrorism.

Yes, the Koran (Quran?) does teach that all non believers must be eliminated, so yes you could say that we are at war with all of Islam and that this would be rather like having had an Obon stamp during WWII. But only a tiny fraction of Muslims adhere to this particular teaching. We don't kill our kids for disobedience as the Bible dicates either (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). Sadly, the fraction that do follow the children of peace vs children of war idiocy are the ones who wield the most power in the Islamic world, but we still must not punish or hate the entire religion for that.

The stamp celebrates a religious holiday, not terrorists or the actions of terrorists. Of course, if you are a practicing Christian or Jew, you have every right to avoid use of the stamp. But to be upset that it exists, and to try and persuade others to deny it, is to ignore this country's freedom of religion.

Now if you're ticked that our government is using religion on stamps, well yeah I can see your point. But you'll also have to be ticked at any Christian or Jewish stamps too, unless you're a stinking hypocrite.

Being a true believer in the Constitution and individual freedoms, you wouldn't want to deny religious freedom right?

Also, Obama had nothing to do with these stamps, they've been around since 2001 or so. I don't like The One even a little, but folks, let's not lie about this kind of stuff, it does no one any good.

Oops, almost forgot, see that "Zazzle" on the stamps. Here you go:

Muslim Custom Postage

Before you go all medieval on Zazzle, look up Christian Custom Postage and Jewish Custom Postage. They are there too.